What is double opt-in?
Double opt-in is a setting within your Mailchimp account that will let your patients ("subscribers") confirm if they do or do not wish to receive marketing emails from you!
If you have integrated with Mailchimp, your patients are added to your audience as subscribers—meaning you that they will automatically receive marketing emails from you, via Mailchimp.
If you choose to enable double opt-in, patients will not automatically be added as subscribers. Instead, they'll receive an initial "opt-in email" asking them to confirm their subscription.
Here's an example of what the patient would see in their inbox:
Double opt-in is handy for obtaining consent for marketing emails, and confirming that the patient's email is valid!
You will need to set this up within your Mailchimp account.
Mailchimp has their set of instructions for enabling opt-in settings here, but we'll also walk you through the step below!
Mailchimp's internal design has changed since the above video was made. While the video displays Mailchimp's old design, the process is still very similar, and the guide below includes updated screenshots as of August 16th, 2022.
Setting your audience to double opt-in within Mailchimp
To get started, log into your Mailchimp account. Within the MailChimp navigation menu, select All Contacts (under Audience):
From here, under Settings, select Audience name and defaults:
Under Form settings, tick the box next to Enable double opt-in:
Finally, be sure to save your settings:
By default, when you enable double opt-in, Mailchimp will also enable reCAPTCHA, which adds an additional verification step for your patient (think of any email you might have gotten that asks you to confirm you're not a robot—it's like that!). You can disable that if you'd like.
🙌 That's it! You've now enabled double opt-in, and when a new patient is added to your audience via the integration, they will not be added as a subscriber until they confirm their subscription with you.
Do you have more questions about Cliniko and Mailchimp? 🐵 Head on over here to learn about how to set up the integration, send automated birthday wishes, or create an automated retention campaign!