Build your email list
A list is people who asked. Give them one specific reason to join, ask for little, say what they'll get and how often, confirm the address, and put a way to join wherever interest is high.
A list is people who asked to hear from you. Nothing else counts. Bought, rented, scraped or "found" addresses aren't a list: they bring complaints and spam traps, and they damage the domains your mail goes out from.
The short version
- People join when what they expect to get outweighs the effort and the risk. Every tactic raises the value or lowers the effort or the risk.
- Offer one specific result, fast: a checklist, a template, a quote, a sample, a short course. "Subscribe to our newsletter" promises more email, not a result.
- Tie the gift to what you sell, or you build a list of people who wanted the gift and not you.
- Say at the form what they'll get and how often, and that they can leave any time.
- Ask for the address, and a first name if you'll use it. Learn the rest later.
- Leave the consent box unticked, keep it separate from your terms, and keep a record of every yes.
- Confirm addresses for cold traffic, and protect every form from bots.
- Put a way to join wherever interest is high: the website, the checkout, the counter, events, every email.
- Lists decay, by something like a fifth a year, so growth has to beat it every month.
Why people sign up
Ian Brodie's opt-in formula (Email Persuasion, 2014) weighs four things. The long-term value of your emails and the incentive to join today, against the friction (fields, a form that's hard to find, a weak button) and the risk (spam, being signed up to something unwanted).
A form that converts poorly is missing value, or has too much friction or risk. Fix the one that's wrong.
The gift that brings the right people
The strongest sign-up gifts solve one specific, urgent problem, fast:
- Ultra-specific, with one big promise, about a result people already want.
- Quick to use, in about five minutes.
- Tied to what you sell. Pick the first problem your customers hit, and solve that. Offer $100 to join and you get a list of people who wanted $100.
Formats that pass: a checklist, a template, a calculator, a short video, a quiz with a personal result, a sample, a first-order discount, a free quote or consultation, or a five-day email course.
Discounts work, and they shape the list. Pop-ups with a discount converted 2.4% of displays against 1.7% without (Omnisend's own customers, 2025 data). But a list built on discounts expects discounts. A service business does better with a useful tool than a price cut. A shop can test a non-price gift, free delivery or early access, against the discount.
The form
- The promise: what they get, how often, and that they can leave any time. "A weekly plant-care tip and our offers. Unsubscribe any time." It lifts sign-ups, and it lowers complaints later, because the mail that arrives is the mail they expected.
- As few fields as possible. Forms with 1 to 3 fields converted at 2.1 to 2.2%, four fields at 1.5%, and five or more at 1.4% (Omnisend's own customers, 2025 data). Ask for interests later, with a one-tap question in the welcome email.
- An unticked consent box, separate from accepting your terms or buying. A pre-ticked box isn't valid consent in the EU or the UK, and Google lists checked-by-default boxes among practices to avoid.
- A record of every yes: who agreed, when, where, the words they saw, and how.
Where people join
Most businesses use one or two of these. Use more.
- Your website: a form on every page, a short form inside each article, a landing page for your gift, and where your website offers one, a pop-up.
- The checkout: an unticked box, the order confirmation page, the customer's account area.
- In person: a QR code or tablet at the counter, events and stalls, a line read out on the phone with the answer written down.
- Social and ads: a link in your profiles, and ads that go to a landing page.
- Partners: a joint guide or webinar, where the form names both businesses and each person agrees to each by name.
Pop-ups: wait 6 to 10 seconds. That converted best (2.4%) in Omnisend's count of 1.24 billion displays (2025 data), against 1.9% for a pop-up shown at once. On phones, use a small slide-in or bar: since 2017 Google may rank a page lower when a pop-up covers it as someone arrives from a mobile search.
A focused landing page does better than a general one. Unbounce's median across 41,000 landing pages was 6.6% (2024, Unbounce's own customers), and pages written in plain words converted at 11.1%, against 5.3% for professional-level writing.
| Where | Normal | Strong |
|---|---|---|
| Pop-up, share of displays | 2 to 5% | above 5% |
| Focused landing page | about 6 to 7% | 10% or more |
Below about 1.5%, the offer, the timing or the page is wrong.
Confirm addresses, and keep bots out
Double opt-in sends a confirmation email, and only people who click it join. It proves consent, and it keeps out typos, bots and spam traps. The cost is people who never confirm: when Mailchimp changed its default in October 2017, it said only 39% of its customers' double opt-in sign-ups had confirmed.
- Use double opt-in for cold traffic (ads, giveaways, downloads) and for readers in the EU, the UK, Canada and New Zealand, where you must be able to prove consent.
- A clear box ticked at checkout is enough for customers.
- Protect every form from bots, whichever you choose. Bots use open forms to flood someone's inbox and to plant spam traps.
Lists decay
People change jobs, abandon addresses and lose interest. In M+R's 2025 figures for nonprofits, 12% of subscribers unsubscribed over the year and 4% bounced, and lists still grew 5% net because they recruited all year. A list that isn't fed shrinks by something like a fifth a year.
- Aim for positive net growth every month: new sign-ups, less unsubscribes and bounces.
- Quality before size. A smaller list of people who asked and still click beats a big list of strangers on inbox placement, complaints, clicks and sales.
- Giveaways, list swaps and shared prizes bring people who wanted the prize. If you run one, the form names your business, they agree to you by name, and your first email reminds them why they're hearing from you.
Doing it here
- A landing page's form fills a list of its own, with its own consent box, and can open a free download from its thank-you page: Collect sign-ups with a form.
- Each form can ask people to confirm their address first. It's off until you switch it on: How a sign-up form fills your list.
- Every form is protected from bots for you.
- A landing page's form can start a welcome sequence for each new sign-up: What starts a sequence.
- Every list you upload needs the consent of everyone on it: Can I upload a list I bought?
The full chapter, with the form drawn and every figure's source, is in the free guide Everything you need to know about email marketing.