When a site gets few inquiries, the first instinct is "not enough traffic." Look at the last screen first. The buyer has read the product page and decided to make contact — and then stalls on the form.
The form is the final metre of the funnel, and the metre where inquiries are most easily lost for nothing.
Start from a counter-intuitive place
More fields means fewer submissions. Too few, and every inquiry arrives with the same basic questions unanswered.
The mechanism is simple: friction. Each required field is a chance for someone to give up. And people who give up do not tell you — you just see a lower conversion rate.
So the question is not "how do I build the most complete form." It is: which fields do I genuinely need right now?
The answer is three or four:
- Name (one field, not first and last)
- Email (the only reliable reply channel)
- Country (as a dropdown, so you can analyse by market later)
- What they need, in one line (a text box — let them describe it)
Phone, company name, volume, budget: ask after your first reply. By then the buyer has confirmed there is a real person on the other end who understood the requirement, and will share far more.
A note on phone numbers
Be careful with phone numbers in export.
Tolerance for giving a phone number varies widely by country, and overseas buyers generally prefer email over a call. Make it optional, or leave it off the first screen and offer WhatsApp as the alternative channel.
If you truly need a number — a large order requiring verification, say — ask in your second email. Conversion is better that way.
Three details on the button
Be specific. "Get a quote" beats "Submit." "We reply within one business day" beats "Send."
Distinguish it from every other button. If a page has three identical-looking buttons, the buyer hesitates over which one to press.
Do not add a Reset button. Next to a form, it is an exit door for anyone who is halfway through.
What happens after they submit
This is the most commonly skipped part.
1. Confirm clearly. Do not just refresh and blank the form. The buyer is unsure whether it went through and may fill it in twice.
2. Say what happens next. "Received — we will reply to that address within one business day." This line measurably reduces the number of buyers who assume it failed and go elsewhere.
3. Use a dedicated thank-you page, not a popup. The URL becomes a trackable conversion goal, and the page itself can carry something useful — how you calculate lead times, for example.
4. Send an automatic acknowledgement email. When the buyer sees the receipt in their inbox, the lead is anchored.
Check the mobile version separately
A meaningful share of overseas buyers browse on a phone. On mobile: are the inputs large enough, does the keyboard cover the button, are the dropdown options easy to tap?
The simplest test: open your own site on a phone and fill the form all the way through. Notice any point where you want to give up.
Block bots without blocking people
Leave the form open and bots will find it. But how you block matters:
- Prefer a hidden field. Add a field a human cannot see; bots fill it in; reject anything that arrives filled. Real visitors are unaffected.
- Add a timestamp. A submission within two seconds of page load is not a person.
- Treat captchas as a last resort. They do stop bots, and they also stop some real visitors, most visibly on mobile.
The one thing you must do: test it yourself, regularly
Last on the list, probably first in importance.
Send yourself a test inquiry once a month and confirm three things: the form submits, the email arrives, the auto-reply goes out.
Broken form delivery is a common failure — an expired API key, an exhausted email quota, a changed firewall rule. And it fails silently: the buyer sees "submitted," you receive nothing, and neither side knows.
A site whose delivery was broken for two weeks can lose more than a site with mediocre SEO.
The checklist
- Three or four fields on the first screen; phone optional
- Country as a dropdown, requirement as a text box
- Button text that states the outcome
- Thank-you page, a stated reply time, and an acknowledgement email
- Fill the form yourself on a phone
- Hidden field plus timestamp instead of a captcha
- Test the delivery path monthly
To make this part of a system rather than a one-off fix, see MKEO · the full approach. To find the exact step where your funnel leaks, ask for a free acquisition audit.
Two related reads: inquiries arrive but follow-up loses them, in why inquiries dropped after you added WhatsApp; and if there is no traffic yet, start with the quotability checklist to see whether your site has anything worth recommending.
FAQ
How many fields should the form have?
Three or four on the first screen: name, email, country, and one line about what they need. Phone, company name and volumes can wait until after first contact, when the buyer is already willing to share.
Should I use a captcha?
Avoid it if you can. Picture captchas cost you real submissions, especially on mobile. A hidden field plus a minimum time between page load and submit stops most bots without the visitor noticing anything.
Why bother with a separate thank-you page?
Two reasons. The buyer knows for certain the message went through, and you get an address you can track as a conversion goal — which tells you later which pages produce inquiries.