Your client's homepage loads. The form fields look fine. Google Ads is still spending. And somehow MQLs fell off a cliff last Tuesday.
Silent form breakage is common precisely because uptime monitors stay green. The HTML is there. The button is visible. What fails is the path after click — a disabled submit control, a broken thank-you redirect, a third-party embed that no longer loads, a CAPTCHA that blocks everyone, or a CTA that points at a 404.
A 10-minute manual checklist
Run this on every high-value page you manage:
- Open the page in a private window (no leftover cookies or autofill).
- Submit the form with obvious test data you can filter later (
monitor@youragency.com). - Confirm the success state — thank-you page, inline success, or CRM notification.
- Click every above-the-fold CTA and verify the destination is not 404/5xx.
- Repeat on mobile width — hidden submit buttons and clipped fields are frequent.
- Check the network tab for blocked third-party form scripts.
- Ask: would an uptime check have caught this? If the answer is no, you need lead-path monitoring.
Why monthly clicks are not enough
Between monthly audits you can lose weeks of paid traffic. Plugin updates, theme deploys, DNS changes, and “tiny” GTM edits all land mid-sprint. The failure mode is not dramatic — leads simply stop arriving.
What Lead QA watches for you
Lead QA runs scheduled browser checks against the live page:
- Form dry-run — detect providers like Gravity Forms, fill synthetic fields, confirm the submit control is enabled (without posting a real lead).
- CTA monitoring — probe link targets and flag broken destinations.
- Inconclusive vs failed — bot walls and WAFs are classified separately so you are not paged for “could not verify.”
If you want the product surface, start with form monitoring and CTA monitoring.