Manage spam form submissions

After publishing your HubSpot form, you may receive form submissions that are detected as spam. Spam form submissions are separated from legitimate submissions and listed on the spam submissions index page, where you can review, release, or delete them. This helps you manage spam without affecting your contacts.

Learn more about spam detection and steps you can take to prevent spam submissions.

Impact of form submissions marked as spam

When a form submission is marked as spam: 

• CRM records associated with the form submission will not be created or updated.
• Form automation will not be triggered based on the submission. 
• Traffic analytics will not be updated based on the submission. 
• The submission will automatically be deleted 90 days after the submission date. 

Review spam form submissions 

1. In your HubSpot account, navigate to Marketing > Forms.

2. Locate or search for the form you want to manage. Review the number of spam submissions in the Spam Submissions column. 
   • If this column isn't included in the table: 
     • In the upper right of the table, click Actions, then select Edit columns. 
     • Under Form events, select the checkbox next to Spam submissions.
     • At the bottom left, click Apply. 
3. To review spam submissions for a form, in the Spam Submissions column, click the [number of spam submissions]. You'll be automatically redirected to the spam submissions index page.

4. In the table, you can review a list of all spam submissions. The Spam Type column displays the reason the form submission was marked as spam, which may include the following values:
   • URL in Name Field: a URL was detected in the submission’s first or last name field.
   • Malicious Script: a script that may be associated with a bad actor was detected in one of the submission’s form fields.
   • Unregistered Site Domain: an embedded form ‌was submitted from an external site that has not been added to your tracked site domains. 
   • HTML in Name Field: an HTML tag was detected in the submission’s first or last name field.
   • Gibberish: a random series of characters was detected in one of the submission’s text fields.
   • Filtered by reCAPTCHA: a form submission received a reCAPTCHA score between 0.0 and 0.1 on a form with CAPTCHA turned on, indicating that the submission was from a bot.
   • Excluded source: a form was submitted from an IP address or referrer domain that has been excluded from your site analytics. 
5. To filter spam form submissions, at the top of the table, you can select from the following filters:
   • Form name: filter by the name of the submitted form. 
   • Spam Type: filter by the reason the submission was marked as spam. 
   • Submitted on: filter by the date of the submission.
   • Will be deleted after: filter by the date the submission will be deleted.

Release or delete spam form submissions

If you confirm that a spam form submission is legitimate, you can release the submission. This removes it from your spam submissions and adds it to your regular form submissions.

Releasing a form submission may result in the following: 

• Create a new CRM record or update existing records. 
• Trigger any associated workflow if your automation uses form submission filters. 
• Update the form's submission count.

Please note: form submissions marked as spam because of an excluded source do not update traffic analytics when they are released. For example, if a form is submitted from an excluded IP address and the form submission is released, it does not update the number of form views. 

If you confirm that a submission is spam, you can also manually delete the submission. Spam form submissions that are not released are automatically deleted after 90 days. 

To release or delete your form submissions: 

1. In your HubSpot account, navigate to Marketing > Forms.

2. Hover over the form submission and click View submission.
3. To release a form submission, in the right panel, click Release. 
   • In the dialog box, click Confirm. 
4. To delete a spam form submission, in the right panel, click Delete. 
   • In the dialog box, click Confirm. 
   • Deleting a spam submission permanently removes it from your account. This action cannot be undone.
5. To release or delete your spam submissions in bulk from the spam submissions table:
   • Select the checkboxes next to the submissions you want to release or delete.
   • To select all submissions, select the checkbox in the top left of the table.
   • At the top of the table:
     • To release the submissions, click Release to submissions.
     • To delete the submissions, click Delete.