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Newsletter platforms: please support 1-click subscribe
by
Jacob O'Bryant
https://twitter.com/obryant666/status/1399752378014863363
Do you mean 1-click subscribe within the same platform for subscribers of other newsletters on that same platform? Or something else?
From a privacy perspective, public 1-click subscribe or single opt-in subscribe is a bad idea. It would also a bad idea for the author, since you’d have to deal with a lot of spam, which would cost money and negatively inpact your email delivery rates.
Double opt-in email subscribe is always what I’d recommend.
I mean between different platforms.
That's why it must be implemented in a certain way. I'm not saying that publishers should just disable their anti-spam measures. I alluded to this briefly in the article ("Doing this cross-platform in a seamless way would require more work (and in particular, coordination and trust).") To expand on that: say Alice publishes a newsletter on Substack and Bob publishes one on Revue. Both newsletters require double opt-in. Carol subscribes to Alice's newsletter. Alice sends out a 1-click subscribe link for Bob's newsletter, and Carol clicks on it. The link contains a unique code, so Substack can vouch that Carol clicked on it. Substack passes that information to Revue. Assuming Revue trusts Substack (since they're both well-known, reputable companies), Revue can add Carol to Bob's newsletter without requiring another double opt-in, since Substack already did the double opt-in.
Given what I wrote above, I don't see any privacy issues as long as the subscriber understands that clicking the link means the other publisher gets their email address. (I mean this from a moral perspective, not necessarily a legal one, since I'm not a lawyer).
Thanks for clarifying, I think I understand what you mean now.
Not a bad idea, but I wonder if platforms like Substack and Revue would collaborate like this in practice. Are they already doing this?
I also wonder at what point newsletter authors will stop promoting each other, for fear of hitting some sort of newsletter fatigue and shooting themselves in the foot.
I doubt Substack and Revue in particular would collaborate since they're both trying to be their own platform. Ghost and EmailOctopus would've been a better example :).
Also good point point about newsletter fatigue. Just this week actually I had two publishers decline a sponsorship from me since they specifically don't advertise other newsletters. I also talked to someone with 40k subs a while ago who said he probably overdid cross promotion; he had some readers respond with "I don't want more newsletters!"
I think one-click subscribe might actually alleviate that slightly: with a higher conversion rate, you could do fewer cross promotions and get the same results. And if you do fewer cross promotions, you can be choosier about who you cross promote with, preferring newsletters that are most relevant to your audience.
Ahah, it's illegal according to GDPR :) Data Processor requires your full consent and permission in order to contact you for marketing/sales content :) So we are even struggling to make the checkboxes as minimalistic as possible while covering all the legal necessities. Such a thing is not possible and shouldn't be.
ah, the good old privacy vs. competition trade-off.