Pathetic, Clingy Unsubscribe Pages

Our friend Paul was recently taken to this unsubscribe landing page:

Adds Paul:

"I landed on this page after clicking on an unsubscribe button in their email. Also the 'check here to unsubscribe' box was unchecked when I got there."

Siiiiiiiiiiigh. Why would you want to make unsubscribing so complicated?

If you send an email to a subscriber, and they want to unsubscribe, they obviously don't want to hear from you. Maybe they're swamped with too many emails. Maybe they don't find you relevant anymore.

Whatever the case, you shouldn't want to send email to them anymore. It's wasted bandwidth. Plus, you're just pissing off potential customers. When I get taken to unsubscribe pages with forms I have to fill out (especially the kind that require passwords) I abandon the form, and simply mark future emails from that sender as junk. In my mind, they deserve it (even if I opted-in at some point in the past).

Making unsubscribing a hassle is like calling someone over and over again, after they've just dumped you. You're not going to nag them into liking you again. You just look desperate and pathetic.

Let them go. Make unsubscribing easy.

In MailChimp, when a subscriber to your list clicks "unsubscribe" he is instantly removed from your list (not only is that a nice thing to do, but it prevents lawsuits like this one ). They're taken to a landing page that says, "You have been removed." One not-so-annoying thing you can do at this point is edit that landing page to include a link to some quick online survey, asking for feedback (so you can improve your content).

If you love your subscribers, set them free. If they come back, they're yours forever. If they don't, then heck, it was a waste of bandwidth and money emailing them anyways, so it's all good.

Related: "What's a normal unsubscribe rate?"