Grow your business with Alexa | Alexa Live 2022
[Music] want to learn how to build a sustainable business on alexa you've come to the right place hi my name is sid dube and i'm a senior product manager with the alexa digital sales team later on i'll be joined by my colleague greece and together we will walk you through the different ways in which skill builders can monetize the experiences they have built on and for alexa today we want to cover three items centered around monetization first we want to start off by talking about why we are excited about the monetization opportunities present with alexa and why we continue to invest in such opportunities then we will cover a timeline of features that we have unveiled thus far to help with skill monetization including any updates from alexa live 2021 and finally we will close with what we have in store for 2022 and beyond so let's get started voice shopping is exactly what it sounds like using your voice to make purchases according to voicebot's most recent report on voice shopping consumer adoption since 2018 voice shopping has nearly doubled with 17.5 percent of all u.s adult shoppers using their voice to make at least one purchase the same number was roughly eight percent back in 2018. of the shoppers who use voice to make a purchase 43 of them use voice shopping features at least once a month according to the same voicebot report the average size of a shopping cart selected through a voice order has gone up by nearly 16 percent since 2018.
with the proliferation of smart speaker devices almost 34 of such device owners have used their voice to make at least one purchase and this number continues to grow as customers become more comfortable purchasing through voice shopping as per the same report during the same time customer perceptions towards purchasing using voice has grown nearly a hundred percent with some of the biggest reasons being the ease of being able to multitask while voice shopping instantly taking advantage of an ongoing offer and the ease of conversing with a voice assistant when making a purchase we too at alexa have seen a similar uptick in customer interest as reflected by an increase in usage across all our locales the customers who have engaged with alexa shopping has increased nearly six-fold in the last few years here at alexa we always have been committed to providing skill builders with various avenues to monetize their skills this journey began in 2018 when we first launched in skill purchasing or isp in the us and has continued as we have expanded isp to other locales and opened up additional skill categories for monetization opportunities last year we continued to build and grow as we introduced paid skills alexa shopping actions and amazon associates on alexa now let's look at each of these features in detail before we talk about our new products with isp you can sell premium digital content within your alexa skill experience content includes game products interactive stories unlocked features and more you can add three types of in-scale purchases to your skill the first type are subscriptions that provide access to premium content or features for a period of time and are charged on a recurring basis until your customer cancels the subscription the second type are one-time purchases which are entitlements that unlock access to features or content within a skill examples include game expansion packs unlocked features and extra characters and the third and final type that we support are consumables which are content or features that your customers can purchase deplete and purchase again for example these could be hints for a game in-game currency extra lives or day passes for premium content we also support and encourage free trials in your products we have been progressively rolling out isp across multiple locales with the most recent one being canada get started with isp by visiting the technical documents on the alexa developer portal last year at alexa live 2021 we launched paid skills knowing that not every skill experience lends itself well to in skill purchases with paid skills customers pay a fee up front to access the content in your skill thus offering developers even more opportunities to monetize their skills by asking customers to pay during enablement of the skill paid skills help developers generate a steady stream of revenue from their content on alexa enabling paid skills is really easy review the technical documentation on the alexa developer portal to get started i'd love to have garish cover the next section thank you sid i'm giri shekhar and i'm a principal engineer in the alexa shopping team at alexa live in 2021 we announced two features as a part of alexa shopping actions add to shopping cart and buy shopping products that allow skill builders to surface relevant products sold on amazon within their skill and enables the customers to either buy those products or add them to their amazon cart to buy later we also announced amazon associates on alexa where developers can earn up to 10 commission on qualifying purchases on amazon that are referred from their skill so what's next in our monetization journey with alexa stay tuned to find out we have many more shopping capabilities we plan to offer in 2022 and in the coming years in order to simplify this for you we are now bundling all shopping related features and capabilities into a consolidated solution called the alexa shopping kit with shopping kit our goal is to make the most successful features within amazon available to 3p developers for creating a delightful shopping experience we will continue to evolve this kit and introduce more features in the coming years let's take a look at a video sneak peek to understand what features constitute the alexa shopping kit and how it benefits you and your customers this is brian every morning he has an alexa skill lead him through a workout but today something different happened the alexa skill let brian know that his upcoming workouts would require resistance bands and asked him if he'd like to hear recommendations of such bands sold on amazon welcome to the alexa shopping kit another way to monetize your alexa skills now alexa skill builders you for instance can monetize your skill traffic by embedding a shopping experience within your skill to help customers discover research and purchase relevant physical products available on amazon just like those resistance bands for brian you can service your own products or products sold by other brands with the alexa shopping kit you can minimize your code burden by simply choosing the products you want to surface and let alexa do the heavy lifting by enabling shopping experiences within your skill so in brian's case alexa shopping kit can recommend relevant products like the resistance bands and answer questions about the products like what are the