Lock Down Your Signup Forms Before Bots Wreck Your Metrics
Hey there,
Email spam alone costs businesses 20.5 billion dollars annually, according to DataProt. That’s reason enough for you to want your email list to be filled with real people who actually want to hear from you. It’s key to look out for spam bots and fake signups. Because they sneak in quietly and create all kinds of trouble.
They can inflate your list with junk and waste your ad dollars. And the worst part? By impacting your deliverability, they make it harder for real customers to connect with your brand.
The good news, though, is that you don’t need a developer army or months of work to fix it. Just a 30–60 minute tune-up can seriously tighten things up. Let’s walk through three simple steps to stop spam at the gate and keep your list healthy, responsive, and revenue-ready. Casper, a well-known DTC brand, applied these three steps and got its revenue to jump by 114%. Read on to learn more about it.
The 3-Step Fix to Bulletproof Your Signup Forms
🔒 Step 1: Add a CAPTCHA (Your First Line of Defense)
You’ve seen them before—“I’m not a robot” checkboxes, traffic light quizzes, or image puzzles. That’s CAPTCHA in action.
These are mini challenges that bots hate and humans breeze through. By dropping a CAPTCHA into your signup flow, you create a tiny speed bump that bots can’t handle.
It’s low-friction for real users, and massively effective at keeping automated garbage out of your list. Set it, forget it, and start seeing fewer fake leads almost instantly.
✅ Step 2: Turn On Double Opt-In (Let Real People Prove They’re Real)
Think of double opt-in as a double-check for your email list. A person signs up, and you send a confirmation email asking them to click a link to confirm they’re legit. Look at the examples below.
A bot? It won’t click that link. A fake address? It won’t even reach an inbox. But a real person who actually wants to hear from you? They’ll click.
We know that some brands hesitate to take the double opt-in route, but if your deliverability is down in the dump, you have few other options. Here’s why it works:
✅ You catch typos and fake addresses before they enter your system.
✅ You get proof of consent (hello, compliance).
✅ You build a list that’s smaller, but way more engaged.
Brands using double opt-in consistently see better open rates, more clicks, and higher conversions. Less fluff. More firepower.
🛡️ Step 3: Add a List Verification Service (Optional, but Powerful)
If you’re dealing with serious list hygiene issues—or just want to go pro—plug in a list verification tool.
Here’s how it works: when someone types in their email, an API instantly checks it against a database of known bad addresses. Some tools even flag role-based emails (like info@ or support@) or block disposable domains.
It’s a more advanced, sometimes premium solution. But if you’re bleeding bad leads, it's worth every penny.
💡 RetainIQ to the Rescue: Smarter Forms, Cleaner Lists
We get it—deliverability sounds (and is) quite technical. That’s why RetainIQ does the heavylifting for you. As part of our managed services, we ensure your list and domain is healthy—and making you wealthy! We offer:
1️⃣ Gamified, engaging signup forms to ensure 8–18% signup rate
2️⃣ Spam checks and verifications to ensure emails are opened
3️⃣ Constant deliverability monitoring to ensure domain health is always 100%
And this is just the tip of the iceberg! As part of our end-to-end managed services, we will also take care of:
1. Designing, strategizing, and setting up all your flows
2. Sending out at least 8 email campaigns every month
3. Guaranteeing a 35% contribution from email channel
4. Regular optimization and monitoring of results
Interested?
Book a free consultation today!
📈 Success Story: How Casper Cleaned House (and Won Big)
Casper, a mid-size DTC brand, had a problem. Their signup form was open to anyone—and anything. Bots flooded the list. Engagement tanked. Emails bounced. Revenue? Meh.
So they made the switch:
✅ Added reCAPTCHA
✅ Enabled double opt-in
✅ Layered in a list verification service for extra hygiene
Within a week, fake signups dropped by 90%. Their open rate shot up from 27% to 41%. Their next campaign pulled in 114% more revenue. Spam complaints vanished. And the leads? Way more likely to convert.
Casper didn’t overhaul their stack. They just secured their entry point—and it changed everything.
🔍 Want Similar Results? Start with a Free Email Audit
We’ll review your email setup top to bottom—forms, deliverability, list health—and show you exactly where things can improve. We will also help you refine your email marketing with better segmentation and implementing sunset flows.
No fluff. Just insights, fast.
Book your free audit with RetainIQ
🧨 PS: Planning for Memorial Day? We Got You Covered
While you’re cleaning up your forms, don’t forget what’s around the corner: Memorial Day. We’ve just published our Memorial Day Email Campaign Guide, packed with ideas to turn the holiday into high engagement and big wins. We hope you read it!