I have two email addresses that receive form submissions from the website. However, one of the emails seems to be unsubscribing itself and removing itself from the list. It has happened a few times now and we’re not sure why.
" The email XXX has been successfully unsubscribed from form notifications for “Prisoners’ Penfriends Website”
@webdev - yes, you are absolutely correct. Same issue has been going on for 3+ years. Forgive the rant here, but I believe this is very important for Webflow to address.
Direct quote from Webflow support: “If you forward or reply to a form notification email, and then that person receiving the email may click on the unsubscribe link, which then would unsubscribe your email from form notifications.” Wow.
Here’s the rub: Webflow forces us as website admins to set up our own email forwarding for all form notification emails… this is because Webflow does not allow us to send form notification emails, per form, to unique email addresses. All form notification emails have to go to the exact same email address or set of addresses; no customization. Any organization with any complexity whatsoever would prefer to send certain website form notification emails to one department, and other website forms to a different department or email address, etc.
So our hands are tied here as Webflow customers. We either have to use Zapier or Gmail filters/triggers to get the appropriate form notification to the correct email address(es) within our organization. We HAVE to forward the form notification emails, which then exposes this dumb “unsubscribe” issue, where this can happen:
I have used both Zapier and Gmail to accomplish this for a couple of my clients, and both are a pretty big effort to do something that should be built into Webflow natively.
This happened to one of my clients and as a result I decided to implement a third party form processor that gave me more control. I now use that processor on all WF sites I deploy using WF Hosting.
Having the same problem. We have customers and we’re trying to implement a customer support form, and they literally have the ability the ability to unsubscribe us from our own support emails! Ridiculous. We’ve gotta get this fixed.
Encountered this issue yet again. It’s unacceptable that as a Webflow customer… Webflow has no solution for the following. @callmevlad - please help & make this a priority.
If ANY EMAIL ADDRESS clicks “unsubscribe” on a Webflow-originated form submission email, then everyone in the group is automatically and immediately UNSUBSCRIBED. That is ridiculous. You should only be able to unsubscribe your own email address. Period.
Because Webflow does not allow its customers to customize which forms are submitted to which email addresses (a basic functionality that should be native to Webflow at this point) — i.e. ALL form submission emails must go to the exact same email address or group of addresses — we as site owners are forced to user a third party tools. Using Gmail filters to accomplish the above can be disastrous — FYI to others considering Webflow.
More specifically, here’s our nonprofit’s setup:
We have about 10 different forms on our website. Each form submission email should be routed to a specific person’s email address who takes care of department X (basically every organization functions like this; we are a tiny nonprofit and have this need)
Then we set up Gmail filters and automatic forwarding based on subject line, so that the correct person within our nonprofit gets the automated email when “their” form is filled out. This is a hassle, but it’s fine.
Then the problem comes up… if any of the 7-10 different people who are being auto-forwarded their form submission emails even accidentally clicks unsubscribe, then it effectively — and automatically and immediately — unsubscribes everyone in our organization from getting form submissions.
Regarding this issue, Webflow support has told me: “We recommend that if the form recipient replies to the email or forwards the email, they should remove the ‘unsubscribe’ link before forwarding or replying” = This is not realistic. No one is going to be that careful every time or even bother to think about that.
[quote=“drew-flps, post:11, topic:135791”]Regarding this issue, Webflow support has told me: “We recommend that if the form recipient replies to the email or forwards the email, they should remove the ‘unsubscribe’ link before forwarding or replying”
[/quote]
This is the type of band-aid problem solving I’m getting REALLY tired of. I just had two client sites unsubscribed in one day. Most problem-solving seems to fall back on developers or customers. The workarounds often revolve around scripting (ahh the irony of claiming it as a NO-CODE solution) or external services.
I had a bug bear with this as well, not really the unsubscribe but more that the email comes from webflow. They really need to push some development on some of the basics.
However, webflows strength is that it doesn’t bloat it self with options and allows connection to third party services which will always be more advanced than if left to Webflow. This needs to continue.
Where I think we all agree is some of the basic elements could do with a little loving.
Just happened again to one of my clients. Highly disruptive to their business flow. This issue has been going on for 3 years. Webflow, please fix already.
This appears to be creeping into the picture in my deliverability case. I can’t believe that this situation is still not addressed and is causing havoc with Webflow forms.
Hi All, I’ve been away from Webflow for a bit but was considering it again for a specific project. The unsubscribe link issue described in the article @memetican shared wasn’t new in 2023 but has been around almost as long as forms have been available in Webflow.
Hadn’t heard about the the spam attack so that’s interesting considering I’m on the Webflow email list. Tally, has been an excellent and affordable forms service.
It’s basically impossible to test form submissions vs receives on Webflow. Is anyone running a site that has seen significant drop in submissions after the spam incident?
Hey Jason, most of these issues you’ll find detailed in the forum.
From what I can tell forms seem relatively stable now but there are still regular complaints of forms failing due to a CORS error, and spam is still thick through despite all of the work Webflow’s done on spam prevention.
Search here for “forms not working” “cors error”, “spam” if you want to get a feel for the shape of the problem. The safest approach is probably to stick with Tally or to implement automations into a lead capture system. Note that the spam attacks this year were direct to the gateway, so they were not going through the sites directly. Even deleting your forms wouldn’t stop them, you had to remove your emails from notifications altogether.
On the unsubscribe link- that appeared Sept 2017, not 2023. There was an unfortunate 3 week lapse in email notifications before that too, so all of our clients had to play catch up on the leads they didn’t know they had.
The end result is you may still find more joy using Tally or another form handler solution for that piece.