Send webhooks from a scenario to a third-party application

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Before you start

What are webhooks and what are they for?

Webhooks are powerful and versatile tools that enable different applications to communicate with each other in real time. When a particular event occurs (such as a new subscription through your subscription form), a webhook automatically triggers an action in a third-party application (such as sending an alert on Teams or adding the new subscriber to your CRM). In addition to event notification, the webhook also sends data in JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) format to the third-party application, using the web address (URL) specified in the webhook configuration. This is a format that can be read by humans and easily manipulated by machines.  The data sent can be information from your contacts' fields, plus any other customized information you may wish to include in the webhook.

Why send webhooks from a marketing automation scenario?

It is possible to automate the sending of webhooks from your account to a third-party application through an automated marketing scenario. The action of sending the webhook can be placed directly after the trigger, or when the subscriber reaches a certain point in your scenario. 

Here are a few examples of events from which you could automate the sending of a webhook: 

  • Following subscriber registration through a subscription form
  • When a contact is added to a group
  • When an e-mail is opened or a link is clicked (from a regular mailing or a specific mailing in your scenario)
  • When a subscriber meets specific advanced search criteria (segmentation triggers or conditions)
  • When a subscriber responds to a survey
  • When a contact's date is reached
  • When a contact is updated via a (update profile) form
  • When a contact's consent expires or is about to expire

Once you've sent the webhook, you can trigger a host of actions in your favorite applications, such as: 

  • send messages by e-mail or SMS
  • sending alerts on your communications platforms (such as Teams or Slack)
  • creating or updating information in your database or CRM, etc.

The possibilities are endless.

How the webhook works

When a contact arrives at the stage where you've inserted the webhook action in your scenario, a webhook request will automatically be sent to the configured web address (URL). If the request is not immediately accepted, it will be considered Pending in the webhook statistics, and we will make further attempts to send it over during the next 12 hours until it is. After this time, if the request has still not been accepted, we will stop trying to send it and it will be classified as Failed. 

As soon as the first webhook request is sent, the contact can move on to the next step of your scenario, even if the request has not yet been accepted by the destination application. So, even if a request has failed, the subscriber can continue to progress through your scenario.

What you need to know before you start

To use this feature: 

  • Marketing automation must be included in your plan.
  • It is recommended to have some technical knowledge in programming or webhooks to use this feature.
  • The application to which you wish to send the webhook must support this technology.
  • You need to obtain the URL to which the webhook will send the data. This will be provided by the application receiving the webhook.
  • The webhook is sent to the specified URL via an HTTP POST request.
  • Find out from the third-party application whether an API key or authentication token is required in order for webhook requests to be accepted
  • Consult the API documentation of the receiving application to understand specific requirements, accepted parameters and expected responses.

Your application doesn't support webhooks? Tools like Zapier can also be used as webhook receivers. 

Zapier is an online automation platform that connects applications together and automates tasks without the need for programming skills. Zapier supports the reception of webhooks and can use them as triggers to launch actions in other applications.

List of data that can be sent by webhook

Here is a list of possible data that can be included in the webhook payload:

Data from your contacts

Contact details Information about the contact's consent Subscriber's personal statistics
  • Contact ID (subscriber identification number in your account)
  • First name
  • Last name
  • Email
  • Subscription date
  • Update date
  • Language
  • Genre
  • Country
  • Company
  • Date of birth
  • Zip code
  • Note
  • List of groups
  • Information from custom fields
  • Consent type
  • Source of consent
  • Date of consent
  • Consent expiration
  • Proof of consent
  • IP address of consent (if applicable)

 
  • Number of mailings
  • Number of opened mailings
  • Number of clicked mailings
  • Date of last mailing opened
  • Average open rate
  • Average click rate
  • Date of first mailing received
  • Subject of first mailing received
  • Date of last mailing opened
  • Subject of last mailing opened
  • Date of last mailing received
  • Subject of last mailing received

Additional information

You can add key-value pairs to webhook data. For example, the Key could correspond to the name of a field in the destination application. In the Value field, you could enter general, identical information for all your subscribers who will go through this step, or you could associate an external key with the placeholder of a field in your contacts.

To retrieve the placeholder of your account fields, click on the Get placeholders link under the Additional information section in the webhook configuration window.

Headers

It's also possible to add key-value pairs to your webhook headers. This can be useful for including API keys or authentication tokens to secure the requests sent, to identify the source (like an user agent) of the webhook, to specify the data format, or to convey other important information needed to process the webhook.

Please note that the header key cannot contain spaces or special characters.

How to

  1. Create a new scenario. Learn how >
  2. In your scenario path, press the + (Plus) icon to add an action at the appropriate point.

    Add a new action to the scenario
  3. Select the Send aWebhook action.

    Select the Send a Webhook action
  4. Enter the complete webhook destination URL (including the http or https protocol). This must be retrieved from the application receiving the webhook.

    Enter the webhook URL
  5. Press the Test button to the right of the URL field to check the URL's validity.

    Tester l'URL du webhook

    A webhook request will then be sent to the URL, containing test data such as this: 
    {"id":"test_evt_GppedVq2CWTWxUUxrm26bic0C",
    "event":"automation.webhook.send",
    "timestamp":"2024-05-28T12:56:40Z",
    "idClient":3,
    "data":{
      "type":"member",
      "id":54321,
      "email":"john.doe@example.org",
      "firstname":"John",
      "lastname":"Doe"
     }
    }

    Test result: 

    A green check mark indicates that the URL is valid and that the request has been accepted (code 200) by the destination application.

    Successful test

    If a red X is displayed, it means that an error has occurred and the connection could not be established. Click on the See error code link in the message for more details.

    Webhook URL test with connection failure
  6. In the Data to be transmitted section, select the contact information you wish to share with the destination application.

    Check the information to be transmitted in your webhook
  7. If required, enter a key-value pair to include additional data or headers in the webhook request.

    Additional information and header fields in the webhook configuration
  8. Click on the Add button to complete the configuration.

Once your scenario is ready, all you have to do is activate it. The webhook will be sent as soon as a contact reaches this step.
Learn how to activate a scenario >

Testing the webhook

To properly test the webhook configuration, you need to activate your scenario and use an email address that meets the criteria for entering your scenario. 

To prevent other contacts from entering this scenario, you can add a segmentation condition “Email > is equal to > [the email address used for testing]” after the scenario trigger, but make sure that the rest of the journey steps are in the “Yes” branch following the condition.

Once your tests are successful, you can duplicate and archive this scenario. Then all you have to do is activate the new copy.

Webhook statistics

To retrieve statistics on webhook requests sent, go to the Marketing automation menu and click on the name of the scenario (active or archived) to open it.

Then click on the number of passes above the SEND A WEBHOOK step to access its statistics. 

Number of times contacts have gone through this step

Here you can see: 

Detailed webhook statistics

  • number of unique contacts who have reached this step
  • number of webhook requests accepted
  • the number of pending webhook requests
  • the number of failed webhook requests (i.e. there will be no further attempts to send these requests)

 

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