Best Subscription Confirmation Email Templates & Tips

26.12.2024
Read time: 13 min
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Best Subscription Confirmation Email Templates & Tips
Try Publicate For Free Today
26.12.2024
Read time: 13 min

Confirmation emails are thought to be some of the most valuable types of emails to your audience, creating a great first impression, streamlining the user journey, and setting the tone for a strong, trusting relationship.

A subscription confirmation email can be relatively simple, but there is some key information to include, to help your new subscribers start on the best foot. In this guide, we’re covering some best practices and subscription confirmation email examples to help you craft the most effective message, with some great templates you can start using today.

See how getting this email right can do wonders for your brand and your newest customers.

Guide Index
Picture from Unsplash

What is a Subscription Confirmation Email?

A subscription confirmation email is sent to customers immediately after subscribing to your service or product.

It’s there to provide reassurance that the subscription was successful. It can also be used to tell subscribers about the next steps, and to remind them that they made a great choice by signing up, whether it’s to your weekly newsletter or to receive a regular product in the post.

Usually, this is sent as a “trigger email”. In other words, an automated email sent after a person completes a specific action. In this case, that action would be subscribing to your product or service by filling in your subscription form.

This can come in two forms: A single opt-in email or a double opt-in email. We’ll cover this in more detail later in the guide!

What are the Benefits of Subscription Confirmation Emails?

When someone signs up for a new product or service, they don’t want to worry that their information has gone into some black hole on the internet.

Confirmation emails, such as subscription and booking confirmations, are peace of mind that everything went as planned. On top of that, there are even more benefits for your business.

1. Create a Great First Impression

Start the relationship off on the right foot by letting new subscribers know everything has gone smoothly.

You can use this email to be warm and welcoming, so your new subscriber knows you’re glad they’re here.

2. Give “Next Step” Guidelines

Don’t leave subscribers wondering: “What next?”

Let them know what actions they can take. For example, follow you on social media, subscribe to your podcast or get a discount on another product.

This can help bring them closer to your community and increase sales.

This is also a great opportunity to let them know what to expect, like details on what they will be receiving and how often. It’s a chance to highlight the value they will get out of being a subscriber to your product or service.

3. Establish Trust

Subscription confirmation emails earn credibility, which makes it easier for you to convert subscribers into customers (if they haven’t signed up for a paid product or service already).

If they’re already a paying customer, trust helps to keep them around for longer, and might encourage them to refer a friend.

4. Remove Fake Email Addresses

You can ask subscribers to confirm their email addresses by providing a CTA button in the email.

This keeps your email list clean, by removing any fake or incorrect email addresses.

There are loads of good reasons to keep your email list clean.

5. Provide Contact Details

Give new subscribers some ways to get in touch. They might have questions about getting the most out of their membership, or just be confused about something you offer.

Let them know they can easily connect with you, by providing an email address or other ways to speak to customer service.

What is Single Opt-In vs Double Opt-In?

You can approach the subscription confirmation email in two ways: Single opt-in or double opt-in. But what are they, and what are the benefits of each?

Single opt-in email

This is a one-off email confirming the recipient has successfully filled in your subscription form.

A single opt-in approach gets subscribers on your list faster, by removing any extra requests or obstacles. However, it could mean some fake or spam contacts end up on your list.

If you go for single opt-in, consider protecting your list with Google reCAPTCHA, which helps block sign-ups from bots and other malicious software, by providing a test that’s only easy for humans to figure out.

Double opt-in email

This type of confirmation requests that the recipient confirms their subscription, by clicking on a button within the subscription confirmation email with a CTA like “Confirm My Subscription”.

In this case, only contacts who confirm their subscription will be added to your email list.

This is used to protect your list from spammers and bots. The idea is that your emails will receive higher engagement and open rates, since each contact is genuine and has confirmed they want to receive emails from you, which in turn helps your own deliverability and spam rating.

A potential downfall with double opt-in marketing is that you might risk losing contacts who don’t confirm their email address.

What are Subscription Confirmation Email Best Practices?

Here are some of the best practices and tips to create the most effective subscription confirmation emails.

1. Use an Email Builder

Design subscription confirmation emails, and other marketing emails for your business, using a drag-and-drop email builder.

A user-intuitive editor lets you design emails by dragging pre-made, customizable elements into your email. Or, choose from engaging subscription email templates and update them with the text and multimedia relevant to your email.

You can then export your designs to any email service provider (ESP), especially ESPs like customer.io or others if you want to automate the sending of the subscription email when someone subscribes. The email builder approach is the fastest way to create professional emails, especially if you don’t have a design background.

Plus, since all templates follow email design best practices and are created with engagement in mind, it’s easy to build high-performing emails for everything from subscription confirmation messages to new hire announcements, company news, or even Halloween or festive templates.

2. Stay On-Brand

Design your emails according to your brand identity, so recipients instantly recognize you as the sender and trust is established from the get-go.

If you’re not sure where to start, or struggle with the volume of emails you send out, email builders come with a built-in Brand Kit, a library of your brand assets, such as your logo, color scheme and approved fonts.

This lets you keep every email on-brand, and ensures even remote workers have access to the assets they need to maintain this consistency. There are even approval flows for extra brand security.

