Ninety-eight percent of the traffic: DailyStory runs conversational SMS on Telnyx

Rob Howard wanted one telecommunications platform under his marketing automation product, and he wanted to build against it as deeply as possible. "We really wanted to make the decision to pick one telecommunications platform for our SMS, our conversational messaging, and go really deep and build a native integration," said Howard, Founder and CEO of DailyStory. Today 98 percent of DailyStory's SMS traffic runs through Telnyx.

From Twilio to a platform integration

DailyStory launched on Twilio. Howard described that period plainly: expensive, complicated, and hard to reach when something broke. "We could rarely get a hold of anyone if there was a support issue," he said. "The bigger you are, the more attention you're going to get."

So the team went to market. They re-evaluated Twilio, evaluated Plivo, and took a recommendation to look at Telnyx. "What really got us plugged in pretty quickly with Telnyx was the API," Howard said. "You guys had a great API that allowed us to rapidly build out the integration we needed for SMS."

DailyStory is a .NET shop, and Howard said the team deliberately skipped the pre-built packages. "That's not really our philosophy. We wanted to go as bare metal as possible. So we ended up natively connecting into all of your REST endpoints, webhooks, everything else, and being able to go in and optimize that for our specific use cases."

The reason was volume that swings without warning. "We could be, right now, not sending any messages, and then ten minutes from now I need to send 20, 30,000 messages," he said. "We really wanted to go deep into the API and go beyond a simple app integration and go more for a platform integration." The build took two or three months, and it is why Howard calls the implementation a project rather than a switch.

Conversations that generate revenue

DailyStory is an email and SMS marketing automation platform. "We help our customers create conversations with their customers to generate revenue or drive behaviors that they're looking for," Howard said. Nonprofits use the Telnyx Messaging API through DailyStory for notifications, reminders, updates, and follow-ups. E-commerce brands use the same channels for checkout notifications, reminders, and offers, from Labor Day specials to whatever the week's deal happens to be.

The customer base runs from a 25-person list to 1.5 million contacts on a single account. "We're kind of all over the map as far as customer size," Howard said. The most recognizable name on the platform right now is pickleball.com, which runs all of its customer communication through DailyStory.

The 10DLC year

Asked where Telnyx had made the biggest difference, Howard pointed to 10DLC, the carrier registration regime for application-to-person messaging that arrived about two and a half years ago and disrupted every business with revenue tied to SMS.

"That was really disruptive for our business, as I'm sure it was for a lot of other customers," he said. "You guys really stepped up and helped us navigate the path through that. And that's made me more loyal to you all than anyone else, because that was a challenging time for our business." DailyStory watched some of that revenue fall away as 10DLC introduced complexity for its customers, and the Telnyx team stayed on the line through it.

The relationship has kept that shape since. "We're constantly talking with you all," he said. "We feel like we've got a great relationship with you as a company, helping us navigate some of the difficulties with SMS. That's been super positive for us."

He has also noticed the newer Telnyx email capabilities, and said email is the next channel DailyStory may consider moving over.

Why Howard recommends Telnyx

"Customer support," Howard said. "You guys are willing to get on the phone, get on Zooms, follow up on email. That's a game changer. We get attention from you all that we could never get from name another platform. That's just very rare."

It is also the reason he would consider moving email. "Getting support from our current platform partners can be challenging. They're great when they show up, but getting their attention can be difficult. I also just am a big believer that in today's day and age with technology, customer support is a huge differentiator. So you guys got that figured out, obviously."