How do you handle unconfirmed signups?

When I created my email list, I made sure to enable double opt-in. But since its inception, people have gotten stuck in the “unconfirmed” bucket.

I know several of these are not bots, because I recognize their email addresses as belonging to people I know. I’m certain most of these unconfirmed addresses are simply from the confirmation email going to spam.

I’ve contacted the people I know to let them know they need to check their spam to confirm, but I’m not sure what to do about the others. Some of them have been stuck there for a LONG time.

How do you handle unconfirmed sign-ups?

Edit:

I thought about sending my unconfirmed subscribers a reminder confirmation email automatically after a day, but then I found this on MailerLite’s page about unconfirmed subscribers:

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Since they are not active subscribers, it is not allowed to resend double opt-in emails to unconfirmed subscribers or contact them through MailerLite to confirm their subscription. However, if subscribers attempt to sign up again using a form that has double opt-in enabled, they will receive another confirmation email.

It is possible to set unconfirmed subscribers as active only if you have their permission to do so. Setting them as active without them confirming beforehand is not allowed under any circumstance and is a violation of our Anti-Spam Policy.

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So, I’ve decided not to do that. However, if I know them personally, I may contact them outside of MailerLite.

I think the best thing to do is make it abundantly clear when they sign up that they need to click in the confirm email. Now, when people sign up on my page, the page darkens and they get a popup with step-by-step instructions to confirm their email address. Impossible to miss.

I may add a note in that dialog that if they can’t find the confirmation email it will be sent again if they sign up again. In the note, I would add a link to refresh the sign-up page.