diff --git a/reporters/kamon-datadog/src/main/resources/reference.conf b/reporters/kamon-datadog/src/main/resources/reference.conf
index 0b2f2ccff..cc1ae4661 100644
--- a/reporters/kamon-datadog/src/main/resources/reference.conf
+++ b/reporters/kamon-datadog/src/main/resources/reference.conf
@@ -67,6 +67,8 @@ kamon {
       compression = false
     }
 
+    # The log level in which to log failures to submit metrics.
+    failure-log-level = "error"
 
     # All time values are collected in nanoseconds,
     # to scale before sending to datadog set "time-units" to "s" or "ms" or "µs".
diff --git a/reporters/kamon-datadog/src/main/scala/kamon/datadog/DatadogAPIReporter.scala b/reporters/kamon-datadog/src/main/scala/kamon/datadog/DatadogAPIReporter.scala
index 4c07b0899..f2492b1d5 100644
--- a/reporters/kamon-datadog/src/main/scala/kamon/datadog/DatadogAPIReporter.scala
+++ b/reporters/kamon-datadog/src/main/scala/kamon/datadog/DatadogAPIReporter.scala
@@ -31,6 +31,7 @@ import kamon.{module, Kamon}
 import kamon.datadog.DatadogAPIReporter.Configuration
 import kamon.module.{MetricReporter, ModuleFactory}
 import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory
+import org.slf4j.event.Level
 
 import scala.util.{Failure, Success}
 
@@ -68,7 +69,7 @@ class DatadogAPIReporter(
   override def reportPeriodSnapshot(snapshot: PeriodSnapshot): Unit = {
     httpClient.doPost("application/json; charset=utf-8", buildRequestBody(snapshot)) match {
       case Failure(e) =>
-        logger.error(e.getMessage)
+        logger.logAtLevel(configuration.failureLogLevel, e.getMessage)
       case Success(response) =>
         logger.trace(response)
     }
@@ -166,7 +167,8 @@ private object DatadogAPIReporter {
     timeUnit: MeasurementUnit,
     informationUnit: MeasurementUnit,
     extraTags: Seq[(String, String)],
-    tagFilter: Filter
+    tagFilter: Filter,
+    failureLogLevel: Level
   )
 
   implicit class QuoteInterp(val sc: StringContext) extends AnyVal {
@@ -175,15 +177,22 @@ private object DatadogAPIReporter {
 
   def readConfiguration(config: Config): Configuration = {
     val datadogConfig = config.getConfig("kamon.datadog")
+
+    // Remove the "host" tag since it gets added to the datadog payload separately
+    val extraTags = EnvironmentTags
+      .from(Kamon.environment, datadogConfig.getConfig("environment-tags"))
+      .without("host")
+      .all()
+      .map(p => p.key -> Tag.unwrapValue(p).toString)
+
     Configuration(
       datadogConfig.getConfig("api"),
       timeUnit = readTimeUnit(datadogConfig.getString("time-unit")),
       informationUnit = readInformationUnit(datadogConfig.getString("information-unit")),
       // Remove the "host" tag since it gets added to the datadog payload separately
-      EnvironmentTags.from(Kamon.environment, datadogConfig.getConfig("environment-tags")).without("host").all().map(
-        p => p.key -> Tag.unwrapValue(p).toString
-      ),
-      Kamon.filter("kamon.datadog.environment-tags.filter")
+      extraTags = extraTags,
+      tagFilter = Kamon.filter("kamon.datadog.environment-tags.filter"),
+      failureLogLevel = readLogLevel(datadogConfig.getString("failure-log-level"))
     )
   }
 }
diff --git a/reporters/kamon-datadog/src/main/scala/kamon/datadog/package.scala b/reporters/kamon-datadog/src/main/scala/kamon/datadog/package.scala
index 9f1c2ca7a..1de2e2877 100644
--- a/reporters/kamon-datadog/src/main/scala/kamon/datadog/package.scala
+++ b/reporters/kamon-datadog/src/main/scala/kamon/datadog/package.scala
@@ -24,6 +24,8 @@ import com.typesafe.config.Config
 import kamon.metric.MeasurementUnit
 import kamon.metric.MeasurementUnit.{information, time}
 import okhttp3._
+import org.slf4j.Logger
+import org.slf4j.event.Level
 
 import scala.util.{Failure, Success, Try}
 
@@ -36,6 +38,23 @@ package object datadog {
     }
   }
 
+  implicit class LoggerExtras(val logger: Logger) extends AnyVal {
+    def logAtLevel(level: Level, msg: String): Unit = {
+      level match {
+        case Level.TRACE =>
+          logger.trace(msg)
+        case Level.DEBUG =>
+          logger.debug(msg)
+        case Level.INFO =>
+          logger.info(msg)
+        case Level.WARN =>
+          logger.warn(msg)
+        case Level.ERROR =>
+          logger.error(msg)
+      }
+    }
+  }
+
   private[datadog] case class HttpClient(
     apiUrl: String,
     apiKey: Option[String],
@@ -133,4 +152,14 @@ package object datadog {
     case "gb"  => information.gigabytes
     case other => sys.error(s"Invalid time unit setting [$other], the possible values are [b, kb, mb, gb]")
   }
+
+  def readLogLevel(level: String): Level = level match {
+    case "trace" => Level.TRACE
+    case "debug" => Level.DEBUG
+    case "info"  => Level.INFO
+    case "warn"  => Level.WARN
+    case "error" => Level.ERROR
+    case other =>
+      sys.error(s"Invalid log level setting [$other], the possible values are [trace, debug, info, warn, error]")
+  }
 }