In many cases, an integration’s performance hinges on its ability to sync data in real-time. Whenever this applies to an integration you’re looking to build, you can use webhooks.

We’ll help you determine when, exactly, it makes sense to use webhooks in your integrations by covering how they work and several use cases they’re well suited to support.

What is a webhook?

It’s a specific, event-driven method of sharing information between applications in real-time. 

Here’s how it generally works: Once a predefined event occurs in an application (the “source application”), it makes a POST request to a URL endpoint that was registered by another application (the “destination application"). 

The destination application then processes the information provided in the request and takes the appropriate set of follow-up actions within their system.

As a side note, webhooks shouldn’t be used interchangeably with polling. API polling refers to the process of making repeated requests to an API endpoint, so this method doesn’t allow you to retrieve data in real-time. 

Related: What is a webhook? Here’s what you need to know

Webhook examples

We’ll cover 5 examples, where the first 2 are internal use cases (i.e., integrations built between applications used inside an organization) and the last 3 are customer-facing (i.e., integrations built between your product and the applications your clients and prospects use).

Notify reps in chat when a new lead comes in

To help your reps reach out to sales qualified leads (SQLs) quickly and successfully, you should alert them whenever a lead becomes an SQL via the application they already work in.

To facilitate this, you can register a webhook in your marketing automation platform that listens for leads becoming SQLs. 

Whenever this happens, the application (e.g., Marketo) makes a POST request to the webhook endpoint registered by your business communications platform (e.g., Slack), allowing this app to then message the assigned rep key details on the lead.

Create an invoice when a deal is marked as “closed-won”

Once a rep closes a deal, finance needs to create an invoice quickly in order to deliver it as soon as possible.

With this in mind, you can register a webhook in your CRM (e.g., Salesforce) and listen for opportunities that get marked as “closed-won”. 

Once this happens for a given opportunity, the CRM makes a POST request to the webhook endpoint registered by the ERP system. The ERP system can then automatically create an account for the client that just closed and create their first invoice, using the information provided by the payload.

Related: API polling examples

Generate a ticket in engineering’s project management tool when a critical issue is detected

Certain product issues require an immediate response from your engineering team. Otherwise, the issue can cause meaningful harm to your business and, potentially, your customers.

To enable engineering to become aware of these issues and resolve them quickly, you can register a webhook in the platform you use to listen to potentially harmful events (e.g., Splunk). 

Once a harmful event occurs, the application makes a POST request to the webhook endpoint with details on the issue. Your engineering team’s ticketing tool (e.g., GitHub) can then receive this issue and create a ticket that includes the details from the response body.

Create target candidate profiles in your clients’ ATSs immediately

Imagine you offer a product that uses AI and machine learning to help clients identify target candidates for specific roles. 

To help clients add the candidates you recommend to their ATSs seamlessly and quickly—so that their recruiters can become aware and follow up with these candidates on time—clients can register a webhook in your product and listen for any candidates that are recommended. Once this happens, your product would make a POST request to the webhook endpoint with a variety of information on the client, leading the new candidate’s account to get created and fully-populated.

Add new employees from clients’ HRIS solutions as users in your product instantly

To help clients provision users quickly, easily, and accurately so that new hires can get onboarded to your product effectively, you can use webhooks as follows: A client registers a webhook endpoint from your product in their HRIS solution that listens for new employees. When this event occurs, the HRIS makes a POST request to the webhook endpoint with critical information on that employee—allowing the employee to get added to your product with all the information that’s needed to provision them successfully.

Upload signed contracts from your product to clients’ file storage systems automatically 

Say you provide an e-signature platform, like DocuSign. To help your clients automatically add their fully-executed contracts from your platform to their file storage system—where they can be securely stored and easily accessed—in real-time, your clients can use a webhook as follows: 

They register a webhook in your product that listens for newly-signed contracts. Once a contract is fully executed, the webhook makes a POST request to the client’s file storage system’s URL endpoint, allowing their system to retrieve the file and store it in the appropriate location.

Related: Examples of API integrations

Add compliance tasks from your product as tickets in customers’ project management platforms‍

Imagine that you offer a compliance automation platform that helps customers identify the specific tasks they need to complete in order to comply with specific frameworks, such as SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, ISO 27001, etc.

