Chapter 2

Test & Optimize

Man in a beanie and glasses looks surprised at his phone in front of a Twilio-themed graphic with bold text.
Man in a beanie and glasses looks surprised at his phone in front of a Twilio-themed graphic with bold text.

Step 5: Test Your Integration

Before going live, ensure your messaging integration works from end to end.

 

Twilio Advantage: Twilio provides test credentials, message logs, and the Twilio Debugger to help you validate and troubleshoot efficiently.

Send a Test Message

client.messages.create({
  from: 'TWILIO_NUMBER',
  to: '+1234567890',
  body: 'Test message from Twilio!'
});

Step 6: Enable Delivery Receipts (DLRs)

Add a statusCallback URL to receive real-time delivery updates.

  • statusCallback: 'https://yourdomain.com/sms-status'

 

Twilio Advantage: Message-level DLRs with real-time status, error codes, timestamps, and carrier insights.

Webhook payload:

{
  "MessageSid": "SMXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX",
  "MessageStatus": "delivered"
}

Step 7: Gain Visibility with Messaging Insights

Use Messaging Insights to continuously monitor and improve SMS performance. Twilio gives you the visibility you need to fix issues quickly.

Woman with glasses and headphones, using a smartphone in a modern office, leaning against a shelf.
Woman with glasses and headphones, using a smartphone in a modern office, leaning against a shelf.

Insights help you:

  • Detect deliverability issues by carrier, country, or campaign

  • Identify filtering patterns, error trends, and slowdowns

  • Measure retry rates, latencies, and throughput over time

  • Track opt-out volume and keyword engagement

Customer Deliverability Engine

View your Deliverability Score for an easy-to-understand overview of your messaging health to:

  • Quickly determine if your performance is on track compared to messaging industry benchmarks

  • Prioritize where to take action across five subscores (Sent Rate, Compliance, Fraud, Latency, Engagement) and the issues most impacting your traffic (Top Score Contributors)

  • View personalized recommendations, including the potential impact of improvements and relevant Twilio products that can enhance your traffic

  • Set actionable goals, track performance over time, and more easily justify resource investments

Get Proactive with Intelligent Alerts

Twilio can now alert you automatically if your SMS traffic shows signs of trouble using Intelligent Alerts.

  • Get notified of increased failure rates, filtering spikes, or low conversions

  • Set thresholds on key metrics (e.g., DLR rates, error codes)

  • Alerts delivered via webhook, email, or configured dashboards

Twilio Advantage: With Intelligent Alerts stay one step ahead of issues without needing to build your own alerting system.

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