Thoughts on how to properly handle exceptions in a web service request?

api.rb

require 'httparty'
require 'crack'

class KickoffLabsAPI 
  include HTTParty
  base_uri 'http://api.kickofflabs.com'

  def self.subscribe(page_id, args={})
    response = post("/v1/#{page_id}/subscribe", :body => args)
    if response.code == 200
      Crack::JSON.parse(response.body)
    else
      "Failed with status #{response.code} and body #{response.body}"
    end
  end

  def self.info(page_id, args={})
    response = get("/v1/#{page_id}/info", :query => args)
    if response.code == 200
      Crack::JSON.parse(response.body)
    else
      "Failed with status #{response.code} and body #{response.body}"
    end
  end
end

More details:

While this is just an example, I do want to publish something that is a little cleaner.

The API will return a 404 if the landing page does not exist and a 409 on subscribe if the email is not valid. Obviously returning a string is not ideal. :)

However, if I simply return nil, then you don't really get why it failed...but raising an exception seems off as well.

Thanks!