Developing a Financial Advisor Messaging and Campaign Management Platform

SMS and MMS messaging built for financial advisors

We created a financial advisor messaging tool that helps advisors better communicate with their clients via SMS/MMS. The platform provided all of the following features: one-on-one messaging, bulk campaigns, automated opt-in workflows, analytics tracking, and multi-provider messaging integrations from a centralized system.

The aim was to have a more cohesive, regulatory-compliant messaging system tailored for financial services teams. Advisors were looking for visibility into the campaign performance, client engagement, and communication history, as well as to ensure regulatory compliance and delivery of reliable messages.

Unifying messaging providers with incompatible APIs

Adding multiple messaging service providers with different APIs, behaviors, and webhook structures was one of the more difficult things we had to do. Message data was required to be synchronized between providers, but without creating inconsistencies or multiple records.

Another challenge was the real-time communication, as advisors wanted IM updates to be delivered in real time for multiple users and devices. There may be delays or synchronization issues that impact the correctness of conversations and monitoring.

It was also complex to calculate the metrics. The platform must keep track of response rates, communication grouping, link clicks, and appointments booked within the platform, and be able to process high volumes of messaging on a timely basis

In addition to scaling up message queues, deliverability rate, and throttling were added challenges with bulk campaigns. Handling performance issues for GraphQL queries, compliance with large media attachments, and ensuring that only one provider doesn't send duplicate messages were also important aspects, which required backend optimization.

How we built it: one workflow layer over every provider

We created the Frontend and Backend Platform to enable messaging workflows, campaign management, and real-time tracking for financial advisory teams, all at scale.

We extended the backend with a provider abstraction layer, a uniform message model, and an adapter-based architecture for both NorthText, IonLake, and Bandwidth integrations. This enabled system standardization of providers' actions and also made future messaging integration easier.

To keep people informed, we used GraphQL subscriptions and WebSocket-based event triggers to ensure message activity was synced across users and devices in real time. Asynchronous processing capabilities were added to Sidekiq in order to process bulk campaigns, send emails, handle media, and sync providers.

To enhance system responsiveness during high-volume communication activity, phone number lookups, temporary messaging information, and token management were implemented with Redis caching. We also implemented batch-loader optimizations for the GraphQL resolvers to minimize the N+1 query problems and make the queries more efficient.

We created daily batch processing pipelines for metrics calculation, communication grouping, and engagement tracking, to help report more accurately. Click-tracking integrations have also been introduced to track clicks and campaign performance.

It featured out-of-the-box workflow templates for optical choice and keywords that can be customized by the business, along with workflows that can be customized with rules at the team level. To prevent duplicates in messages, the external provider ID tracking and validation logic was used.

What we shipped: campaigns, tracking, and client engagement

The platform enhanced financial advisory teams' communication, campaign, and client engagement across several communications providers. Instead of having to use disjointed tools and manual processes, advisors would be able to follow conversations, automate opt-in workflows, monitor and track campaign performance, and manage compliance requirements from a more organized system.

During multi-provider testing, the provider abstraction layer eliminated an estimated 25-35% of messaging inconsistencies between integrations. Message delivery delays were also reduced, with delays of 4-6 seconds before the message arrived, down to under 2 seconds for the majority of active conversations, making communication faster.

GraphQL batch-loading optimizations and Redis caching also saved about 30-40% of the unnecessary load to the backends, leading to increased responsiveness for dashboards when many messages were sent.

Advisory teams who had recurring campaigns saw a reduction in compliance handling work by almost 35-45%. Link tracking and engagement reporting offered quick insights into response activity, enabling companies to keep track of their campaign performance and client engagement more effectively.

The outcome: advisor communication from one dashboard

Financial advisory teams had the ability to easily handle client communication, campaign management, and tracking of engagements in a centralized platform that ensures growth and compliance. Advisors had more visibility of messaging activity, campaign performance, and client interactions without any disconnecting messaging tools being used.

The result was workflow automation, swift data synchronization, and a more streamlined messaging system that increased operational efficiency. The platform was also more scalable regarding compliance and provider abstraction needs.

This case study showcases Coding Crafts' knowledge and experience in providing real-time communication platforms that offer scalable backend systems, messaging infrastructure, analytics processing, integration with messaging providers, and compliance-focused workflows for high-volume business use cases.