Block email addresses to submit any contact form in an automated way

[MSerranoSolà]

Hello!

We want to block several email addresses for contact forms (that is, any person with this email address cannot submit the contact form). 

We know there is a way to add it manually to all contact forms: 

However, we have multiple contact forms, so it can be very tedious if every month we have to update all the contact forms with new email addresses we want to block. 

Is there any automated way to solve this problem (so that we don't have to update 100+ contact forms every time we want to update the list)?

Thanks!

Marta

[Jonno_Price · Accepted solution]

@MSerranoSolà - ok great. Speaking from experience I can confirm that this works very well if you're trying to enforce a 'work email only' policy

What I do:
- Change the label of the email property to "Business Email" on the form
- Turn on check box which blocks free emails
- If it is a form for a lead magnet (e.g. guide or resource) don't re-direct directly to the resource upon form completion. In other words only provide the resource by follow up email. 

By doing the above you make it much harder for people to use junk emails to access your content downloads. 

Thanks
Jonno

PS. please mark my answer as a solution if this has indeed solved your original question. Cheers

[MSerranoSolà]

Thanks a lot for your recommendation @Jonno_Price! It seems the correct approach in order to push people to add their work email.

Thanks and best, 

Marta 

[MSerranoSolà]

Hello @Jonno_Price, thanks for your feedback, we will probably try using the "block free email providers" feature in the contact forms. 

Hello @karstenkoehler, I've just voted for this, thanks! Actually, for this specific case, this workflow would not work for us as we want to push people to only include their business email. So, by deleting the contact, we can lose a client opportunity. But thanks for the tip!

Best, 

Marta

[karstenkoehler]

Hi @MSerranoSolà,

It is unfortunately currently not possible to block specific email addresses in HubSpot forms, only the freemail blocklist you already stumbled upon. Other users have already requested this to be a feature here: Blocking specific emails for forms 

I'd recommend upvoting this request as the product team evaluates these ideas based on their popularity.

As far as workarounds go, the only feasible one includes workflows. If you're using automated emails in workflows, you could create an exclusion list of specific email addresses which are excluded in workflows. These contacts would still be able to submit the form but not receive the automated emails. (When you think about it, this is the better approach. If the person notices that an email address is not accepted, they'll simply try another email address. If the form submits but nothing happens, they probably won't try again.)

Best regards!

[Jonno_Price]

Hi @MSerranoSolà - if all you want to do is push people to use business / work email then you simply need to select the option that says: "Block free email providers".. This works very nicely to force users to provide work email. 

PS. I hope I've understood your question properly

[MSerranoSolà]

Hello @Jonno_Price, 

Thanks for the new perspective. We didn't think about that, but it wouldn't work in our case, as we want to push people to only include their business email. So, by deleting the contact, we can lose a client opportunity.

But thanks for the suggestion!

Best, 

Marta 

[Jonno_Price]

Hello @MSerranoSolà 

I don't know of any way to automatically update this across all forms - but do wonder if you could approach in a sligtly different way? Instead of blocking specific contacts at source - could you rather allow all submissions but then triage the submissions based on a single master list that you maintain and update. 

E.g. don't set an automated form response on the form. Instead there could be workflows for each form which has an if/then branch - if contact email is on the "Block list" then don't send them the automated follow up email and add the contact to a "To be deleted" list. 

Not sure if the above is a suitable approach for your exact use case but clearly the current process is proving too cumbersome.