CHALLENGE

Millions of unique codes delivered by SMS with no margin for error

CodeBroker is a mobile engagement platform that helps businesses drive digital customer interactions through SMS, email, mobile app, and mobile wallet. One of their core capabilities is delivering serialized coupons via SMS. 

When a brand runs a mobile coupon campaign through CodeBroker, every barcode is unique. A million coupons sent via SMS means a million unique SMS messages, a million distinct coupon IDs, each tracked through delivery, redemption, and fraud prevention. If a brand authorizes 100,000 coupons, the system must deliver exactly 100,000, not more or less. 

This level of precision requires ACID-compliant transactions and metered billing. Every message is counted against a running balance in real time, and the count has to be exact even at peak load. A single extra coupon delivered could mean a brand paying for a redemption they didn’t authorize. A single missed coupon could mean a customer arriving at a store with an offer that doesn’t work. Most messaging platforms count messages after the fact and accept some margin of error. For CodeBroker, that margin was unacceptable. 

CodeBroker needed a messaging infrastructure partner that could match its own platform’s real-time demands. Reliability at scale was non-negotiable, and during the US holiday season when multiple brands launched campaigns simultaneously, delays were not an option.

Built for the demands of high-volume, real-time systems

CodeBroker chose Infobip for a combination of reliability, throughput, and API design that reflected a deep understanding of real-time systems. Many aggregators revealed their limitations through small but telling design flaws: 

• unique identifiers that would roll over at a billion 
• timeout handling that showed little understanding of carrier-grade messaging 
• architectures that couldn’t sustain peak throughput 

Infobip’s API was built by engineers who understood high-volume, real-time messaging. Identifiers were properly scoped, timeout behavior was reliable, and the system handled sustained throughput without degradation. 

That reliability proved itself during peak seasons. When multiple CodeBroker customers ran campaigns simultaneously during the Thanksgiving-to-Christmas holiday period, the messaging layer handled the load without becoming a bottleneck. CodeBroker could manage capacity on their side, confident the infrastructure would deliver. 

Consistent throughput on every campaign

The partnership delivered consistent results over years of high-volume operation: 

• 40-50 million SMS messages processed per month at peak 
• 30-50% redemption rates for on-demand SMS coupons delivered through the Codebroker platform

For CodeBroker, the reliability of the messaging infrastructure translated into predictable operations. They could allocate capacity, manage customer expectations, and run campaigns without worrying about whether the SMS layer would hold up. 

The quality of the API also reduced integration and maintenance overhead. CodeBroker’s development team could build on a foundation that behaved predictably, without workarounds for design quirks common in other aggregators. This was particularly valuable given the complexity of CodeBroker’s metered billing system and its reliance on ACID-compliant database transaction.