The moment it happens

Get alerts for bounced and failed Bird messages

Bounces, spam complaints and failed SMS or WhatsApp sends are posted to Slack with the recipient and reason.

Runs: The moment it happens
Apps: Bird
AI: Not needed
Access: read

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: when a Bird email bounces or gets a spam complaint, or an SMS or WhatsApp message fails, post the recipient, channel and reason to #messaging-alerts in Slack.

Paste it into your assistant. It tells you what it will send or change before it runs live.

Add to ChatGPT Add to Claude

First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

Teams that send SMS and WhatsApp messages through Bird, such as appointment reminders, order updates or one-time codes, often learn about failures from customers. A number is no longer in service, a WhatsApp template is rejected or a carrier blocks a batch, and the status sits quietly in message logs. Meanwhile, patients miss appointments and shoppers never get their delivery code.

Bird sends an event to ClickRuntime as soon as a message status changes. The workflow keeps only the failures, such as bounced or undelivered messages, and posts each one to your channel with the recipient and the reason. If you want, failure counts are kept in state so a daily rollup can summarize how many failed overall.

Support and messaging operations teams use it to act on failed sends while they can still be fixed.

What you get out of it

Failed reminders get a second try
When an appointment reminder bounces, someone can call the patient or send an email that same hour. A missed appointment avoided is revenue kept. Reaching the person by another channel the same day often saves the appointment entirely, and it costs a phone call.
Bad numbers get cleaned from your list
Repeated failures to the same recipient point to a number that no longer works. Removing it keeps future sends cheaper and your sender reputation healthier. Lists full of dead numbers waste send volume and distort delivery rates.
Template and carrier problems appear fast
A burst of failures with the same reason signals a rejected WhatsApp template or a blocked route. Seeing it in minutes limits how many customers are affected. Marketing can fix the template or switch route before the rest of the campaign goes out.
Support sees what the customer sees
When a customer complains they got no message, the agent can search the channel and find the failure and its cause. The answer is immediate and credible. Nobody needs to open Bird and filter the logs to answer a basic question from a worried customer.
A record for delivery disputes
Failure posts with timestamps document that a message was attempted and why it failed. That helps when a customer or regulator asks whether you notified them. That documentation can be decisive when a dispute arrives weeks later.

How it works

What happens, step by step

Each time Bird reports a delivery event, it tells ClickRuntime straight away.
The automation ignores successful sends and keeps bounces, spam complaints and failed SMS or WhatsApp messages.
Each failure is posted to #messaging-alerts with the recipient, the channel and the reason.

Before it runs live

Connect Bird
Paste your automation's link into the other app's webhook settings

What you get

RunsThe moment it happens

Get alerts for bounced and failed Bird messagesjust nowSucceeded

Slack · #messaging-alerts:x: Bird failed: +447700900654 Channel: sms Reason: Unknown subscriber

Build your own

Need it to work differently?

This template is a starting point. Copy the prompt and change it, or describe a different automation from scratch, with your own conditions, more apps or an AI step. Your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.

Your own rules
Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.
Any number of apps
One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.
AI where it helps
Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.
On a schedule or on each event
Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.

Changes you can ask for

Act only on the items that match your own rules, and skip the rest
Add an AI step, for example to summarize, sort or draft a reply
Add another app, for example also send it to Slack
Combine it with other Bird steps into one automation

Under the hood

The code that runs this automation

This is the Python script that runs each time the automation starts. Your AI assistant writes it for you when you send the prompt, and you allow each step in your assistant. To change how the automation works, describe the change to your assistant and it updates the script for you. For every function it can use, see the script reference.

bounce_and_delivery_failure_alerts.pyexample

from clickruntime import on_event, notify

@on_event
def handle(event):
    body = event.json or {}
    msg = body.get("payload", {})
    status = msg.get("status")
    if status not in ("failed", "rejected", "bounced", "complained"):
        return {"skipped": status}
    receiver = msg.get("receiver", {}).get("contacts", [{}])[0].get("identifierValue", "unknown")
    reason = msg.get("reason") or msg.get("failure", {}).get("description") or status
    notify.slack(f":x: Bird {status}: {receiver}\nChannel: {msg.get('channelId', body.get('service'))}\nReason: {reason}",
                 channel="#messaging-alerts")
    return {"posted": True}

FAQ

Common questions

Which message statuses count as a failure?

Anything Bird reports as not delivered, such as bounced or failed statuses. The filter step decides which to keep, so successes and in-progress states are dropped. Check the statuses your Bird channel emits and tell your AI assistant which to include.

Can I get one summary a day instead of every failure?

Yes. The optional rollup stores failures as they arrive and sends a single daily summary. You can also keep instant alerts only for specific reasons, such as invalid numbers, and roll up the rest. The daily version is easier to read when volume is high.

Does it work for both SMS and WhatsApp?

Yes, because Bird sends status events for the channels you have connected to its webhook. The alert can include the channel so you can tell an SMS failure from a WhatsApp one at a glance.

What permissions does it need?

read. Nothing else in your accounts is used.

Does it need AI?

No. It runs without AI, so it doesn't use your plan's AI allowance.

How many runs does it use?

One run for each event the app sends.

Can I change how it works?

Yes. Describe the change to your AI assistant, for example a different schedule, channel or filter. It updates the automation, tests it and tells you what changed.

The moment it happens