Channel Development Guidebook

Table of Contents 1 The Timeline

2 Making the Most of Your Endpoints

3 Channel Review Checklist

4 Marketing Best Practices

5 IFTTT Brand and Identity Guidelines

6 Pre-Launch Marketing Checklist

7 Pre-Launch Announcement Guidelines

8 IFTTT Quick Facts

9 Official IFTTT Profile

10 Case Studies

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1 The Timeline Let’s build and launch a phenomenal Channel on IFTTT! Though all Channels are unique, they all share a few common qualities such as a reliable and refined customer experience. It’s important that each stage of Channel development be given appropriate time and attention so that we continue to give our mutual communities the quality of Channels on IFTTT they’ve come to know and love

2 Making the Most of Your Endpoints ➢ Start early: Don’t wait until your developers are creating endpoints to think

about what type(s) of information you’d like to share in your Channel.

➢ Simple is better: Go with the first use case you can think of for your Channel, and expand from there.

➢ Fewer fields are better: people respond best to the most incremental pieces of information (eg, one Trigger for “temperature above X degrees,” and a second for “temperature below Y degrees,” rather than one that attempts to address both.

➢ Leverage existing use cases:

。 Go to our Channels page, find a related Channel, and see what they’ve done

。 Browse trending and popular Recipes for examples of what people are excited about

➢ Consider your community: You know your community best! Use the data you have to define the most compelling Channel and Recipes for your product.

3 Channel Review Checklist Here is an overview of what the Channel Review Team at IFTTT is looking for when reviewing your Channel submission.

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To avoid delay in launching your Channel, make sure that these guidelines are adhered to before submitting. ➔ Endpoint test

◆ Your Channel must pass the Endpoint Test to be reviewed

➔ Follows Style Guidelines (to be referenced throughout checklist) ◆ Clear, concise verbiage ◆ Uses correct punctuation, when applicable ◆ Uses sentence case (Daily activity summary vs Daily Activity Summary) ◆ Capitalizes any mention of Trigger, Action, Recipe, Ingredient ◆ * indicates a field where punctuation should be used

➔ General information ◆ Channel Name is appropriate and matches Slug ◆ Description follows style guidelines ◆ Branding Logos are appropriately sized and in accordance to Logo

Guidelines ◆ Recipe on-color logo is transparent

➔ Authentication (where applicable) ◆ If the Channel uses authentication:

➢ Verify that appropriate authentication protocol is being used ➢ It must pass the Authentication Test with the demo account

information provided ➢ The authentication page must be responsive to different sized

browsers ➢ The authentication process must be clearly notify the user that

he/she is granting access to IFTTT ➢ The authentication process must redirect to the Channel page on

IFTTT once complete

➔ Triggers/Actions ◆ Trigger/Action Name follows style guidelines ◆ Trigger/Action Description follows style guidelines ◆ Trigger/Action Description begins with “This Trigger fires…” or “This

Action will…” ◆ Trigger/Action Verbiage follows style guidelines ◆ All Trigger/Action Field Names follows style guidelines ◆ Optional Helper Text is only included when necessary and when

included, provides key information necessary for the field to be filled out correctly (e.g. leave blank for default folder, accepts some HTML)

◆ Trigger/Action Field Slugs are appropriate

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◆ Trigger/Action Fields are marked Private when appropriate. ➢ Appropriate time to select the Trigger/Action Field as private is

when the field is specific to an individual user and wouldn’t want to be pre-populated in a Published Recipe.

◆ Field Type is correctly selected

➔ Ingredients ◆ Ingredient name follows style guidelines ◆ Ingredient Description follows style guidelines* ◆ Ingredient Slug is appropriate for the Ingredient name ◆ Ingredient Type is correctly selected ◆ Ingredient Example accurately depicts an example output

➔ Example Recipes ◆ It is important that these be well thought out as many Recipes will be

formed off these stencils. Specific items we look for: ➢ All fields (title, body, notification, etc.) follow style guidelines* ➢ All relevant Ingredients are being used. E.g. Spreadsheet example

Recipe should include ALL Ingredients

➔ Take a bird’s eye view of Channel Trigger/Action Pages and Successful Personal Recipes ◆ How do Trigger Pages look? (e.g. Fitbit: Daily goal not achieved by _:_) Is

it easy for a user to fully understand all capabilities of the Trigger? ◆ How do Action Pages look? (e.g. Fitbit: Log your weight) Is it easy for a

user to fully understand all capabilities of the Action? ◆ How do Successful Personal Recipe logs look?

➢ Are Ingredients coming through as expected? ➢ Are the logs clear of errors?

4 Marketing Best Practices

Your IFTTT Username & Profile

Claiming your IFTTT username and publishing Recipes under that username are great ways to tell your customers about the most valuable ways they can use your Channel. Publishing Recipes on IFTTT with your username ahead of a Channel launch will seed your Channel with your own recommended Recipes at launch. As an example, please see Nest’s use of their official IFTTT username at https://ifttt.com/nest_thermostat. The most interesting official Nest Thermostat Recipes are the ones featured in the middle section of the page. Published

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Recipes serve as useful templates that people can easily use instead of creating Recipes from scratch. As part of the process of creating your Channel, we’re happy to work with you to come up with Recipe ideas and to create and share them under your username.

