datadog

How to Optimize Synthetic Monitoring for UX, Coverage, and Cost

Nicolas Narbais

05 May 2025 — 4 min read

What Are Synthetic Tests and Why Do They Matter?

Synthetic monitoring is a proactive testing method that simulates user interactions with your website or APIs. These tests help you consistently assess key user experience (UX) elements and are frequently used to define and track Service Level Objectives (SLOs) and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

By running tests from multiple global locations and simulating different browsers and devices, synthetic tests help you detect performance issues before they impact users. Platforms like Datadog provide robust frameworks for running and analyzing synthetic tests to maintain optimal site reliability and user satisfaction.

Why Run Synthetic Tests From Different Locations?

A core advantage of synthetic testing is the ability to simulate traffic from around the world. For example, if your servers are based in London but you serve customers in Japan, synthetic monitoring enables you to evaluate how network latency and routing affect Japanese users specifically.

Using a multi-location synthetic testing strategy, you can:

Benchmark UX globally
Understand latency and performance from key customer regions
Validate CDN and load balancing strategies

Browser and Device Testing: Simulating Real User Conditions

Beyond location, browser and device diversity plays a crucial role in UX. A page might load perfectly on Chrome but break on Firefox or Safari. Synthetic browser tests allow you to validate experiences across platforms like:

Google Chrome
Microsoft Edge
Mozilla Firefox
Mobile vs. Desktop

This ensures a consistent and optimized UX across all user touchpoints.

Alerting and Latency Tracking for Real-Time Insights

With synthetic tests, you can schedule checks every few minutes to get real-time visibility into application health. Use these to monitor:

Critical user journeys (e.g., signups, checkouts)
Performance benchmarks (e.g., Time to First Byte, page load time)
Availability and uptime

Combining synthetic testing with real-time alerts allows for faster incident response and more effective root cause analysis.

How to Control Synthetic Test Costs Without Sacrificing Quality

While synthetic monitoring is powerful, it’s easy for costs to spiral out of control—especially if you test every location, browser, and device combination at high frequency.

For instance, you might choose to run tests every 5 minutes for immediate visibility or focus on critical user journeys that require more frequent monitoring. However, these tests can quickly add up, especially when factoring in the number of locations, devices, and test frequencies. Since most billing models are based on the number of tests triggered, costs can escalate.

The key is to strategically divide your tests to optimize both coverage and cost.

For example, you could test your website from 10 countries every 2 hours, simulate tests on Firefox, Edge, and Chrome every 12 hours from a single location, and run latency checks from London every 5 minutes to monitor your onboarding process. The result is significantly fewer tests:

10 countries every 2 hours = 3,750 tests per month
3 browsers every 12 hours = 180 tests per month
1 location every 5 minutes = 9,000 tests per month

This approach is far more cost-effective than combining all factors—testing 10 countries, 3 browsers, every 5 minutes would result in 270,000 tests per month which is around $3,240 per month with the public price of a browser test vs $155.

two options with different synthetic strategies

While the reality might not always be so simple, segmenting tests by purpose allows for greater flexibility and better control over your testing strategy and costs. In this example, the additional budget can be used to introduce testing on different devices, it can be used to test new customer journeys or it can be used to up the frequency of some other tests. The choice is yours!

Optimize and Prioritize with Dataiker’s Synthetic Test Analytics

At Dataiker, we help you analyze and optimize your synthetic testing strategy:

Identify high-cost test configurations
Visualize test coverage by geography, browser, and device
Suggest smarter test frequencies
Reallocate budget to high-impact areas

With Dataiker’s synthetics usage analytics, you can make data-driven decisions to ensure your synthetic tests deliver maximum ROI—whether you’re improving a new onboarding flow or testing mission-critical user paths.

Synthetics usage analytics within Dataiker

Final Thoughts: Smarter Synthetic Testing for Better UX and Efficiency

Synthetic testing is an essential tool for proactive performance monitoring, but its effectiveness depends on how well it’s implemented. By understanding the variables—locations, browsers, devices, and frequency—you can fine-tune your testing strategy for comprehensive UX coverage at a sustainable cost.