Why this matters
A prospect fills in the contact form on your website. The message lands in an inbox someone checks twice a day, and gets copied by hand into a spreadsheet, if anyone remembers. Every automation that fixes this starts the same way: "when someone fills in the form".
The thing that makes that moment work is called a webhook. The word sounds technical, so people either avoid automations or set them up by copying steps they do not understand, and then cannot tell why a column comes out blank.
In this module you see a webhook with your own eyes. No code: you point a website form at a free tester, send a message, and read exactly what arrives. After that, the word will not sound technical again.
What you’ll build
You copy a free listening address from Webhook.site, paste it into the contact form settings of a small business website (Riverbend Plumbing, made up), save it and send a test. The test arrives in the tester right away.
Then you play the customer, send a real message, and read what lands: the name, email, phone and message, each with its own label. Last, you remove the test address, because anyone with a tester link can see what is sent to it.
What you need
- Nothing to start the practiceWebhook.site and the website settings are practice copies. Nothing is sent anywhere.
- Webhook.site, to see it for realOpen webhook.site. No account is needed: your unique URL is ready on the page. The free inbox holds up to 50 requests.
- A form tool you can changeYour website builder or form tool. The webhook setting is usually under Integrations, Webhooks, Connections or the form’s Settings.
- What arrives: the dataA short list of labels and values: "form", "name", "email", "phone" and "message". The download below is the exact message from the lesson, so you know what to look for.
Concepts
3 ideas you’ll use in the practice.
A webhook is a doorbell with a note attached
Instead of you checking the form tool every few minutes, the form tool rings the moment a message comes in and hands over the details. The doorbell is a web address (a URL). The note is the data.
The data comes with labels
What arrives is a list of labels and values, like "name": "Maria Lopez" and "phone": "555-0142". This format is called JSON. You never have to write it.
When you connect an automation tool, those labels are what you pick from to fill a spreadsheet row, an email or a text. That is why it pays to look at them first: a column comes out blank when the field is called "phone_number" and you picked "phone".
Test with a tester, then swap in a tool you control
A tester shows you exactly what an app sends before you build anything on top of it. But anyone with a tester link can see what arrives, so send test data only, and remove the test address before real customers use the form.
For real work, paste a webhook address from Zapier, Make or n8n into the same box. Then every message can become a sheet row or an alert to your team.
Practice
Do every step yourself in a practice copy of the real tool. It checks your work, and “Do it for me” finishes any step you get stuck on.
Do it for real
Now repeat it in your own account. Tick each step as you go.
Downloads
- Sample webhook message (.json)The customer message that arrives in the lesson. Open it in any text editor to see the labels and values.
Quick check
3 questions to check you’ve got it.
1. What is a webhook?
- A web address an app sends details to the moment something happens
- A kind of spreadsheet
- A password for your website
Show the answer
A web address an app sends details to the moment something happens. It is an address that waits. The app posts the details there right away.
2. Why look at the data in a tester before you build an automation?
- To see the exact labels the app sends, so nothing comes out blank later
- Testers make the form faster
- Automations need a tester to run
Show the answer
To see the exact labels the app sends, so nothing comes out blank later. The labels are what you map to sheet columns or email fields. Knowing them first saves guessing.
3. Why remove the test URL at the end?
- It costs money
- Anyone with a tester link can see what arrives there
- Forms only allow one webhook
Show the answer
Anyone with a tester link can see what arrives there. Public testers are for test data. Real customer details belong in a tool you control.
You reached the end of AI at Work: Start Here
That completes AI at Work: Start Here. You can use AI safely, write a good prompt and tell the tools apart. Next, try Better Prompts for answers you can send as they are, or Intro to AI Automation to build an AI agent and a web form that answers leads on its own.
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