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Voice activation with Amazon Alexa
Voice activation with Amazon Alexa

Run interactive sampling campaigns with Amazon Alexa

David avatar
Written by David
Updated over 11 months ago

Why sample using voice activation?

Our voice-activated experiences allow brands to run interactive sampling campaigns with Amazon Alexa.

  • Create a seamless sampling experience that can integrate across any channel

  • Build trust and encourage marketing opt-ins through a fully branded journey

  • Collect high-quality and enriched data with custom questions and Amazon-verified email and shipping addresses

  • Campaign protection: sample requests are restricted to the individual Amazon account holder

The consumer journey

Standard template

This template shows a typical voice experience:

Standard template with advanced legal consents

If you require more advanced legal disclaimers and consents, you can work with your SoPost contact to customise these. Here is an example of some advanced legal disclaimers and consents used in the voice journey:

Before you start

Requirements and assets needed

To launch a sampling campaign with Amazon Alexa and SoPost, you will need to provide SoPost with the following:

  1. An Amazon Developer account. You will need this to manage your skill and connect it to your SoPost account.

    Learn how to access or create a new Amazon Developer account. We'd suggest speaking to your internal teams to avoid creating a duplicate account.

    A user with Administrator permissions will be needed to make the connection. Please provide SoPost with their email address in order to connect your account.

  2. Skill name. This will be the phrase consumers use to invoke the sampling journey, for example, “Alexa, open Cara Beauty”. The skill name in this example is “Cara Beauty”. See the consumer journey template below for context.

  3. Product introduction and description. This will be used to introduce and describe the product sample to the consumer. Recommended maximum: 100 words. See the consumer journey template below for context.

  4. Email marketing opt-in wording (optional). If you wish to collect marketing opt-in emails from your campaign and require explicit consent, you can choose the wording that needs to be read by Alexa to the consumer, asking them whether they agree to opt-in.

    This can be customised to meet your legal requirements.

    Example: “Would you like to receive the latest updates from Cara Beauty via email?”

  5. Brand privacy policy. A link to your privacy policy. This will be displayed on the Skill details page in the Alexa Skills Store.

  6. Brand terms. A link to your terms. This will be displayed on the Skill details page in the Alexa Skills Store. If you have multiple links in your legal terms, SoPost can host these on a single page, linking to each policy that needs to be read.

  7. Legal consent wording (optional). If you require explicit consent to the terms of the campaign, you can choose the wording that needs to be read by Alexa to the consumer, asking them whether they agree to them before they submit their order request.

    This can be customised to meet your legal requirements.

    Example: “By submitting your order, you agree to receive communications from Cara Beauty, including promotional emails and agree to Cara Beauty’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You understand that you may unsubscribe from promotional emails at any time.

    You can read the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy on our Skill details page in the Alexa app.

    Do you want to continue to submit your order?”

  8. Logo. 1:1 aspect ratio. This will be displayed on the Skill details page in the Alexa Skills Store and cropped into a circular shape (see example below). 512 x 512px. PNG.

Choosing a channel for your voice-activated campaign

Voice-activated campaigns via Alexa can be run on any channel. All you have to do is tell your consumers to say: “Alexa, open [Skill name]”.

Some examples could be:

  • Audio Ads on Spotify, Amazon Music, podcasts, and more. The audio call to action in the ad could prompt the consumer to invoke the skill with their Alexa device.

  • Image-based call to action on Connected TV, social media, out-of-home displays, and more. You could show text in your imagery and even include the official “Just ask Alexa” badge in your ad creative.

You could show text in your imagery and even include the official “Just ask Alexa” badge in your ad creative.

Learn more about the “Just ask Alexa” badge and Amazon’s requirements for using it: https://developer.amazon.com/en-US/alexa/branding/alexa-guidelines/brand-guidelines/alexa-badges

Setting up your campaign

Once you've supplied the assets above and decided on your activation channel, SoPost will manage the setup of your voice-activated campaign from start to finish on your behalf.

However, before SoPost can build and run your voice-activated campaign, you'll need to connect your Amazon Developer account. Below are the steps to complete this:

How to connect your Amazon Developer account

The following steps need to be completed by an Administrator on your Amazon Developer account.

  1. SoPost will provide you with a URL to connect your Amazon Developer account.

  2. Follow the steps to log in to your Amazon Developer account. Click Allow.

    You will see a confirmation screen to say that your connection has been successful.

  3. Go to your Customer Details page: https://developer.amazon.com/settings/console/mycid

  4. Share your Customer ID and Vendor ID with your SoPost contact.

  5. SoPost will complete the setup of your voice campaign and will manage the publishing of the experience ready for your campaign.

Set up stages

Speak to your SoPost contact to learn more about launching your voice-activated sampling campaign with Amazon Alexa.

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