What Works Better to Generate Leads: Two Step Opt-In Forms or One Step Opt-In Forms?

In this article I discuss the benefits of the two step opt-in form.

Most businesses should collect customer information.

This can include:

• Email addresses
• Telephone numbers
• Surveys
• Quotes

Personally, I mainly collect email addresses in my businesses. This allows me to follow up with potential customers and send them marketing messages or important updates.

There are different ways to collect customer information:

• Opt-In Forms
• Payment Forms
• Offline Forms
• Third Party Services

When using Shopify, you can create a checkbox for customers to opt-in to your email newsletter when they complete a payment on your store. This is an example of collecting customer information through payment forms. Some companies collect email addresses for marketing purposes without asking for permission first, which can breach local spam laws.

That’s why Shopify has the option to add the checkbox.

Other ways of collecting customer information include third party services. For example, when setting up Facebook ads you can create a Lead campaign. Facebook will then collect the name and email addresses of people who decide to submit their information.

And you can download it as a CSV document.

But you can also collect customer information offline, for example at a booth during an event. You could provide a spread sheet where people can write down their email addresses.

In a general sense, all these methods of collecting customer information, are considered opt-in.

A potential customer voluntarily provides his or her contact details (in the form of an email, telephone number or other information), to request more information or get access to a free ebook or similar. You can then reach out to the customer to provide a quote, post news or send relevant marketing messages. Let’s talk about the history of online opt-in forms.

The Traditional One Step Opt-In Form

Traditional online opt-in forms consist of a single step.

There’s a form with a name and email address and a button to submit the form. So all the visitor has to do is enter her name and email address and click on the submit button.

Here’s an example of a one step opt-in form.

For years, this was the best way to collect email addresses online.

But this isn’t the case anymore.

With time people became “blind” to these type of opt-in forms. In the same way that people develop banner blindness after seeing banner ads too many times, we’ve developed a collective ignorance for one step opt-in forms. Every website is cluttered with opt-in forms these days.

Just like banner ad click-through rates have consistently declined every year, one step opt-in form conversion rates have plummeted. People are more protective of their information.

Luckily, there’s a solution to this.

The Two Step Opt-In Form

A few years ago, online marketers discovered the concept of micro hoops.

What’s a micro hoop?

It’s the idea that people are more likely to commit to taking a small step rather than a big step. In marketing and advertising, we constantly make visitors and customers jump through different sized hoops. The biggest hoop of course is making a purchase. Marketers have discovered that in order to get someone to jump through a big hoop, you first have to make them jump through multiple small or medium hoops. This is way more effective.

A small hoop includes asking someone to click on a button.

Or filling out a 2-second survey.

There’s a hierarchy of commitment. Getting someone to click on a button is much easier than getting someone to fill out an opt-in form. A simple click requires less commitment than giving away ones name and email address. And that’s when marketers came up with the two step opt-in form, which converts better. Here’s an example of a two step opt-in form.

Step 1 – People have to click on the “Learn More” button.

Step 2 – Clicking on the button opens this opt-in form.

As you can see, the name and email form isn’t visible right away.

Instead, visitors first have to jump through a smaller hoop and click on a button. This way they’re a little bit more invested than they were before. They’ve jumped through a small hoop already, which makes them more likely to jump through the second hoop and fill out the form.

I’ve been using the two step opt-in form for about three or four years in my business now.

And I rarely use traditional opt-in forms anymore.

Without any exception, I build these two step opt-in forms with Clickfunnels.

If you look at any of my opt-in forms, with a few exceptions, you’ll find two-steppers. I can get between 20%-90% opt-in rate using this method. When running cold Facebook ads, opt-in rates are usually lower, between 10-20%. And when using retargeting and other warm traffic, it can be as high as 90%. In marketing and advertising small percentages add up.

Using a two step opt-in form over a traditional one can bump your opt-in rate by 5%, 10% or even 30%. This automatically results in more leads and in more customers for your business.

Do You Need to Build an Email List?

Most businesses should build an email list.

Especially having a customer email list is extremely valuable because existing customers are about 20 times more likely to buy something from you than people who have never bought something. However, not every business needs to use two step opt-in forms.

If you run a simple e-commerce store you can simply collect email addresses during the payment process by providing a little checkbox where customers can opt-in. This can easily be done with Shopify and most other e-commerce platforms. There’s no need to use a fancy two step opt-in form to achieve this. You could also use exit popups, but be cautious.

When selling services, downloadable products or information, I recommend you deploy a more direct and aggressive lead generation strategy in your business. In that case using a two step opt-in form is probably a good idea. This will tighten the “conversion fishing net”.

And ultimately it’ll get you more leads and customers.