A contact form can show “Thanks, we’ll be in touch” and still never deliver the message to anyone. Nothing on the site looks broken, so the owner never finds out. Here is the five-minute check we run on every site we build.
1. Send yourself a real test
From your phone, not your office computer, fill out the form the way a customer would. Use a personal email address, not your business one, so you can see the reply side too. Then wait ten minutes.
2. Find out where the message actually goes
Many website builders save form entries in a dashboard and only email you if notifications are switched on. Log in and look for an area called Forms, Submissions or Inbox. If your test is sitting there but never reached your email, notifications are off or pointed at the wrong address.
3. Check the address letter by letter
A notification sent to an address with one wrong letter bounces quietly, and you will never see the bounce. Compare the address in your form settings to your real address one character at a time. Do not just glance at it.
4. Look in both spam folders
There are two: your email spam folder, and the form tool’s own spam filter. Some form tools hold messages they think are spam and send no email for them at all. Real customers end up there, especially short messages or messages with a link in them.
5. Stop bots without stopping people
A hidden “honeypot” field catches most bots without making customers solve a puzzle. Fewer bot entries means the spam filter has less reason to flag a real message by mistake.
After launch
Check the form’s spam folder once a week for the first month after a site goes live, then once a month. It takes two minutes and it is the cheapest lead you will ever save.
Want us to run this check on your site? It is part of our free 15-minute consult.