Embedding Recipes

One of the most useful features for Channel partners to use in their marketing materials are embeddable Recipes. You can embed any Recipe in your own website or blog with just a snippet of HTML. Embedded Recipes look like this:

For a step-by-step process on how to embed recipes, visit our how-to here.

Beta Testing

We encourage you to select a small pool of your company or userbase to beta test your Channel in advance of launch so as to make sure everything is working as you’d like. How? Click on Configuration > Basics, and copy the “Invite URL” to whomever you’d like to invite.

5 IFTTT Brand and Identity Guidelines For information on IFTTT assets you may use to promote our partnership, please see our brand and identity guideline packet here. Note: We do not currently require that you place a ® symbol next to our logo.

6 Pre-Launch Marketing Checklist An essential component to the success of your Channel is the way you communicate the integration to your users.

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This list is designed to help make sure you’ve got all your bases covered when it comes to announcing and marketing your Channel at launch. ❏ Social:

❏ Facebook ❏ Twitter ❏ Google+ ❏ LinkedIn ❏ YouTube (demo video) ❏ Instagram

❏ CRM: ❏ Email ❏ In-app notifications/banner

❏ Digital: ❏ Website ❏ Blog ❏ Add IFTTT integration to partnerships page (where applicable) ❏ Compelling Recipe stories on IFTTT:

❏ Published Recipes ❏ Embed Recipes

❏ Event ❏ Announcement ❏ Demo ❏ Exhibit (eg, signage, etc)

❏ In-store (where applicable) ❏ On/in box stickers & flyers ❏ Co-branding on endcaps and POS

7 Pre-Launch Announcement Guidelines While pre-launch announcements are a great way to help build momentum up to launch, messaging can be a bit tricky. The guidelines below are designed to help make your announcement as successful as possible. ❖ Do’s

➢ Feel free to share that you’re working to build a Channel on IFTTT! ➢ Be clear that the Channel won’t be available until your product/service

has launched.

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➢ Review our marketing & brand guidelines to start thinking about how you can best position your Channel for success when it’s launched.

❖ Dont’s ➢ Offer a specific date for launch – things can change! ➢ Offer specific Recipe examples that will be available. As you build your

Channel, your “ideal” use cases may evolve. ➢ State that the Channel is available. (We’re excited too, but want to avoid

any confusion, until the Channel is live!) ➢ Take screenshots of the Channel on IFTTT while in development or

photoshop screens to alter what is available to customers today

8 IFTTT Quick Facts This list is designed to give you access to a short list of IFTTT highlights to help communicate your Channel at launch. ✦ IFTTT enables you to create simple connections between the apps and

products you use every day

✦ IFTTT is pronounced like “gift,” without the “g”

✦ 26 million personal Recipes created

✦ Over 200 Channels launched and growing

✦ Recipes may be either personal or published

✦ 855 million Recipe runs per month

✦ 80 million channel activations You can find more information on IFTTT at: ifttt.com/press

9 Official IFTTT Profile Maximize your brand presence, and communicate to IFTTT users that your Channel is an official IFTTT partnership, by linking your profile with one of your official social media pages (e.g. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook). You can select the social profile Channel you’d like to connect with your profile here. For an example, check out: Fitbit’s branded profile.

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  10 Case Studies

Trello Case: Announce the IFTTT Integration in your newsletter

Trello, a project management tool, featured their IFTTT integration on their blog, at the top of their monthly user newsletter, in addition to a coordinated blog, and social announcement at the Channel’s launch. The multi-platform approach to communicating the integration is was extremely successful in reaching a large portion of their user base, and relaying the breadth of options available through the integration.

Blog Social Newsletter

Automatic Case: Generate effective Channel launch buzz

Automatic, provider of a driving assistant device, decided to launch their Channel at the 2014 Mobile World Congress. They crafted a solid customer story with regards to the integration by identifying core use cases and recommending Recipes. The Channel launch received a lot of attention on social media and from the press. Todoist Case: Hold a contest to crowdsource the best Recipes

Todoist, a to-do list and task manager application, held a week-long contest challenging users to submit the best Todoist IFTTT Recipe. Contest participants were required to create a new IFTTT Recipe with a Todoist

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Trigger or Action and share it on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+ with the hashtag #TodoistIFTTT. Todoist promoted a “The Pro Productivity Pack” as the prize for the contest. The pack included a lifetime Todoist Premium subscription, a one-hour productivity consulting session with a productivity expert, and other paraphernalia.

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Amazon Echo Case: Announce new launch in branded email

Amazon Echo, a voice command device created by Amazon.com, announced its Channel launch by email. This was a particularly effective strategy to inform Echo users, who expect to receive product updates and information in branded emails from Amazon. The company also created a website that explains how to activate the channel and what types of Recipes users can create. The Channel launch generated significant buzz on social media and from the press.

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Qapital Case: Create a custom webpage to announce Channel launch

Qapital, a banking app that provides an overview of personal finances and allows users to set savings goals, created a special webpage announcing the launch of its IFTTT Channel. The webpage featured embedded recipes with ideas on personal savings. In addition, Qapital sent a branded email about the IFTTT integration featuring embedded recipes to all new users of Qapital. Lastly, the Company ran a social media campaign on Twitter promoting its IFTTT Channel. Fast Company profiled the launch of the Qapital Channel in an article on its website.

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