It won't matter that you have the old conversion goal still active and tracking, so long as you have selected the new one in your ad and you have created a new campaign (as apposed to editing or adding to an older existing one).

And just to check... when you made these changes... did you create a new campaign so you would start monitoring stats with a clean slate or are you still contending with all of that old data, as far as open rates go. If so, it takes much longer to see the impact of the changes, so make sure you clear everything out and start fresh.

Otherwise, I can't really comment without clicking around and looking at everything to make sure its all set up correctly, other than to say that I can't recall ever seeing an open rate of 50% on the first email in a campaign that has confirmed opt in turned on.

It's fine to duplicate from an old one, but not to edit an old one as it will carry past performance with it and your results will be messed up. I have no knowledge of this happening when duplicating a campaign, but in general I think it's a good idea to create from scratch when starting something new, just to be safe.

I thought that you were saying open rates were low, rather than confirmations. I wouldn't worry about confirmations. All that matters is that your subscriber value is greater than your subscriber acquisition costs. The algorithm will now be targeting people that confirm and trying to clone those people so in time it will likely improve. I know it's hard to look at those low numbers and see all of that wasted potential, but it doesn't really matter much if the cost to value ratio is where it needs to be. And there is much less you can do to control how many people confirm. That said, 50% is crazy low, so it is a bit odd. That said, I believe that part of the problem is that your numbers are low, and you may be seeing a statistical fluke. It could also be that passed performance of similar campaigns is still influencing things. If so, this should improve in time. All you can do is contact Aweber and ask a few friends to go through it and make sure there is nothing technical you are overlooking. If all is right, then proceed.

Hey,

In the past I have said that you don't need to mess with the DKIM and SPF records, and you still don't need to (and I haven't for the most part), but there have been minor developments that have led to my advise on that changing. I consider it best practices now. But as I say, I have not done it, personally, and I still maintain that it is not the cause of your issue.

You should definitely verify the email. That only takes a quick second. I still don't think these things are the cause of your issue, but you might as well get all of your ducks in a row, if for no other reason than Aweber can't pass the buck. And who knows, maybe there is an issue with your particular email address and modifying those records will have a bigger impact than usual.