3. Keep it Concise

Subscribers don’t want to read lengthy paragraphs of text.

Aim to get the point of the email across in a few seconds. Stick to the elements that matter, such as a confirmation message, contact details, and the ‘Confirm Subscription’ CTA if you’re using a double opt-in message.

Subject line: Confirm Your Subscription

Source reallygoodemails

4. Include an Unsubscribe Link

While we hope no one uses it, it’s important to give recipients the option to unsubscribe from your emails.

This link can live in the email’s footer. Always make sure it’s clear and visible, and that the unsubscribe process is straightforward.

5. Include Multimedia

Add visual interest to your email with images, GIFs or videos.

This helps make emails more engaging, breaking up blocks of text and showcasing your brand in the best light. Just be sure to always use multimedia that’s relevant to the email.

If you are worried your multimedia won’t render correctly or struggle to find the content you want, email builders have an extensive multimedia library to help. As you browse the web and even your team’s Slack channel, you can save and organize assets in your library. Then, when it’s time to create an email, you’ll have instant access to plenty of useful images.

Email builders also integrate with royalty-free image and GIF sites, giving you a library of over 2 million assets. So, you can make your email beautiful without having to leave the email builder platform and scour the web.

Subject line: Complete your newsletter subscription

Source reallygoodemails

What are Subscription Confirmation Email Examples?

Now that you know why you need a subscription confirmation email and the best ways to create one, it’s time to get inspired.

Here are some great email confirmation message examples from other brands.

1. Conceptseeker

Conceptseeker confirms that the subscriber made a great choice in signing up for the newsletter. It does this by giving a reminder of what sort of content they’ll receive and when, and also using humor in its “Subscribers Rules”.

This helps keep recipients away from the unsubscribe button!

Subject line: Confirmation of subscription for the Conceptseeker’s newsletter

Source reallygoodemails

2. Ipsy

This is a fun, on-brand subscription email for recipients who sign up for a monthly product service.

Ipsy keeps the email very lighthearted, to help maintain the buyer’s excitement. There’s also a button to provide more information about how the subscription works.

Subject line: Welcome to Refreshments, Freshie. Your order is confirmed.

Source reallygoodemails

3. Paramount

This email confirms a subscription to a TV streaming service.

It shares more information about what’s included in the subscription and uses some humor. There’s no double opt-in option here, but there’s a link to start streaming.

The bold CTA button is styled in an eye-catching, contrasting color, so the process is as easy as possible.

Subject line: Welcome to Paramount+, [Name]

Source reallygoodemails

4. Green Chef

The Green Chef subscription confirmation email keeps it simple while including all the key information, such as billing dates, recipes and costs.

It also gives information on how subscribers can change their order or cancel their subscription.

Subject line: Welcome to Green Chef!

Source reallygoodemails

5. BuzzFeed

The main purpose of BuzzFeed’s confirmation email is to provide a double opt-in message for its audience.

The brand does this to ensure it doesn’t send emails to anyone who doesn’t really want them, which can get annoying - and be damaging to a brand’s image.

Subject line: Confirm your This Week In Cats Subscription now!

Source reallygoodemails

What are the Next Steps after a Subscription Confirmation Email?

You don’t need to send a confirmation email and stop there.

Instead, continue to nurture the relationship with your new subscriber, with the following next steps.

1. Segment Your Email List

Consider segmenting your email list by demographics or shopping behaviors.

This helps keep messaging personalized and relevant, which is what the modern consumer expects.

You might collect the necessary information during the sign-up process. Otherwise, consider sending a survey to subscribers to learn more about each person and get a better understanding of the kind of content they want to receive.

2. Create Relevant Triggers

Some ESPs let you set up triggers, or automated email sequences.

This is a set of emails sent in response to specified actions, such as when a customer makes a purchase or completes a form. This email marketing can run in the background. Once you’ve set it up, it runs without much input from you.

While ESPs offer some design and build capabilities, they are often basic and lacking as their main focus is on automation and sending. That’s why many businesses, from startups to universities to global brands, prefer to design their emails with an email builder with much better design capabilities, and export to the ESP, rather than build with it.

The choice of templates, the high level of customization and the user-intuitive interface make email builders the best choice for the design phase of your email marketing.

3. Continue Sending On-Brand, High-Value Emails

Don’t go quiet on your subscribers.

Send relevant, high-value emails on a regular basis. You can experiment with the timing frequency: If you send emails too regularly, this can be frustrating for your subscribers and they may stop opening your mail.

Track the performance of each email so you know which content resonates most with your audience. Email builders track metrics like open rate and click-through rate on which ever ESP you send through, even if you send emails through platforms like Gmail and Outlook.

With this data at your fingertips, you can continue to hone your message and design, and you’ll soon be sending emails your subscribers can’t wait to open!

Wrap Up

A good subscription confirmation email could be the start of a beautiful, long-lasting relationship with your new subscriber. Get it right by following the tips in this guide, and let the real-world examples inspire your own!

Start creating stunning, professional emails today using an email builder like Publicate. Sign up for Publicate’s 14-day free trial and experience the faster, easier way to design great emails (without having to pay a designer or coder!)