Stop Bots Burning Your SMS and Email Budget
Your Chat Widget now has built-in spam protection. It detects bot and high-volume suspicious submissions automatically and stops your automations from texting and emailing them, which protects both your messaging spend and your sender reputation. Real visitors see no change at all: no CAPTCHA, no extra fields, no verification step.
What happens to a suspicious lead?
Nothing is deleted. The contact is created as normal and tagged chat_widget_high_volume_flag, and SMS, email or both are paused for that contact depending on the setting you chose. That way a genuine lead caught by mistake is still sitting in your CRM waiting for you, rather than lost.
Which options can I choose?
Spam Protection is set on each Chat Widget separately, so a high-traffic widget can be locked down while another stays open. There are four actions to choose from, and only the channel you select is affected. Other channels and any existing DND preferences on the contact stay exactly as they are.
- Tag Only — flag the contact but keep messaging running.
- Pause SMS — stop text messages to that contact.
- Pause Email — stop emails to that contact.
- Pause Both — stop text messages and emails.
How do I turn spam protection on?
It is a switch inside the Chat Widget builder and takes under a minute to set. Turn it on, choose what should happen to a suspicious submission, and save.
- Go to Sites → Chat Widget.
- Open the Chat Widget you want to configure.
- Open Spam Protection in the builder sidebar.
- Turn Spam Protection on.
- Select the action to take when a suspicious submission is detected.
- Save your changes.
Is it already on for my existing widget?
No. Spam Protection is off by default on Chat Widgets that already existed, so nothing about your current setup changes until you switch it on yourself. Any new Chat Widget you create comes with it on and set to Pause Both.
How do I find the flagged contacts?
Filter your contacts by the chat_widget_high_volume_flag tag to see everything that has been flagged. When messaging is paused, the contact's activity log records the action and names the channel it affected, so you can see exactly what happened and restore messaging for any lead that turns out to be real.
What if I am expecting a genuine rush of traffic?
Turn Spam Protection off for that widget during the rush and switch it back on afterwards. A launch, a big campaign, an event or press coverage can push real traffic to levels that look unusual, so a temporary pause avoids flagging customers you worked hard to attract.
Why does this matter for my business?
A spam attack on a chat widget can create hundreds of fake contacts in a short time. If your follow-up automations then fire, you pay to send texts and emails to numbers and addresses that do not exist, and the resulting bounces and failures damage the deliverability of your genuine campaigns. Stopping those sends protects both the spend and the reputation of the numbers and domains you rely on.
The specific signals and thresholds used to spot suspicious activity are not published, which prevents attackers from building submissions designed to slip past them.
You will find this under Sites → Chat Widget, in the Spam Protection section of the builder sidebar.
