SMS Delivery Observability Checklist for Product Teams
The minimum telemetry every SMS product needs to debug failed deliveries and improve conversion.
Most delivery issues are not caused by one outage. They come from weak visibility across several normal but noisy systems.
Minimum event model
Capture and store these events with a shared message id:
- API accepted
- provider queued
- provider failed
- carrier delivered
- carrier undeliverable
- user action outcome
This event chain lets you answer whether a campaign failed at submission, routing, delivery, or conversion.
Dashboard the right ratios
Avoid absolute counts as your primary signal. Start with:
- accepted-to-delivered ratio
- delivered-to-action ratio
- undeliverable by carrier and country
- p95 end-to-end latency
Ratios surface regressions early, even when volume changes.
Add operational guardrails
Set alerts for:
- sudden jumps in undeliverable codes
- callback delay spikes
- country-level latency drift
Each alert should map to a runbook action with a clear owner.
Close the loop with product
Observability is useful only when product workflows adapt to failures. If delivery confidence drops, update resend UX, extend OTP expiry windows carefully, and communicate expectations to users in real time.