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Amine is La Growth Machine's content manager. He is responsible for the blog content, covering topics related to prospecting, LinkedIn, growth hacking, and lead generation in general. Apart from writing awesome articles, you can find him creating bizarre cocktails or listening to podcasts while cooking. A psychopath, I know 😱

If you work in Growth or Sales, you’re probably no stranger to the term Webhook. Over the past few years, this medium has taken its place alongside APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) when it comes to data exchange and communication between applications.

What exactly is a webhook? How does it work? And how can you make the most of it?

In this article, we’ll explore what exactly a webhook is, how it works, and how you can use it to improve your processes.

What is a webhook?

By definition, a webhook is a way for online applications to exchange data in real time.

In other words, it’s a way for one application to notify another when a specific event (to be defined) occurs. This is commonly referred to as a “trigger”.

Example 🔍

For example, your e-commerce application can send a webhook to your inventory management system every time a new order is placed.

The webhook generally includes a set of data describing the event that has occurred. This data can be used by the receiving application to trigger an action, such as updating a database.

Webhooks can be configured manually by a developer, or using a workflow automation tool such as Make or Zapier.

How to automate your workflows?

We recently wrote a great article presenting the two best tools on the market for creating webhooks and automating your processes in a straightforward fashion:

  • Zapier: A tool that features extensive webhook integrations, with customization features.
  • Make: The ultimate no-code tool for automating workflows.
Learn to automate your workflows!

Webhooks have become extremely popular in the technology field because they enable easy integration between different applications. The use of webhooks has enabled developers to create complex systems that interact with each other seamlessly.

In general, webhooks are widely used in many industries.

Example 🔍

For example, in the financial sector, banks use webhooks to notify their customers of transactions carried out on their accounts.

Similarly, some messaging services use webhooks to send real-time notifications to users when they receive new messages.

How does a webhook work?

Setting up a webhook is fairly straightforward. The application wishing to send webhooks (the sending application) must provide a URL to the receiving application. This URL is where the webhooks will be sent. The sending application then sends a webhook to this URL every time the specified event occurs.

zapier paths

It’s also important to note that webhooks are generally sent via the HTTP protocol, which means they are compatible with virtually all online applications.

Once the recipient application receives the webhook, it can perform various actions based on the data received.

Exemple 🔍

Taking our earlier example, if a webhook is used to notify an instant messaging application when a new message is received, the application could -quite easily- extract the content of the received message and display it in a chat window.

The technical advantage of webhooks is that they enable real-time communication. When an event occurs, the webhook is sent immediately to the specified URL, enabling applications to react quickly to changes.

Security is an important consideration when using webhooks. Sending applications must ensure that the webhook URL is secure and that the data sent is authenticated and validated. Similarly, receiving applications need to implement security measures to prevent potential attacks via webhooks.

What’s the difference between a webhook and an API?

After reading the definition of a webhook, you may be wondering how it differs from an API.

Well, the main difference lies in the way data is transmitted!

With a webhook, data is sent asynchronously in real time (in the form of a URL sent via HTTP protocol, as seen above). This means that the sending application sends a webhook to the receiving application without waiting for a response. If the trigger is triggered, the action specified in the webhook will be launched automatically and directly.

With an API, on the other hand, data is transmitted synchronously, meaning that the sending application sends a request to the receiving application and waits for a response.

Keep in mind that these two are both means of communication between applications and they both have their own advantages, disadvantages, and use cases.

Exploring the advantages of a webhook

Webhooks offer many advantages for businesses, not least their potential to automate previously manual tasks, which can save you precious time.

Do you see where we’re going with this? 🙂

We’ll give you a few examples in the paragraphs just below!

Automating customer relations

Using Webhooks lets you automate the updating of your customer data in your customer relationship management (CRM) system every time a new user registers on your website via a form or every time a conversation is opened on your chatbot, for example.

To take this a step further, you can even plug in as many CRM-related applications (such as your payment system, your mailbox, your sales automation software, etc.) to enable you to go far beyond your software’s native functionalities.

A powerful way to improve your processes!

Reduced risk of human error

What’s more, webhooks can improve your company’s efficiency by reducing the risk of human error. Indeed, by automating certain tasks, you reduce the risk of forgetting to perform an action or making a mistake when entering data manually.

Example 🔍

A typical example would be to automatically shoot follow-up emails to leads with whom you haven’t had contact in a certain amount of time (data taken from your CRM).