To help customers work on these tasks quickly, they can register a webhook in your product that listens for newly-created tasks.

Once a task is identified, your product makes a POST request to the associated customer’s ticketing tool’s URL endpoint, allowing this tool to create a ticket for the task with relevant context.

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Build customer-facing integrations that use webhooks with ease through Merge

Merge, a single API that lets you add hundreds of integrations to your product, supports 3rd-party webhooks to help your product receive data payloads in real-time. And, in the event that a 3rd-party platform doesn’t support webhooks, you can use Merge’s.

You can learn more about using webhooks with Merge by scheduling a demo with one of our integration experts.

Webhooks FAQ

In case you have any more questions on webhooks, we’ve addressed several frequently-asked ones below.

What is the difference between a webhook and an API?

While a webhook is often referred to as a “reverse API," it offers a fundamentally different method of communication between applications. 

A webhook provides “push-based communication," as a predefined event pushes information from one application to another; while an API provides “pull-based communication," as one application pulls, or polls for, specific information from another application.

How do webhooks compare to sockets?

They are both communication protocols that work between servers and clients but they function differently. More specifically, a webhook is used for one-way communication while a socket allows for bidirectional communication. 

What are the benefits of using webhooks?

Webhooks offer a variety of benefits. Here are just a few to keep in mind:

• Powers real-time workflows: By allowing data or documents to move between applications in real-time, you can kickstart the right set of workflows at the right time in a given application

• Offers reliable syncs: In most cases, an API provider will limit the number of requests you can make to their endpoints in a given timeframe. Once you reach this rate limit, you can’t make additional calls until the next window, which can compromise your business and others that depend on the integration. Since webhooks allow you to avoid making as many API calls, you’re less likely to reach specific rate limits and can sync data with fewer interruptions

• Unlocks cost savings: Polling API endpoints naturally requires making many API calls, a high percentage of which are unnecessary. Since many providers charge by the number of calls made in a given timeframe, these calls can come at a high cost to your business over time. Fortunately, webhooks let you avoid making as many API calls and, as a result, help you save a significant amount over time

• Supports a wide range of use cases: Many, if not most, applications accept webhooks, so you should be able to use them to support your specific syncing requirements

When should you use webhooks?

The answer largely depends on your integration requirements and the applications involved.

Generally speaking, if you need data to move between applications in, or near, real-time, you can register a webhook in the source application, and the source application offers the appropriate security measures (e.g., using HTTPS), you should go ahead and use a webhook.

If on the other hand, any of the criteria mentioned above isn’t true (you don’t need to sync data in, or near, real-time; the source application doesn’t provide adequate security measures; or the source application doesn’t allow you to register a webhook), you likely can't and/or shouldn't use a webhook.

What are some webhook development and management tools?

You can use a wide range of tools to help you test and manage webhooks. 

Here are just a few options:

• Postman: The API development tool lets you test any webhook and shares logs that can help you analyze the webhook’s requests and detect issues over time
  

• RequestBin: It also lets you test webhooks by providing a URL for requests. Once the URL endpoint receives a request, you can debug and troubleshoot any issues, if necessary
  

• Merge: Using the unified API solution, you can access fully-searchable logs of all your webhooks’ requests, receive automated alerts for specific issues (along with the steps to remediate them), and review your webhooks’ activities at a high level

What are some best practices for building and maintaining webhooks?

There are generally a few best practices worth following:

• Document each webhook integration. Having up-to-date, centralized documentation can help your engineers troubleshoot issues more easily and prevent knowledge drains when the engineers who built and/or maintained certain webhooks leave
  
  
• Adopt a scoring framework to help prioritize your top webhook implementations. Your team likely only has bandwidth to implement a certain number of webhooks over a given length of time. With this in mind, you should align on a scoring methodology for each potential webhook that’d include the resources needed to implement it, the potential benefits that’d be realized, and more. Once you’ve scored all of your potential webhooks, you can pinpoint the most lucrative opportunities

• ‍Integrate your monitoring tool with your business communications platform to streamline incident management across your webhooks. Through the connection, you can build a flow where once an issue is detected in your monitoring tool for any webhook, an automated notification gets delivered in your business comms platform. The notification can get sent to a specific channel that includes all of the relevant stakeholders for troubleshooting and addressing these issues