Independent monitoring for Braze Canvas and action-based emails
Canvas makes it easy to build multi-step journeys with delays, audience splits and conditional logic. Each of those components can also break quietly. Braze reports the Canvas as active and the step as sent. The customer's inbox is empty.
Telltide confirms what actually arrived, step by step, from the inbox.
The flows that matter
Braze sends our customers monitor
Braze's email surface stretches across Canvas journeys, action-based campaigns, scheduled sends and transactional REST API calls. Each surface has its own quiet failure modes.
Canvas journeys
The most common monitored surface. Canvas steps fire on entry events, delays, audience splits and conditional branching. A property rename or a delay node misconfiguration can quietly drop users out of the path. The Canvas shows as active. The step never fires.
Action-based campaigns
Triggered on custom events like purchase completed, cart abandoned, subscription upgraded. When the event schema changes, when the trigger property is renamed, or when the event stops firing, the campaign sits idle. Braze logs nothing. The customer waits.
Transactional REST API sends
Order confirmations, password resets, booking receipts. Often wired up by an engineering team that does not own the Braze workspace day to day. When the API integration breaks, Braze returns an error code to the caller. If nobody is watching that log, the customer sees nothing.
Scheduled campaigns
Weekly digests, monthly summaries, seasonal promotions. Scheduled against a segment that can drift. If the segment criteria change and the audience drops to zero, the campaign fires to nobody. The send log shows zero recipients. No alert fires.
Re-engagement Canvas paths
Long-cycle journeys enrolled on inactivity windows. The entry criteria can be edited with the best of intentions, and a single boolean swap can quietly disqualify whole cohorts of users.
Intelligent Timing sends
Canvas steps configured to send at the user's optimal time. When the optimal time calculation changes, when the user's timezone data is missing, or when the delay window passes without a valid time, the step skips silently.
How it goes wrong
Common Canvas silent-failure patterns
Braze rarely throws errors when a Canvas step simply does not fire. These are the failure modes we see most often in live Canvases.
Delay node miscalculation skips the step
A Canvas delay step is configured to wait for a relative time offset. The calculation references a custom attribute that is null for a subset of users. Those users skip the delay and advance immediately to the next step, which has its own entry condition that now fails. The entire cohort drops out of the Canvas silently.
Audience split logic reverses after edit
A Canvas audience split is built on a custom event property. An engineer renames the property in the event schema. The Canvas is updated to reference the new property name, but the boolean logic is accidentally reversed. Half the audience now receives the variant intended for the other half. The Canvas reports full sends on both paths.
Update User step overwrites the trigger property
A Canvas step updates a user attribute. The next step in the Canvas is triggered on that same attribute equalling a specific value. The Update User step writes a different value than expected. The trigger condition never evaluates true. The step sits idle. Braze logs the update as successful and the trigger as not met.
Exception event exits users before the email step
A Canvas exception event is added to remove users on a specific action. The event criteria are slightly broader than intended. Users get ejected from the Canvas before the email step fires. The Canvas is technically working as configured. The customer never sees the email.
Liquid template references missing user attribute
A Canvas email step includes a Liquid template that references a custom user attribute. The attribute is deprecated and removed from the user schema. The template renders with a blank value. Braze logs the send as delivered. The email arrives with a broken personalisation block.
In-app message step blocks Canvas progression
A Canvas includes an in-app message step before an email step. The in-app message is set to wait for user interaction before advancing. The user never sees the in-app message because they are on a platform the message does not support. The Canvas progression halts. The email never fires.
Canvas observability vs native analytics
What Braze's dashboards show, and what they miss
Braze's Canvas analytics are detailed. They show you every step, every conversion, every exit. What they cannot show you is whether the email that Braze logged as delivered actually arrived at the inbox in the shape you intended.
Braze reports delivery, not arrival
When Braze logs an email as delivered, it means the receiving mail server accepted the message. It does not mean the message reached the inbox. It does not mean the message was not filtered to spam. It does not mean the message rendered correctly. Inbox-side monitoring confirms all three.
Canvas performance metrics aggregate over time
Canvas analytics show you conversion rates, open rates, click rates. They do not show you the individual email that failed to arrive for a single user. If a Canvas step fires to a thousand users and one user never receives it, the aggregate metrics look healthy. That one user is your highest-value customer.