amazon reviews how much does it cost or when can it be delivered then brian can choose to either buy the resistance bands now or later by adding the product to his amazon cart or wish list by the way brian ended up buying those resistance bands okay is that it wait there is more through amazon associates on alexa you can earn up to 10 commission on qualifying product purchases that are referred from your skill the alexa shopping kit also allows you to suggest gift recommendations on new products even when customers are not interacting with your skill not only that the alexa shopping kit offers actionable insights that helps you determine how well your product recommendations are doing so that you can identify which ones your customers are most interested in and fine-tune your recommendations with so many benefits to you and your customers alexa shopping kit is well very hard to resist wouldn't you say so brian new alexa shopping kit good for skill developers like you good for your customers good work alexa now that we have a high level understanding of the capabilities within the alexa shopping kit let's dive into the details here at alexa shopping we broadly divide the shopping journey into three stages discovery research and purchase and post purchase skill developers can monetize their experience while helping customers transition through all the stages within the shopping funnel let's look at each aspect of this journey one at a time starting with discovery in a world where customers have less time and more options developers can connect with their customers across multiple channels we understand how difficult discovery can be and this is why later this year we will let you surface relevant new products or gifts to your customers even when they are not interacting with your skill using proactive notification here is a customer experience for a new product recommendation you schedule a new product launch interactive notification using proactive notifications api once delivered the customers can see a notification pop up on top of their screen in this instance the customer did not engage with this notification later they were also notified about the same on the home screen of their echo show device along with a notification bell icon on the top right corner this time the customer either tapped or asked alexa to read that notification this led them to a shopping experience showing product details and options to either purchase the product add it to their cart or ask for more details the customers decided to purchase this product and an order confirmation was displayed to them along with the final price and delivery details similar to new product launches you can also send notification to your customers around key events such as mother's day or valentine's day in this example we see a skill zen yoga sending gift ideas for mother's day your customers browse through the recommendation and select the one which they like the most and add it to their cart now let's look at the second stage on the customer shopping journey research and purchase customers are curious about all kinds of purchases big and small this means that the customers may check expert review sites browse manufacturer of web pages and check amazon for product details with capabilities within the alexa shopping kit you can add even more value to the shopping experience by helping customers reduce the time and effort required to choose a product you can provide answers to questions like what are the reviews how much does it cost or when can it be delivered we will make this capability available in the near future to facilitate product purchases we announced two alexa shopping actions in 2021 add to shopping cart and buy shopping products these are now generally available to all developers for use immediately they will enable you to surface relevant products within your skill and allow your customers to buy them or add them to their amazon cart to buy later when you integrate with ad to shopping cart api customers are asked to confirm whether they want to add the recommendation to their cart and when they say yes they are shown a confirmation that a product is added to their amazon shopping cart let's check the buy experience next as you can see here the buy experience looks very similar with the customer asked to provide their content followed by order confirmation screen you can either surface your own products or products sold by other brands let's look at some examples on how developers like you have incorporated such actions within their skill first up is an example of a popular beverage brand red bull that sells its own energy drinks from its alexa skin it has enabled two shopping actions add to cart and buy within its skill let's see what it has to say about alexa shopping kit and more specifically about alexa shopping actions alexa open the red bull skill welcome back to the world of red bull i have podcasts on rally cycling and more i can also give you wings what would you like give me wings here are a few red bull drinks to give you wings what would you like red bull energy drinks okay here are the product details from amazon red bull energy drink original 24 count of 8.4 fluid ounces each it's rated 4.8 stars according to an amazon customer shipped in good packaging secure and at a fantastic price it's 32.99 with delivery by june 14th would
you like to add it to your cart yes okay i added it to your amazon cart for review thanks for checking out red bull want to hear what's new in the world of red bull yes new in the world of red bull i run for fun on why i run want to listen yes it's great to see partners like red bull use its skill to cross-sell its own products a large brand like red bull is not the only one to surface its own product within its skill see how ryan jordan from lc publishing surfaces his own books within the experience of his adventure gaming skill the dark citadel alexa open dark citadel welcome back to the dark citadel the dungeons are calling are you brave enough to answer let's pick up where we last left off all around is a desiccated landscape and intense sunlight and in the distance you spot the tips of enormous mountains we are far to the east the prince explains hundreds of miles from where you first found me in the caves it will take a few days for us to get back to alderton things you can ask include how long now or what do you know how do you want to proceed how long now you and the prince begin walking heading back toward the capital city of alderton that is the conclusion of chapter one the journey begins did you know i'm also an author if you like fast-paced thrillers you will love my newest book crispr about genetic engineering gone wrong would you like to know more yes here are the product details from amazon your purchase includes crispr the total including tax is 9.47 would you