Missing form submissions

  • Hello. I have used the Contact Form 7 plugin to add a simple contact form to my home page. Several people across the world have carried out tests of the form, and each has been delivered to the email account linked to the form, without issue.
    But last month, Google Analytics reported that this form was submitted 12 times, yet I didn’t receive a single email about any of them. Might your plugin have any tools to help me troubleshoot this issue? For example, are these spurious/spammy submissions that I can ignore? Or are they valid submissions that I need to track down and respond to?

    * I am using a WordPress plugin (WP SMTP Mail) to ensure the form is emailed via a proper SMTP server.

    * Unfortunately I myself do not have access to the Google Analytics account. It is managed by our SEO manager. He *should* answer any questions I have for him, but lately he’s been more and more reluctant to do so.

    * The site is live, but doesn’t have much traffic yet because we haven’t finished adding the bulk of the content, nor have we started any social media push. So these 12 inquiries are a bit curious/unexpected.

    * I have checked my email’s spam folder, but it is empty.

    Thanks in advance.

    The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

  • You can also use a plugin like Advanced Contact form 7 DB to save all CF7 form submissions for when things go wrong.

    The missing submissions are likely be to spam from form bots. Spam can get rejected in a lot of other places in the world’s email systems, before it gets to your spam folder.

    P.S. If you are paying for their services, a competent SEO manager can easily give you a lower level access to your Google Analytics account.

    Thread Starter cag8f

    (@cag8f)

    @buzztone

    >> You can also use a plugin like Advanced Contact form 7 DB to save all CF7 form submissions for when things go wrong.

    Thanks for that. I should have mentioned though that I’m already using such a plugin, and it did not register any of the 12 missing submissions.

    >> The missing submissions are likely be to spam from form bots. Spam can get rejected in a lot of other places in the world’s email systems, before it gets to your spam folder.

    Got it. Is there any way I can confirm this though? I mentioned that the Spam folder in my email client is empty. But I also know that spam can get filtered/blocked before it even reaches my email client, in which case it wouldn’t show up in my Spam folder. But in those cases, is it at all possible to check the content of those emails?

    >> P.S. If you are paying for their services, a competent SEO manager can easily give you a lower level access to your Google Analytics account.

    Got it–thanks!

    If the save submission plugin didn’t register them then the forms almost certainly didn’t complete form sending.

    They might be spam submissions that were rejected by whatever anti-spam device you are using.

    Alternatively your form submission tracking may not be set up correctly in Google Analytics and giving you false results.

    You might be able to setup a more detailed examination of what is actually causing these using Google Analytics. But if they aren’t registered by your save submission plugin then the almost certainly aren’t real form submits – so hardly seems worth the effort.

    Thread Starter cag8f

    (@cag8f)

    >> They might be spam submissions that were rejected by whatever anti-spam device you are using.

    Well my email client certainly has a spam filter. But it places those messages in a separate Spam folder, which is empty. Before it gets to my email client though, there may be other ‘anti-spam devices’ at play–correct? If so, those would have to be at the server level, configured by my web host (Host Gator in this case). Does that sound accurate?

    >> Alternatively your form submission tracking may not be set up correctly in Google Analytics and giving you false results.

    Right O. I’ll try to get more info on the goal tracking that was setup on Google Analytics.

    >> You might be able to setup a more detailed examination of what is actually causing these using Google Analytics. But if they aren’t registered by your save submission plugin then the almost certainly aren’t real form submits – so hardly seems worth the effort.

    Got it, thanks.

    I just found out Flamingo also records spam and mail-failed submissions.

    Thread Starter cag8f

    (@cag8f)

    OK good to know. I’ve actually just switched to Flamingo, so I’ll try to monitor it there.

    Thread Starter cag8f

    (@cag8f)

    Hello. Are any plugin devs able to weigh in on this ticket? After I can mark it resolved.

    Thanks.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
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