Create a Quick Link for Your Custom Skill

You can generate Quick Links for Alexa to take your customers to your custom skill on their Alexa device. Quick links are standard URLs. You can provide them to your customers via your website, mobile app, social media, or email.

Customers can click your quick link and either:

  • Instantly launch your skill on their Echo device, or
  • Ask that an Alexa notification be sent to their Echo device, allowing them to launch the skill whenever they are near the device.

Quick Links for Alexa support the following devices and are available in the following locales:

  • Devices: Customers can use quick links to launch skills on these devices: Echo (all versions), Echo Tap, Echo Dot (all versions), Echo Show (all versions), Echo Spot, and Fire TV.
  • Locales: Custom skills that are built for en_AU, en_CA, en_IN, en_GB, en_US, fr_CA, fr_FR, de_DE, hi_IN, it_IT, ja_JP, pt_BR, es_ES, es_MX, and es_US.

Prerequisites

To use quick links, your skill must meet the following requirements:

The URL for a custom skill's quick link has the following syntax: https://alexa-skills.amazon.<domain>/apis/custom/skills/<skill-id>/launch.

To generate a quick link for your live custom skill

  1. Locate the skill-id:
    1. Navigate to the Alexa developer console.
    2. Log in if necessary.
    3. In the Skills tab, click the Copy Skill ID link under the skill name.
  2. In the quick link, replace <skill-id> with the copied skill ID:
    https://alexa-skills.amazon.<domain>/apis/custom/skills/<skill-id>/launch.
  3. Determine the top-level domain:
    1. If your skill is available in marketplaces other than the US, Amazon recommends that you create a separate quick link for each marketplace by setting different domains in the quick link URL for your skill.
    2. Quick links for your skill can be generated for AU, BR, CA, DE, ES, FR, GB, IN, IT, JP, MX, and US marketplaces.
    3. For each marketplace in which you want to surface a quick link for your customer skill, select a URL domain from the following table and replace <domain> with the selected domain:
      https://alexa-skills.amazon.<domain>/apis/custom/skills/<skill-id>/launch
    Marketplace Domain
    AU .com.au
    BR .com.br
    CA .ca
    DE .de
    ES .es
    FR .fr
    GB .co.uk
    IN .in
    IT .it
    JP .co.jp
    MX .com.mx
    US .com

    Your quick link is now ready.

Customer experience on the Quick Links for Alexa web page

A quick link leads customers to the Quick Links for Alexa web page for your skill in a browser, on a computer, or on a mobile device. There customers can sign in to their Amazon Alexa account to retrieve information about your skill, the list of devices they own, and other information such as ratings and availability of in-skill purchases.

After they sign in and review your skill information, customers can choose to launch your skill in either of two ways: from the web or via an Alexa notification.

Option 1: Launch from the web

Customers who are near an Alexa device and want to try your skill can choose to instantly launch your skill on their Alexa device. The Quick Links for Alexa web page shows customers a list of supported Alexa devices that they own. Customers can click one of these devices to have your skill launch on the device. Then, customers can immediately start to interact with your skill.

Option 2: Launch an Alexa notification

Customers can click this option to send a notification to their Alexa devices that enables them to launch your skill when they are near an Alexa device. When Alexa sends a notification, customers see a yellow light on devices without screens and an on-screen banner on devices with screens showing that they have a new notification. After customers send a notification to their Alexa device for your skill link, they can say, "Alexa, what's my notification?". Alexa responds with, "You have one skill to try - <Skill Name>. Would you like to open it?". Customers can say yes to have Alexa respond with, "Here's <Skill Name> launched from the web", and then launch your skill.

If your skill requires mandatory account linking, customers can link their accounts to Alexa after they launch your skill by using either of the preceding options. For example, if a customer launches your skill via an Alexa notification, they immediately see the account linking flow for your skill. After the customer completes account linking, they see a confirmation that Alexa sent a notification to their device.

If your skill supports account linking but doesn't require it, customers don't encounter the account linking flow when they use your quick link to launch your skill.

For details about account linking, see Add Account Linking to Your Alexa Skill.

If you display a quick link in your mobile app, the customer must enter their credentials for your app again during the account linking process, even if they're already logged in to your app. For example, if a customer signs in to your mobile app, and then click a quick link, the link takes them to the Quick Links for Alexa web page for your skill. The page redirects them to the account linking flow, if necessary for your skill. In the account linking flow, they must enter credentials for your service again, because they're no longer in your mobile app. To reduce this friction, you can surface the app-to-app account linking feature to your customers on your mobile app. Then, as the last step of your app-to-app account linking flow, you can redirect the customer to your quick link.

In the developer console, you can view the number of skill launches you generated through quick links.

If you want to track the number of skill launches coming from individual links surfaced in different online channels, you must use custom tasks in your skill in combination with query string parameters in the quick link URL. For example, you might want to understand which online channel is driving the most traffic to your skill's quick link among your website, mobile app, social media page and paid ads. You can find this out by using a query string attribution parameter. You can pass the parameter to your skill through a custom task input parameter. Read more about how to create a quick link for a custom task, and how to use an attribution parameter in your quick link and custom task. If your skill doesn't need inputs, and you want the query string attribution input parameter hidden, use the a2z_ref input parameter. For details, see Add campaign attribution to your traffic analytics.

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Last updated: Sep 10, 2024