Connect Zapier

Zapier can send contacts to TextScaleHQ from any of its apps: a form, a spreadsheet, an online store, a CRM. There’s nothing to install. Zapier’s own Webhooks by Zapier step posts each contact to your business’s webhook.

This guide uses a Google Sheet, so every new row becomes a contact. The webhook step is the same whatever starts your Zap.

Before you start#

• Have the business’s Webhook URL, Business ID and Secret open in another tab: Integrations › your business › Setup. See Your webhook.
• Webhooks by Zapier is part of Zapier’s paid plans (Professional and up). Zapier says so when you add it.
• Only send people who agreed to get texts from the business. Your sheet or form needs a phone number for each person, and a way to know they agreed.

The Integrations page has the same steps in short: under Connect a tool, click Zapier.

1. Make a Zap#

In Zapier, create a Zap. Skip Copilot and build the two steps yourself: a Trigger and an Action.

2. The trigger: a new row#

Click Trigger, pick Google Sheets, and for Trigger event pick New Spreadsheet Row. Choose your Google account, then Continue.

On Configure, pick the spreadsheet and the worksheet with your contacts:

The sheet needs a header row, with a column for each thing you send, like phone, first_name and email. Click Test so Zapier pulls in a real row: you’ll pick its columns in the next step.

3. The action: Custom Request#

Click Action, pick Webhooks by Zapier, and for Action event pick Custom Request. Then, on Configure:

In Data, type the JSON, then put the sheet’s columns where the values go: click inside the quotes and use the + (insert data) button to pick a column from step 1.

{
  "business_id": 1,
  "phone": "{phone}",
  "first_name": "{first_name}",
  "email": "{email}",
  "consent": 1,
  "consent_source": "google sheet",
  "source": "zapier"
}

Use your own Business ID. The {phone}, {first_name} and {email} parts are where the sheet’s columns go:

• Keep the quotes around each column you insert. Zapier doesn’t add them, and without them the JSON is broken and the request is refused (400).
• Type "consent": 1 yourself, as long as everyone in the sheet agreed to texts. If the sheet has a consent column, add a Filter step before this one so only people who agreed go on.
• Phone numbers: US and Canadian numbers work with or without the +1, so 14456751000 or (445) 675-1000 are fine. Numbers from other countries need the + and country code, like +447700900123.
• To tag these contacts, add "tags": ["Online order"], or set tags for every contact on the webhook’s Setup tab.

4. The headers#

Further down the same step, under Headers, add two:

Set Return Raw Response to Yes, so Zapier shows our answer when something is turned away.

5. Test and publish#

Click Continue, then Test step. Zapier sends the row it pulled in. An answer of 200 with "code": "created" means the contact is in: it shows under Integrations › Activity a few seconds later, with zapier as its source.

If the test says something else, the number tells you where to look:

Activity has every request with what happened and how to fix it. See Why a contact is turned away. When the test looks right, click Publish.