diff --git a/src/kafka/encode_decode.go b/src/kafka/encode_decode.go
index a654d14..33fa25d 100644
--- a/src/kafka/encode_decode.go
+++ b/src/kafka/encode_decode.go
@@ -10,10 +10,10 @@ import (
 
 	"sync"
 
-	"github.com/inloco/kafka-elasticsearch-injector/src/models"
-	"github.com/inloco/kafka-elasticsearch-injector/src/schema_registry"
 	"github.com/Shopify/sarama"
 	"github.com/inloco/goavro"
+	"github.com/inloco/kafka-elasticsearch-injector/src/models"
+	"github.com/inloco/kafka-elasticsearch-injector/src/schema_registry"
 )
 
 // DecodeMessageFunc extracts a user-domain request object from an Kafka
@@ -93,12 +93,13 @@ func makeTimestamp(timestamp time.Time) int64 {
 func (d *Decoder) JsonMessageToRecord(context context.Context, msg *sarama.ConsumerMessage) (*models.Record, error) {
 	var jsonValue map[string]interface{}
 	err := json.Unmarshal(msg.Value, &jsonValue)
-	jsonValue[kafkaTimestampKey] = makeTimestamp(msg.Timestamp)
 
 	if err != nil {
 		return nil, err
 	}
 
+	jsonValue[kafkaTimestampKey] = makeTimestamp(msg.Timestamp)
+
 	return &models.Record{
 		Topic:     msg.Topic,
 		Partition: msg.Partition,
diff --git a/src/kafka/encode_decode_test.go b/src/kafka/encode_decode_test.go
index c1118ae..a088e6d 100644
--- a/src/kafka/encode_decode_test.go
+++ b/src/kafka/encode_decode_test.go
@@ -35,3 +35,17 @@ func TestDecoder_JsonMessageToRecord(t *testing.T) {
 	assert.Nil(t, err)
 	assert.Equal(t, val, returnedVal)
 }
+
+func TestDecoder_JsonMessageToRecord_MalformedJson(t *testing.T) {
+	d := &Decoder{CodecCache: sync.Map{}}
+	jsonBytes := []byte(`{"alo": 60"`)
+	record, err := d.JsonMessageToRecord(context.Background(), &sarama.ConsumerMessage{
+		Value:     jsonBytes,
+		Topic:     "test",
+		Partition: 1,
+		Offset:    54,
+		Timestamp: time.Now(),
+	})
+	assert.Nil(t, record)
+	assert.NotNil(t, err)
+}