Contact Form 7 not sending email: test the form and find the cause

The visitor fills in the form, sees the green “your message was sent” notice and leaves. You receive nothing. Contact Form 7 shows that notice the moment the form passes validation; whether the mail was actually delivered is a separate question.

For an advertising site this is a silent loss: the click was paid for, the form was filled, the conversion was counted, and the customer never reached you. If Google Ads shows form conversions and nothing lands with the sales team, the mail path is the first suspect.

There are four usual causes. First, WordPress's default mail function sends directly from the server, and many receiving servers treat that as spam or reject it. Second, the “From” address does not match the site's domain, which receivers consider forged. Third, SPF and DKIM records are missing.

Fourth, an SMTP plugin was installed but its credentials changed or its sending limit was reached. None of these break the form; the form works, the mail does not.

Tecrube's WordPress connection (once the Connector plugin is installed and linked from the member panel) lists the forms on your site and runs a test submission for each. In chat you say “list the forms on my site and send a test submission to the quote form”; the result is a real mail-sending attempt, not a simulation.

The result comes in three forms: sent (the mail was handed to the server), spam (the plugin's filter treated the submission as spam and stopped it), mail_failed (the server could not send). Each points somewhere different.

If it says “sent” but nothing is in the inbox, look at the receiving side: the spam folder, SPF/DKIM records, and whether the “From” address matches the domain. If it says “spam”, the form's own filter (Akismet, reCAPTCHA) fired; use realistic test data and review the filter settings.

If it says “mail_failed”, the server cannot send: install an SMTP plugin or refresh the existing plugin's credentials, then repeat the test. After the fix, send another test in the same chat and do not close the job until the result reads “sent”.

Once the mail path is fixed, move to the measurement layer. Is the form-submission conversion defined in Google Ads, is the Tag Manager trigger bound to the right form ID, and do the GA4 form event and the Google Ads conversion count the same event? With Tecrube's Google tools connection these three checks happen in one chat; a missing tag is added with a preview and approval.

A common picture: GA4 shows form submissions while Google Ads shows zero conversions. The cause is usually that the Ads conversion was never imported from GA4 or is bound to a different event. The mail goes out, the form works; only the count is looking in the wrong place.

Instead of relying on the server's own mail function, binding the form to an SMTP service fixes most of the problems at the root. Common SMTP plugins for WordPress send through an authenticated account on your domain; receiving servers recognise that mail and the spam risk drops.

The setup has three parts: the SMTP plugin, SPF and DKIM records in your domain's DNS, and a form “From” address that matches your domain. Once all three are in place, the test submission returns “sent” and the mail appears in the inbox. Tecrube's test tool is the fastest way to confirm that after setup.

If you look after several client sites as an agency or freelancer, the same test flow repeats per site; the WordPress tab in the Tecrube member panel (/app) lists the connected sites, and the forms on each are checked from the same chat.

Once a month: send a test to each form, confirm the results read “sent”, and check that the Google Ads form conversion is not zero over the last 30 days. Three questions, one chat, a few minutes. This routine is the cheapest insurance against an ad budget quietly going to waste.