Mailbag Contact Form

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When a form integration disconnects and leads go missing

Integrations disconnect because something outside WordPress changed: a login token expired, a key was revoked, a list was deleted, or the service changed its API. The leads are lost when the form sent them only to that service. Saving each entry first, alerting someone when a connection fails, and retrying automatically turn a lost lead into a delayed one.

Why they disconnect

  • Expiring logins. OAuth tokens need refreshing; if the refresh fails, the connection dies. Reviews of some e-mail marketing plugins describe weekly disconnections for exactly this reason.
  • Keys changed by someone else — a colleague regenerating a key, a client changing their account.
  • Service rules — Brevo deactivating unused keys and restricting IPs; HubSpot retiring API keys and then private apps.
  • API changes — ConvertKit becoming Kit with a new API version.

Why the leads are gone

Many integrations send the entry and forget it. If the call fails, the error goes to a log nobody reads — or, if it's only kept with debugging switched on, nowhere at all. Nobody is told, and the form keeps saying “thank you”.

What stops it

  1. Save first. The free Mailbag Contact Form stores every entry in WordPress before anything else happens.
  2. Alert someone. Mailbag Pro, the paid add-on, marks a connection as failing and emails an address you choose — the agency's, typically — at most once a day per connection.
  3. Retry automatically. Failed deliveries wait in a queue with the service's reason and are retried after 5 minutes, 30 minutes, 2 hours, 12 hours and then daily for up to 7 days — and sent as soon as the connection works again.

Pro uses API keys from your own accounts rather than an OAuth app of ours, so there's no login token of ours to expire. A key can still be revoked on the service's side — and that's the case Pro watches for.

For agencies

If you look after several client sites, set the alert address to your own team's inbox. You hear about a broken connection before the client notices the leads have dried up. See Mailbag Pro and pricing.

This is Mailbag Pro, the paid add-on to the free Mailbag Contact Form plugin. See what it costs, and what happens if you ever stop paying.

Mailbag Pro and pricing