Contact forms are crucial to a website. Without an efficient contact form system, your conversion and lead generation efforts aren’t likely to produce good results.
Contact Form 7 is one of the most popular and oldest WordPress contact form plugins around, now with 5 millions+ downloads. However, despite its popularity, it doesn’t always work as it should. You may end up seeing an error like this when testing the form:
“Failed to send your message. Please try later or contact the administrator by another method.”
Huh? You’ve done everything right when setting up the form:
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No matter what you do, it won’t send.
Email Hosted on Third Party?
In our experience, we have discovered that when the email is not hosted along with the website, but on a 3rd party like G Suite or Microsoft 365, you need to use the SMTP settings associated with that email rather than the built-in PHP Mailer in WordPress.
We found that the Easy WP SMTP plugin works a treat in this situation. All you have to do is install it then head over to its settings and fill these 8 pieces in:
- From Email Address: The email address that will be used to send emails to your recipients
- From Name: The name your recipients will see as part of the “from” or “sender” value when they receive your message
- SMTP Host: Your outgoing mail server (example: smtp.gmail.com)
- Type of Encryption: none/SSL/TLS
- SMTP Port: The port that will be used to relay outbound mail to your mail server (example: 465)
- SMTP Authentication: No/Yes (This option should always be checked “Yes”)
- Username: The username that you use to login to your mail server
- Password: The password that you use to login to your mail server
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Send a Test!
Once you are done click on the “Save Changes” button to save the settings. Now, use the testing section/tab to send a test email and make sure the emails are getting delivered. If you get the green light, your form should now send.
Email is an Alias or Forwarder?
We also discovered that when the email address is not an actual inbox but an alias or “forwarder” (forwards to an actual inbox), the form will not send, even if the email is hosted on a third party and you have your SMTP settings in place. It has to be an actual inbox.
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We hope this helps you with your contact form. We also found it helps with Gravity Forms – see this website for that contact form.
If you need more help, head over to the Easy WP SMTP website.
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