Understanding Segment’s deliverability statistics is pivotal due to potential discrepancies between platforms like Braze or Amplitude and the information visible in your PBJ admin portal. For instance, a user might be categorised as a non-VIP in Braze, while PBJ clearly identifies them as a VIP. This article aims to detail the importance of Segment’s deliverability data in reconciling such disparities between systems.
Explanation
To understand why this inaccuracy can happen we first need to understand that Segment can be processing 230,000 events inbound and 280,000 per second at its peak. From this 92.6% of the events are delivered on the first attempt.
Segment relies on HTTP responses to interpret both successes and potential errors in data delivery. Employing a robust strategy, Segment initiates retries over a 4-hour period utilising exponential backoff. This method incrementally enhances the success rate, ultimately elevating it to 93.9% after ten attempts.
100% delivery on the first attempt over the internet cannot be guaranteed. Transient network errors, unexpected server errors, and rate limiting all present challenges that add up to significant problems at scale. On top of that, encryption, authentication, and data validation add another layer of challenges for perfect machine-to-machine delivery.
Consequently, retries stand as the primary strategy to enhance delivery rates. Yet, the efficacy of this strategy is inherently linked to the response codes received from the destination service, underscoring the critical role played by these codes in optimizing data transmission accuracy.