A frequently asked question we receive is… How do I stop my website contact form submissions from going to my spam folder? When this happens, no one ever sees them, and your clients will think that you are ignoring them. While there’s not a lot we can do if your email provider is preventing you from getting contact form submissions, below are a few helpful tips you can take to help ensure that your website contact form submissions do not end up in your spam folder.
Ensure you are not sending emails to yourself
One way to trip your email providers spam filter is to send an email to yourself. If you’re using a website contact form, make sure that the to and from email addresses are not identical, which may be preventing you from sending emails to yourself and landing in the spam folder.
Whitelist the sender email address
When we set up a contact form, by default the send from address may be “wordpress@yourdomain.com” making it easy for website owners to whitelist the sender of these emails. If you have a special email address set up for contact form submissions like this (other common ones are “do-not-reply@yourdomain.com” or even “info@yourdomain.com”) simply whitelist the sending address by adding it to your contact list.
Create a filter for all website contact submissions
Filtering out contact form submissions can help keep your inbox organized and also help keep legitimate contact form submissions out of your spam folder. Create a filter that either recognizes the subject line or the send from email address that puts it into a special folder or marks it as important in your inbox.
Avoid spammy words and phrases
A lot of email spammers like to use phrases like “contact form” and “submission” in their emails, so try avoiding subject lines like this that will help you keep your contact form submissions out of your spam folder. Here are a few ideas for some programmatic subject lines you can also use:
[Website title] Lead from [Customer email or name]
New Lead/Message from [Customer email or name]
[Customer email or name] has a question or message for you
… Or have the customer decide their own subject line!
How do you keep your contact form submissions out of the spam folder? Let us know in the comments below!