I have a 15-year-old daughter who is as typical as typical teens come. She's awesome but has more than her fair share of indecisiveness.

Last week, she asked me to pick her up some ice cream. Her favourite is Hagen Daz, so, not the inexpensive kind but it's the little pleasures that I'm privileged to be able to provide for her, so I try to when I can.

However, on this particular day, she instructed me to NOT pick up the ice cream like I always do on a Friday night. Okay, I said. Fine by me, but are you sure?

And as per usual, she ghosted me, being done with me. Okay. Fine. And because I was busy and distracted, away I went. I didn't follow up. I just went on with my day.

So, I don't pick up the ice cream which results in us not having any ice cream in the house. On a Friday night. After a long week at school. Ice cream is her emotional support food group and I should have known better.

Around 9pm, I hear it.

"Mom? Did you pick up any ice cream?"

I let out a long breath because I've been her mom for 15 years. I should have just got the ice cream. I also should have asked her twice, possibly three times with a stern warning to think before she responded. Rookie mistake that I won't make again.

It's kind of like when a reader signs up for your newsletter and you just let them in.

No double opt-in process. No welcome email. Just open the door and let them in.

Then you send an email to them a few weeks later and that reader marks you as spam and unsubscribes saying they didn't ask to be there.

Double whammy. A spam and an unsubscribe. Hits you right in gut, right?

In the era of Google's new spam sender requirements (you must maintain a less than 0.3% spam rate and no one really knows if it's per email, on average or some mysterious algorithmic equation only Google knows) making sure that every single person who comes into your list knows why they are there and tells you implicitly that they want to be there.

The Double Opt-In covers you on a few basis and over the next three weeks, we're going to be spending some time looking at each major reason you need to employ one and how to employ one so it's actually the beginning of your brand experience.

Happy Emailing,

Holly

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