Who This Is For / When to Use
Chat Widget Spam Protection is for account administrators who want to prevent automated bots and high-volume spam from impacting messaging costs and deliverability. Use this feature on public website chat widgets to protect your email and SMS sender reputation while ensuring suspicious leads remain available for manual review.
How Chat Widget Spam Protection Works
Chat Widget Spam Protection analyzes submission patterns in the background to detect bot bursts and abnormal submission volumes. Genuine website visitors experience no CAPTCHA verification, extra form fields, or loading delays.
When a submission triggers protection thresholds, the system executes the following steps:
Creates the contact record normally in the CRM.
Applies the tag chat_widget_high_volume_flag to the contact record.
Pauses outbound SMS, email, or both channels based on your widget configuration.
Logs the DND channel restriction event in the contact activity history.
Configurable Protection Actions
Spam Protection provides four distinct operational modes for handling suspicious submissions. Settings are configured independently for each Chat Widget in your account.
The four available protection actions are:
Tagged for review only: Applies the chat_widget_high_volume_flag tag without pausing any messaging channels.
Tagged + SMS sending paused: Applies the tag and pauses automated SMS messaging for the contact.
Tagged + Email sending paused: Applies the tag and pauses automated email messaging for the contact.
Tagged + Both SMS and Email paused: Applies the tag and pauses both SMS and email messaging for the contact.
Existing Chat Widgets have Spam Protection turned off by default. Newly created Chat Widgets have Spam Protection turned on by default with Tagged + Both SMS and Email paused selected.
How to Enable and Configure Spam Protection
You can enable and customize Spam Protection directly within the Chat Widget builder settings.
Go to Sites > Chat Widget.
Click the Chat Widget you want to configure.
Click Spam protection in the left sidebar menu.
Toggle Enable spam protection to the on position.
Select your preferred action under When flagged, the contact will be:.
Click Save in the top right corner.
How to Find and Review Flagged Contacts
Flagged contacts are stored in your CRM rather than discarded, allowing your team to verify suspicious submissions and restore messaging capability for valid leads.
Go to Contacts.
Click Filters.
Select Tags and filter by chat_widget_high_volume_flag.
Click a contact name to open the record.
Review the submission source and activity history.
To restore messaging capability, clear the channel checkboxes under DND and remove the chat_widget_high_volume_flag tag.
Managing High-Traffic Events
Unusually large bursts of legitimate traffic during product launches, press announcements, or major marketing campaigns can trigger automated detection algorithms. You can temporarily disable Spam Protection to prevent legitimate lead delivery delays.
To manage high-traffic events:
Navigate to Sites > Chat Widget.
Open the Chat Widget receiving campaign traffic.
Open Spam protection and toggle Enable spam protection off.
Click Save.
Re-enable Enable spam protection after the traffic spike concludes.
Common Issues and Fixes
Legitimate leads are not receiving automated follow-up messages
Cause: High submission volume triggered Spam Protection, applying channel restrictions under DND.
Fix: Navigate to Contacts, filter by the chat_widget_high_volume_flag tag, open the contact record, uncheck the restricted channels under DND, and remove the tag.
Valid campaign leads are being flagged as suspicious
Cause: Rapid submission spikes during major marketing campaigns exceeded volume protection thresholds.
Fix: Go to Sites > Chat Widget, open the builder for that widget, and temporarily toggle Enable spam protection to off for the duration of the event.