[bloggergirl]

That's too bad about MailChimp. We experienced something similar when using MailChimp for Page99Test.com: our pre-launch signup list was not quite as clean as MailChimp (or we) would've liked. It was dirty. Like, pornographic dirty. ;) Not good. Too many bounces, unsubscribes and complaints.

But they accepted our excuses and let us stick around. And we're good now. Our list is clean as a whistle.

That said, we've also tried Campaign Monitor. Although CM isn't quite as straightforward or pretty as MailChimp, it has served our needs well.

LESSON (we learned the hard way) FOR PRE-LAUNCH SIGNUP LISTS: Always be sure to confirm email addresses (i.e., use double opt-in). The trouble single opt-in can cause -- specifically re: dirty email lists -- is just not worth the time savings of not doing double opt-in.

[willlangford]

I've tried to talk with them and sadly it just didn't work. I am kind of disappointed as I got different answers more than a few times. I even asked if I could call someone there and talk to them.. they didn't even bother replying to the email.

Our list isn't even a prelaunch, just the newsletter signup on the right side of our site (thepaws.com - shameless plug..). It's just new customers signing up. But you're right it does make for very dirty lists. After the 1st send the list got cleaned up so hopefully moving forward it won't be as dirty, unless we hit a huge growth spurt again, and I wouldn't mind that!