OTP Forms: The Secret Weapon to Stop Fake Leads in 2026

With bots driving nearly 50% of web traffic and flooding forms with fake entries, OTP forms help you capture only genuine leads.

In 2026, fake leads are a billion-dollar problem. Digital ad fraud is projected to cost businesses $172 billion globally by 2028, eating up nearly 25% of all digital ad spend. 

According to Juniper Research, 17% of all desktop clickthroughs are already fake, and bot traffic makes up almost half of total web traffic. 

That means every form submission, lead magnet, or campaign you run could be attracting more bots than real buyers. That is dangerous for so many reasons. 

Marketers and businesses are draining hard-earned budgets on lead generation, only to end up with distorted performance metrics and misguided business decisions that cost them so much more than just ad spend.

That’s why in 2026, OTP (One-Time Password) verification forms have become the unsung hero of authentic data collection.

With a simple mobile or email verification step, forms that have OTPs can help businesses cut through the noise, and ensure that only real, verifiable users make it through your funnel.

Here’s what we discuss in this article.

• What leads to Fake Leads in your forms?
• Why CAPTCHA may not be enough anymore to get legit leads
• What OTP forms are and how they work
• 3 simple steps to set up OTP verification forms.

What Leads to Fake Leads in Your Forms?

In most cases, fake leads don’t happen by accident, they’re the result of fraudulent activity, or poor verification systems. Here are the top culprits:

1. Bot Submissions

Automated bots crawl websites looking for open forms to exploit. They flood your database with junk data, fake names, and invalid contact details. Why do they do this?  Often to test vulnerabilities or simply spam your system.

2. Click Fraud and Paid Traffic Abuse

When you’re running paid campaigns, every click costs money. So fraudsters use bots or low-quality traffic farms to generate fake clicks and form fills, making it look like your ads are performing when they’re actually not.

3. Incentive Misuse

If you’re offering freebies, trials, or discounts through forms, it can attract users who submit fake information just to claim the reward, with no real interest in your product or service.

4. Data Reselling and Spam Attacks

In some cases, third-party data vendors or malicious actors flood forms with fake data to scrape, resell, or test how your systems handle bulk submissions.

In other cases, you also have fake leads that don’t come out of bad intent. Which means it could actually be because of human error, but you have no system in your form to catch that. 

5. Human Error or Misentries

Sometimes users simply mistype email addresses or phone numbers, and when you try to reach out to them, you find out they are invalid entries and waste resources downstream.

So what’s the solution to be able to stop all of the above? Bots, Spam and Human Error? 

We’re already familiar with CAPTCHA - you know the one where they make you enter a code from an image, or pick out the traffic lights? And they did actually block bots and spam for a bit, until they didn’t anymore.

Why CAPTCHA May Not Be Enough Anymore to Get Legitimate Leads

For years, CAPTCHA has been the first line of defense against bots, asking users to identify blurry street signs or click on images of traffic lights. But it’s 2026, and this once-reliable barrier is showing its age.

Let’s face it, bots have become smarter. 

Modern bots can now bypass many standard CAPTCHA systems using AI image recognition and automated solving services. Believe it or not, fraudsters even hire human “CAPTCHA farms” to solve challenges in bulk, making the protection nearly useless against large-scale attacks.

But here’s the real irony, while bots get better at breaking in, genuine users are getting more frustrated trying to prove they’re human, leading to an increase in form abandonment!

And even if a real user passes CAPTCHA, it doesn’t mean the lead is real. A fake email address, temporary phone number, or duplicated submission can still go through. CAPTCHA only filters out some bots, it doesn’t really confirm that a person genuinely wants to engage with your brand.

So in short, CAPTCHA helps reduce spam, but it doesn’t guarantee lead authenticity. If you’re serious about collecting verified, conversion-ready leads, OTP forms are now the smarter, more secure alternative.

OTP Forms: How They Work

An OTP form, or a form that has an OTP verification step, uses a one-time password to confirm a user’s identity. When someone enters their phone number, they receive a quick code on their device. Once they enter it, you know the number is real and belongs to them. This is a simple way to keep your forms secure and your leads genuine.
 

Here’s how it works:

1. A user fills out your online form and enters their phone number.
2. The system sends an OTP via SMS or email.
3. The user enters that OTP to complete verification.

The biggest advantage of using OTP verification forms is the accuracy of your data. When someone verifies their phone number, you know they’re real and reachable. That small step creates a big difference in how you connect, track, and convert leads. You build:

• Authentic connections because each phone number is a genuine person.
• Cleaner databases because OTP forms stop fake, duplicate, or inactive leads before they even enter your system.
• Better conversions: when your leads are verified, your sales and marketing teams focus their efforts in the right place.
• Reliable communication, so your messages and calls reach the right people when it matters most.

Many industries use this simple step to keep their data clean, improve response rates, and build more trust with their audience. From healthcare and finance to education and e-commerce, OTP verification is fast becoming a standard for form security.

• Lead Generation Forms: To ensure every inquiry comes from a genuine prospect, not a bot or competitor.
• Account Signup Forms: Common in fintech apps, marketplaces, and SaaS tools where user authenticity is crucial.
• Appointment or Booking Forms: Used by clinics, salons, and service providers to confirm real clients and reduce no-shows.
• Event Registration Forms: To verify attendees, prevent duplicate sign-ups, and ensure accurate headcounts.
• Survey and Feedback Forms: Especially useful for incentive-based surveys, ensuring that only verified participants respond.
• E-commerce Checkout and Order Forms: To validate customer contact information, reduce return fraud, and ensure successful delivery.

3 simple steps to Set Up OTP Verification Forms in MakeForms

First, let me introduce ourselves real quick. We are MakeForms, a no-code form builder, that has the easiest way to enable OTP verification in your forms. All you do is click ONE toggle button and your users will now receive an SMS OTP.

Let’s have a look

1. Add a Phone Number Field to Your Form
   Make phone number field mandatory
   
    
2. Enable OTP Verification in Field Settings
   On the right, you will find a toggle button on the field settings that says “Enable Verification".
    
3. Customize Settings 
   Next you can fine-tune the OTP experience to suit your audience and improve conversion. 
   
   For example, you can restrict submission to only from specific countries, or enable automatic country code detection based on the user’s location to make input faster. 
   
   You can also personalize the SMS message users receive and set how long the OTP stays valid, giving you full control over both branding and verification flow.
    
4. Test the Flow
   
   You can test the form across devices to ensure delivery and experience are seamless.
   And that was it. Your form now has an OTP verification layer, we ZERO coding.

Real Leads Win in 2026

In an era where nearly half of all web traffic comes from bots and ad fraud drains billions every year, protecting your lead pipeline is essential. Traditional barriers like CAPTCHA can no longer keep up with the sophistication of modern fraud. What businesses need today is a smarter, verification-first approach that filters fake data before it ever reaches their systems.

With MakeForms’ OTP-verified forms, every lead you capture is  real. Start improving conversions today with the smartest form builder for modern businesses.

Build your first OTP-verified form with MakeForms now.