Online process automation (e-commerce)

By using webhooks, you can also optimize your online sales process.

For example, you can set up a webhook to automatically send an order confirmation email to your customers as soon as they make a purchase on your site. This improves the customer experience by providing instant communication and reassuring customers that their order has been processed.

You can also use webhooks as part of your marketing strategy and/or social media planning.

Below is an example of a webhook set up on Zapier for Instagram:

Improving IT & network security

In addition, webhooks can be used to improve your company’s security.

Example 🔍

You may well consider setting up a webhook to receive real-time alerts whenever suspicious activity is detected on your website. This enables you to react quickly and take the necessary measures to protect your data and your users.

To conclude this section, the use of webhooks offers many benefits for businesses, including automating tasks, reducing human error, improving communication between applications, and optimizing online sales processes.

How can a webhook automate tasks?

Beyond your CRM, webhooks can automate many tasks in your company.

For example, you can set up a webhook to automatically send a welcome email to every new subscriber to your newsletter. In this way, you can offer a personalized and welcoming user experience, without having to manually send each email.

The ultimate underlying goal is to improve the efficiency and productivity of your business.

At LaGrowthMachine, we offer webhooks that enable you to create truly custom actions in your automated email sequences. Most of our webhooks run through Zapier, but you can also configure them yourself on our interface.

How to automate your workflows?

We recently wrote a great article presenting the two best tools on the market for creating webhooks and automating your processes in a straightforward fashion:

  • Zapier: A tool that features extensive webhook integrations, with customization features.
  • Make: The ultimate no-code tool for automating workflows.
Learn to automate your workflows!

In short, webhooks are a powerful way of automating tasks and improving the efficiency of your business.

How to use a webhook to improve business processes?

As you can see, using a webhook can greatly improve your business processes in a number of ways.

1. Send automatic notifications to your teams

For example, you can use a webhook to automatically send notifications to your team when an important customer sends a support request. In this way, you can ensure that you respond quickly and efficiently to your most important customer requests.

2. Automate your project management tool

In addition, you can set up a webhook to automatically update your project management system every time a task is completed. This enables your team to keep accurate track of project progress and ensure that all tasks are completed on time.

3. Automate your reporting

Finally, you can use a webhook to automate report generation. For example, you can set up a webhook to automatically extract data from your various applications and group them together in a comprehensive report. This saves you time and gives you valuable information on the state of your business.

But there are plenty of other ways to optimize your day-to-day processes!

How to optimize data processing with a webhook?

Webhooks are also very useful for optimizing data processing in your company. By configuring a webhook to automatically send data between your online sales application and your inventory management system, you can ensure that your stock is always up to date, preventing you from selling out-of-stock products.

A particularly cumbersome pain point for e-commerce!

What’s more, you can use a webhook to automatically send data between your prospecting software and your data analysis tool.

Exemple 🔍

You can automatically send qualified leads to your CRM based on your leads’ replies.

If you’re using LaGrowthMachine, this feature is available natively: depending on your lead’s response, it will be pre-qualified by LGM and automatically updated in your CRM tool 🙂

Finally, you can use a webhook to automatically send data from your chatbot and/or support software to qualify and transmit crucial data in the form of a summary email, a Slack message, a Google Sheets, etc.

(Almost) anything is possible when it comes to workflow with Webhooks!

Other examples of webhooks in action

To give you a more concrete idea of how Webhooks can be used, here are a few examples based on my own experiences:

  1. When I worked for an e-commerce company, we used a webhook to automatically send webhooks to our inventory management system every time a product was sold. This enabled us to manage our stock efficiently and ensure that we never sold products out of stock, while at the same time setting up a process for the product sheets concerned.
  2. In the same company, we used a webhook to send Slack notifications to our support team whenever a major customer sent in a support request. This enabled us to respond quickly to their needs and provide high-quality customer service.
  3. Finally, in my current role, I use a webhook to automatically send data to CRM, which enables me to qualify my leads automatically. This allows me to optimize my cold emails with LaGrowthMachine and improve my conversion rate.

Final Thoughts

In summary, webhooks are an excellent way of automating tasks, improving business processes,s and optimizing data processing in your company.

By using them effectively, you can save time, reduce errors and improve communication between your applications.

So feel free to explore the different ways you can use webhooks in your business, and start automating your business processes today!