like to buy it yes we have now seen two examples of brands that surface their own products within the skill experience now let's look at an example of a skill such as wikihow that surfaces products from other brands within its experience customers utilize wikihow to learn how to do stuff with alexa shopping actions wikihow is able to surface relevant products that are sold on amazon which enabled its customers to purchase tools that help them do what they learn me bye alexa open wikihow hi ask me how to do anything how to patch a bike tube how to patch a bicycle tube before you patch a bicycle tube you'll want to remove the tube from the tire and locate the puncture feed the tube back into the tire and put the tire back on the wheel if you would like each step read out in detail say read steps read steps step 1 remove the wheel from the bike now that you have learned how to patch a bicycle tube i have a product recommendation for you it's the bike inner tire patch repair kit you can order it on amazon by adding it to your shopping basket straight from this skill wikihow earns from qualifying purchases that you make through the alexa skill want to hear more about buying bike inner tire patch repair kit yes wikihow is passing you over to amazon now here are the product details from amazon may fed bike inner tire patch repair kit with 11 pieces vulcanizing patches it's 9.95 with delivery by june 16th would you like to add it to your cart yes okay i added it to your amazon cart for review this is the last step to learn more about this go to wikihow.com
um um now that you have heard from our partners on alexa shopping actions let's see what the onboarding process looks like onboarding to alexa shopping action is simple and can be done in 5 easy steps in the example on the screen a smart home devices skill was providing information to the customer about an alexa enabled device and telling them how they could show for this product on amazon you identified this as the best place within your skill where you could integrate with alexa shopping actions you update the prompt to introduce the shopping experience by asking the customer whether they want to learn how to shop for this product right from within their skill next you head over to the language model definition and add yes and no intent from the alexa's built-in library and rebuild the model this is used when you ask your customer for a voice consent we now implement the yes and no intent handling and invoke the shopping action on the yes intent all you have to do is copy the reference code over to your skill update the action name and the product based on your recommendation along with session resume request handler and finally register these new handlers while building your skill next go to the testing section of your skill and check your integration once you complete testing the end-to-end experience you can go ahead and submit your skill for certification after updating the manifest to indicate that you're using the shopping kit and that's it you're done embed a shopping experience today by reviewing the technical documentation on the alexa developer portal now that we have seen how to embed add to cart and buy shopping actions let's look at what's coming soon skill developers will soon be able to integrate with the actual list api and help customers place the product on their wish list for future consideration this provides your customers with an option to make a product a part of their wish list on amazon and purchase later when they are ready or they need it we invite you to participate in the developer preview and would love to hear your feedback so that we can improve this feature you would have noticed that in case of add to cart and buy shopping actions after surfacing the product alexa will prompt the customer with phrases such as want to add to cart or want to buy it we heard from some of our skill builders that they were having a hard time deciding which action was right for the customers so instead of them choosing the action to surface to a customer they wanted the customers to take the action they'd like they are excited to announce a recommend shopping product action which lets the customers choose from a range of actions such as add to cart buy ask for more details instead of being forced to choose a single recommended action not only that recommend action is one of our first actions that also lets you offer a list of products in case you have multiple recommendations that you want to surface to your customers this capability to surface multiple actions against one or more products will be available at a later date now let's look at post purchase alexa shopping kit provides actionable insight to developers to help select shopping experiences that resonate most with their customers at launch developers will be able to access aggregate anonymized metrics for the add to cart and buy shopping actions with additional insights becoming unlocked on ongoing basis we are excited to provide product based granular yet anonymized metrics to help you understand how your customers are engaging with your product recommendation in the analytics section on the developer console you can see how your product recommendations are performing for each shopping action on this chart you can notice that there is a 75 conversion on the add to cart action with granular insights you can drill down further and compare and contrast metrics for every product recommended by your skill you can use this information to determine which products are resonating well with your customer and refine your recommendation here you see that the customers are not engaging with the product in red and this can be replaced with a different product this feature is available for use right now now that we have seen the features of this kit that cuts across the customer shopping journey let's take a look at how you can monetize your skill using the shopping kit while you can use the alexa shopping actions as a standalone feature in your skill we have also brought to you one of the largest affiliate marketing programs in the world amazon associates on alexa skill developers can choose to participate in this program to earn commissions on qualifying purchases from the referrals made using the alexa shopping actions consistent with amazon associates program you will earn a commission of up to 10 percent on qualifying reference using associates with shopping kit is simple if you don't have an associate's account head over to the associate central and register for an account follow the steps on completing the account registration on completing your registration you are provided with a unique associate identifier which you will be including on your shopping actions request next just add the associate identifiers to your request as shown here that's all you need to do to start