Fake Leads Are at an All-Time High - OTP Is the Fix

If you’ve managed website forms, or lead forms, or ad campaigns with form submissions before, you may be quite familiar with swarms of bots and spam filling up your inbox. The good news is, you’re not alone. But the bad news is, that the quality of leads is plummeting. 

The fake leads problem is only getting worse.

According to industry benchmarks, 61% of marketers say generating high-quality leads is harder than generating high volume leads.

And that’s not surprising: fake or low-quality leads continue to plague lead gen forms, causing advertisers to waste money chasing unreachable or fraudulent contacts. Bot traffic and ad fraud siphon off serious budgets, in fact digital ad fraud alone is projected to hit ~$172 billion globally by 2028.

The Problem: Fake Leads Are Everywhere

Spam, Bots, and Invalid Contacts

• Third-party validation tools estimate that approximately 18 % of captured leads contain completely fake information (invalid emails, random phone numbers, dummy names).
• Roughly 30 % of emails submitted through lead forms are fake or disposable, hurting deliverability and lead follow-ups.
• On Meta and similar platforms, marketers report huge spikes in bot-generated leads, with nonsense contact details showing up in CRM systems.

Even when platforms began tightening controls, fake leads kept flooding inboxes, leading teams to call numbers that don’t exist, or email contacts that were never valid. Of course this is very irritating for your team, but it also ends up training your ad networks on bad data, perpetuating the cycle.

Why Just “More Leads” Isn’t Helping Your Funnel

Across industries, recent studies state that average cost per lead across sectors is nearly $198+ and can be much higher in B2B channels. Yet traditional lead forms often still don’t stop garbage data from entering your CRM. Why, you ask? It’s because:

• Bots can very easily impersonate human behavior and fill forms.
• Fake emails and disposable addresses slip through unchecked.

So, do you still want more leads, or do you want leads you can actually reach? If it’s the latter, the fix isn’t another campaign or a bigger budget, it’s a small change in your form.

The Fix: OTP Verification for Lead Forms

OTP verification adds a simple validation step directly into the lead capture process. Most users are already familiar with OTP verification forms from logins, registrations, and payments, so it no longer feels like extra effort.

If your goal is to collect higher-quality leads, this small step makes a meaningful difference.

Instead of a form submission immediately counting as a lead, it will only count as a lead after the user proves possession of a phone number or email.

Here’s how it works:

1. User submits their contact info on a lead form.
2. The form sends an OTP via SMS or email.
3. Prospect enters the code, only then does the lead get recorded.

This added step dramatically filters out fake or unreachable leads before they ever reach your CRM. Lead quality platforms report clients reducing fake leads by as much as 80 % after implementing real-time verification and OTP checks.

And if you’re worried about drop-offs because a lead won’t verify their phone number or email, ask yourself: do you really want that lead in the first place?

Email OTP vs SMS OTP: What to Use When

- Email OTP Verification

Email otp verification forms are useful when your lead forms require email contact, especially for B2B lead magnets, gated content, or email nurture flows. It:

• Catches disposable and mistyped emails early.
• Works well where email communication is central.

- SMS OTP Verification

Best when phone follow-ups are critical, such as booking calls, demos, or onsite appointments. Phone OTP verification forms:

• Force validation of real phone numbers.
• Limit bots and burner number misuse.

Is It Easy to Add OTP Verification to Forms?

Yes, much easier than most people expect.

Many popular lead form tools still rely on basic spam protection like CAPTCHAs or email notifications, not OTP verification. That’s fine for surveys or feedback, but for lead generation, it doesn’t work.

However, modern form builders have made OTP verification forms simple to implement, without custom code or third party plug-ins. For example, with MakeForms, you can add email or SMS OTP verification directly to your lead forms with one toggle of a button inside your form builder.

The result is a lead form that qualifies leads at the source. You get fewer submissions, but far better ones, without adding friction for users who were serious to begin with.

If you’re running lead forms this year, consider OTP verification forms to protect your budget, pipeline, and brand reputation. Give it a try on MakeForms right here.