How To Set Up A Double Opt-In In Flodesk

What is a double opt-in? It’s an extra little step while you’re building your email list. When someone signs up via your opt-in form, the double opt-in feature sends them first an email to confirm their email address and subscription.

It’s an extra layer to ensure that whoever signed up to your list indeed is eager to get to know you better. And to receive your emails!

Also in some countries it’s a legal requirement before you start sending them marketing emails.

So what do you need for a double opt-in and how do you set it up in Flodesk? That’s what I’m sharing with you in this Flodesk tutorial!

Disclaimer: the Flodesk link is an affiliate link which means I get a commission if you purchase through me, but you’ll get 50% off your Flodesk subscription too.

Prerequisites for a double opt-in

To set up a double opt-in, you need

  • a signup form with the double opt-in feature enabled
  • a confirmation email
  • a Thank you page

I suggest working your way back.

First design the confirmation email and the Thank you page, because you only need to do it once in Flodesk. And then you can apply it to any new—or already existing form—as needed.

Double opt-in confirmation email

In your Flodesk account go to Account > Brand preferences and scroll down to the bottom of the page.

You’ll find here both the template for the confirmation email and the Thank you page.

To start designing the double opt-in email, click the Customize button. You’ll find here all the well-known email design features that you’re used to.

Click somewhere on your screen or directly on any of the elements in the template to access the customization menus and tweak the design to your liking.

To add a new building block, hover over an element and then click on the plus (+) sign above or below it. And then choose one from the list.

As usual your logo is automatically pulled in to the email as is your business address. You can preview it on desktop or mobile. And you can send it to yourself as a test email with the paper plane icon in the top left corner.

Once you’re happy with the design, click on Finish, and this will bring you back to the Brand preferences page where you’ll now design the Thank you page.

Double opt-in Thank you page

To start designing the double opt-in Thank you page, click the Customize button.

You can keep the Thank you page simple and just say thank you for joining your list. But why not give more to your subscribers?

A Thank you page is a good opportunity to ask your subscribers to whitelist your email and to add it to their Address book/Safe senders list. This can help to get your future emails delivered to the inbox instead of the junk folder.

You can also add here your social media channels asking them to follow you there too, or you can add your custom text with a hyperlink driving traffic to one of your services pages that links to your freebie/lead magnet or a value-packed blog post.

Your logo is pulled in automatically to the Thank you page and is linked directly to your website’s URL.

Once you’re happy with your design, check the Thank you page on the desktop and mobile view, and then click on Finish.

All is left now to create a signup form—or update an existing one and enable the double opt-in for the form.

The 3 types of Flodesk signup forms

Flodesk has three main opt-in form categories:

  • popup
  • inline
  • full page

Among them you’ll find in total 6 variations, or form templates that you can use. All the forms are optimized for conversion, and come with a pre-written copy text and image placeholder.

All you need to do is update them with your text to match your freebie offer, and upload an enticing image related to your lead magnet. Could it be easier than this? I don’t think so!

Where can you find the signup forms?

Go to your Forms dashboard and click on the Create new button. This will bring you to the form templates page.

Flodesk popup form

You can create a popup opt-in form with an image or without an image. The example templates only show a subscriber email address field, but don’t worry, you can toggle on and off the first name and last name fields on any of the forms.

When should you use a popup form?

You’re probably aware of the controversy around popups on web pages. When asked most people list popups as one of the most annoying things on websites. So you may be wondering should you use them at all?

The good news is that if you use them strategically, they can convert pretty well. It all comes down to placement, timing, and user experience.

If your popup appears at the very moment someone arrives at your site, it gives a very bad impression.

Flodesk inline form

There are three versions of inline forms you can choose from. A minimal style ribbon banner with text copy only, and two other ones with image placeholders.

When should you use inline forms?

Inline forms have the advantage compared to popups that they integrate into the website seamlessly. And they are very versatile as you can add them anywhere on the page—above the navigation menu, to the header section, to the main area below the fold, to the sidebar, or the footer.

You have endless possibilities.

Flodesk landing page—aka full-page form

The full-page form comes with an image. This is a special form type that acts as a mini landing page. It has a unique URL that you can share directly in your emails, blog posts, or on your social media platforms.

It suits best businesses that don’t have a website yet but want to start with email list building.

Enabling the double opt-in for already existing forms

If you have already created signup forms in Flodesk, you can enable the double opt-in for any of them.

On your Forms dashboard hover over your selected form, click on the 3 dots (…) in the upper right corner, and select Customize.

On the next screen you can turn on or turn off the double opt-in feature. If you select the Yes, require confirmation option, subscribers who opt into this form will receive an email confirmation asking them to validate their subscription before being added to your list.

Note: Only subscribers who click the confirmation button in this email will be added to your list.

You’ll see a Customize double opt-in message below the fields. If you click on it, it will bring you to the Brand preferences where you can view or update the double opt-in confirmation email and Thank you page.

But as we already started with designing them, you can ignore it for now. Unless you still want to make some changes.

Enabling the double opt-in for new forms

To create a new form go to the Forms dashboard and select Create new, and then choose your preferred form type from the form templates library.

As the very first step you will need to define a segment for the form. It means that when someone signs up via this opt-in form, they will be added to this specific segment. You can link it e.g. to a workflow and send automated emails to your subscribers—like your freebie or welcome sequence emails.

Once you add the segment, you can start designing your form. To start editing the form click anywhere on the form and this will bring up the editing menus on the right.

You can choose the font, font color, spacing, alignment among others.

To turn on or off the first name and last name fields click somewhere on the background, outside of the form, and this will bring up two new menu options.

Under Fields you can enable or disable the first name and last name fields. The email address is mandatory.

Under the Message menu option you can select from pre-written success messages that will be displayed after someone signup to your email list. Or you can add your custom message.

When you’ve finished editing the form, click on Next and this will bring you to the customization steps where you can enable the double opt-in feature for the form as described above.

Note: the double opt-in email will always send from your account’s default sending email address.

A best practice is to always send a test to yourself using the paper plane icon in the top left-hand corner to make sure it does not land in the spam folder. 

In the next post in the series how to use Flodesk, I will walk you through the steps on how to embed a Flodesk inline form into your WordPress website via Gutenberg or Elementor page builder!

If you love what you’ve seen in this post, and want to check out Flodesk, just click on my referral link. Or if you’ve already signed up for a free trial but want to get the discounted offer, use the code ARRADESIGNSTUDIO to get 50% off your subscription for a lifetime! Just add this code before you complete your membership purchase.

Should you have any questions about Flodesk, leave me a comment here under this blog post and I’ll get back to you.

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