earning commissions on qualifying purchases let's see what one of our partners wikihow has to say about this feature as you can see wikihow's mission is to be the most trusted how-to site on the internet with shopping kit they were not only able to help the customers find answers to their how-to question but also enable them to purchase those products amazon associates on alexa help them open up a new monetization stream where wikihow can now earn commission on qualifying referrals made from their skill and use this revenue to continue improving their experience this feature is in developer preview and we invite you to participate in the same to offer feedback before we roll this out to a wider developer audience soon now that we have talked about how to monetize your alexa skill using the alexa shopping kit let me pass the bit on back to sid to see what's new in the digital products world today we are also excited to announce the introduction of alexa skill deals in the us through alexa skill deals developers will have the ability to set up a discount on their isp and paid skill products through alexa developer console these discounts will be run across a developer determined deal window lasting up to a year and will be available to all customers alexa skill deals support all monetization types across isps and paid skills for one-time purchases and consumables you can offer a discount on the existing list price for any purchases made during a developer set time window for subscription-based products you can set up a discounted monthly or annual price for the first few months these options give you the ability to experiment with your price quickly during peak seasons helping you learn from how your customers react to the deals skill deals have three primary benefits firstly you can use skill deals to take advantage of promotion periods to create attractive offers that could lead to an increase in sales of premium content within your skills or increase in revenue from greater engagement with your paid skills secondly you have the ability to set up these deals in a low effort wave such that as long as the terms of the deal are set up in dev console the deal management portion which includes dropping the price certifying the deal changing the customer facing messaging and increasing the price is all handled by alexa and finally there is new customer facing user experience that actively promotes a price discount when a skill has a temporary price drop this user experience includes voice and graphical user interface messaging mentioning the deal and updated retail web pages with a strikethrough and a percentage discount that eventually translates into a reduction in developer efforts when it comes to marketing or promoting a skill your customers also benefit from a skill deal as not only do they get a free trial in most cases they get to experience your product for a much longer period of time at a discounted price this is what a customer sees when trying to purchase a skill with an ongoing deal on a device with a screen it's a purchase card that most customers are already familiar with along with a couple of differences that help the customer understand that there is an ongoing deal the example above is for a deal on a subscription there is a strikethrough on the original price highlighting the new price along with the percentage discount offered there is also clear messaging indicating that this offer will apply for the first six months letting the customer know the length of the deal were they to sign up even on a smart speaker device without a screen when a customer tries to buy a product on discount they will be presented with a revised voice prompt highlighting the skill deal and letting them know the level of discount and deal details in this example when a customer tries to buy music trivia premium pass they are clearly informed that there is a limited time deal running the percentage price drop and the new price so that they can make a well-informed decision here are a few skills that have been running deals as part of this program the good news is starting today you too can also begin designing deals for your customers setting up an alexa skill deal is simple and can be done in four quick steps in order to set up a deal head to the monetization section within a skill that contains a live isp or a paid skill and click on the skill deals button to set up your deal for the selected skill this is the deal dashboard which gives you a quick overview of all the deals that are ongoing on a skill select the create new deal button in the top right to set up a deal your skills can support multiple premium products this window is used to select the particular premium product you would like to run the deal on after selecting the product pick the length of the deal the type of deal you want to offer and its availability across different regions and send it over for certification for more details refer to our technical documentation on alexa skill deals in the alexa developer portal as we come to the close of our session today i just wanted to quickly run through the highlights we announced the launch of the alexa shopping kit that will encompass various shopping capabilities which in turn will help you embed shopping experiences within your skills and earn money in the process some of these capabilities are available today while others will be launched later in the near future an important component of the alexa shopping kit are lexa shopping actions we announced the general availability of two actions that you can now embed within your skill the first being buy and the second add to cart they enable your customers to either purchase products or add them to their amazon cart when they are surfaced within your skill experience we are also excited to provide product-based granular metrics to help you quickly understand how your customers are engaging with your recommendations in the analytics section on the developer console and finally we announced alexa skill deals that allow developers to quickly add deals on their existing monetized products for limited time periods be it their isps or their paid skills so what's coming in the near future two more shopping actions add to wishlist that allows your customers to add products to their amazon list and recommend products that offers them the flexibility to choose the action they want to take when products are surfaced we also talked about the capability to surface new products and gifting recommendations and finally we plan to make amazon associates on alexa generally available in the near future to help you monetize eligible product purchases referred from within your skill thank you so much for attending this session stay tuned as many of the features that we announced in this session will be launched later this year [Music] you
2022-07-26 11:00