Exception events and exits are logged, not alerted
When a user exits a Canvas early, Braze logs the exit reason. It does not alert you that the exit happened. If the exit was caused by a misconfigured exception event, you will not know until you actively review the Canvas exit logs. Inbox-side monitoring alerts you within 15 minutes when an expected send does not arrive.
Liquid errors render silently
When a Liquid template references a missing user attribute, Braze renders the template with a blank value. The email is logged as delivered. The customer receives an email with a broken merge tag. Braze does not flag this as an error. Inbox-side monitoring compares the arrived email against a reference template and alerts on structural deviation.
How Telltide fits
A inbox-side monitor for every Canvas step
Telltide does not sit inside Braze. It runs alongside, watching the inbox for the sends Braze says it made.
Add a monitored user to your Braze segment
Telltide gives you a unique inbox address per monitor. You create a user profile with that address in Braze, give it the relevant custom attributes or event history, and let it enter the Canvas naturally at the entry step.
Set the expected arrival window
For a transactional REST API send, that might be five minutes. For a Canvas step with a 24-hour delay, that arrival window is 24 hours plus a buffer. For an Intelligent Timing step, you set a wider window to account for send-time optimisation. Per monitor.
Get alerted when the inbox disagrees with Braze
If the email does not arrive in the window, an alert fires. If the content is corrupt against the reference template, an alert fires. If the email arrives twice, an alert fires. The Braze dashboard might still report the Canvas step as healthy. The alert tells you what is actually arriving at the inbox.
Monitoring specific Canvas components
Delay nodes, audience splits and update-user steps
Each Canvas component has its own monitoring considerations. Here is how to set up a Telltide monitor for the components that break most often.
Set the arrival window to match the delay duration
If a Canvas step includes a 48-hour delay, set the Telltide monitor's expected arrival window to 48 hours plus a 30-minute buffer. The monitor will alert if the email arrives too early, which indicates the delay was skipped, or too late, which indicates the step fired but was delayed further downstream.
Monitor each variant path separately
If a Canvas splits users into two audience paths based on a custom attribute, create two Telltide monitors. Give each monitor a unique user profile with the attribute value that qualifies it for one path. Watch both paths independently. If one path stops firing, you will know immediately which variant is broken.
Watch the step after the update
If a Canvas includes an Update User step that writes a custom attribute, and the next step is triggered on that attribute, monitor the email step that follows the trigger. If the Update User step writes the wrong value, the trigger will not fire, and the monitor will alert on the missing email.
Trigger the entry event from a test harness
For a Canvas that enters users on a custom event like purchase completed, fire the event from a test script or a Postman collection on a cadence. The Telltide user profile receives the event, enters the Canvas, and the monitor confirms the first step fires. If the event schema changes and the Canvas stops entering users, the monitor will catch it.
Pair it with
Concepts and use cases worth reading
The reading below covers the underlying concepts and the practical applications for Canvas monitoring.
- Silent send: the failure mode every Canvas needs to be watched for.
- Monitor by ESP: guides for other platforms if you send from multiple systems.
- How monitoring approaches compare: where native analytics end and where independent monitoring picks up.
FAQ
Common questions about monitoring Braze
Doesn't Braze's analytics show me whether Canvas emails went out?
Braze reports on what its send infrastructure attempted and what it logged as delivered. It cannot confirm what arrived at a real inbox, when, or in what condition. Inbox-side monitoring closes that gap by watching the inbox itself.
What Braze sends can I monitor?
Canvas journeys, action-based campaigns, scheduled campaigns, transactional emails sent via the REST API, and event-triggered sends. Anywhere Braze dispatches an email, Telltide can confirm whether it arrived.
Do I need to grant Braze API access or install a connector?
No. Telltide is independent of your Braze workspace. You add a Telltide monitoring email as a user profile in the relevant segment or Canvas audience. We never log into your Braze account.
How do I monitor a Canvas with delay steps?
Create a user profile for the Telltide monitoring address. Enter it into the Canvas at the entry step. Set the expected arrival window in Telltide to match the delay node duration. The monitor confirms each subsequent Canvas step fires as configured.
Can I monitor multiple Canvas variants?
Yes. Each variant gets its own Telltide monitor with a unique inbox address. You create a separate user profile for each variant path and track them independently.
Start watching your Braze Canvases
One monitor free. Paid plans from $49 USD per month. Set up takes about two minutes.