Introduction to Applications and Distribution

Distributing content through the Zype app builders is one of the most popular ways to expand your reach to consumers. Sharing your content through apps shouldn't be overwhelming. This guide will introduce you many of the ways Zype can help you engage and grow your audience. We'll provide you with tips on monetizing your content, features and capabilities to optimize your app, and branding your app to build the best user experience possible. 

Let's get started! 

Content Structure 

Structuring your content in a way that is intuitive to your consumers is crucial. This will not only help your consumers find the content they want to watch, it will also reduce the amount of time you spend managing your content, giving you more time to focus on creating. 

Import your content

Adding content to your library is the first step to anything you do in Zype. We provide easy, automated workflows to make content ingestion headache free and provide many resources for you to learn from. Visit our Import and Upload section to learn about all the methods you can use to add your content to your library. 

Create Playlists 

To share your content with your audience, you'll need to create playlists for videos. You can choose to add videos to your playlist automatically using categories, or manage playlists manually. As you import videos to your library and add metadata values, those values will then be available to select from to create category-based playlists. Once you select from those categories, the videos with matching values will then be automatically added to the corresponding playlist. Manual-based playlists do not require adding categories, but you will need to add individual videos to each manual playlist you create. To learn more, visit our Playlist section. 

Manage Playlist Relationships 

Each customer has a unique way of organizing their playlists and it's up to you to decide how to create the playlist structure, based on your specific needs. Applications such as Amazon Fire TV require a specific structure for playlists to be served to devices. The most important requirement is that an empty playlist (stores no content) is created. This empty playlist is what Zype refers to as a "primary playlist". The primary playlist ensures the app will be rendered correctly to a device. After a primary playlist is created, you can add as many playlists beneath as you'd like. Playlists nested directly beneath the primary playlist are referred to as "parent playlists". These parent playlists can store content, or other playlists nested beneath them, called "children playlists". Visit our Manage Playlist Relationship section for a more detailed breakdown. 

Monetization 

Setting up your Stripe, Braintree or Recurly account

Before deciding on a monetization strategy through the Zype Amazon Fire TV, you must connect your Stripe, Braintree or Recurly account to accept payments. Our step-by-step guide with Braintree, Recurly or Stripe will help you set up your accounts within minutes. 

Advertising (Pre-roll)

Zype supports the use of ad tags and ad macros to those customers with a large audience that wants to monetize their content with ads. Visit our Ads Section to learn more about using ads as part of your monetization strategy.

*Note - If you choose to monetize with ads, you'll first need to work with your own Ad Network. Zype supports the ability to store ad tags as part of a monetization strategy but is not responsible for providing customers with ad tags. 

Universal Subscription

Our most successful customers use subscription plans as their go-to monetization strategy. Monthly recurring subscriptions are a great way to forecast revenue growth, giving you the ability to make meaningful business decisions. Universal subscriptions also give your audience the flexibility to pay for your content and watch it on several devices. To begin creating your subscription plan, visit our Subscription section.

To learn more about the full list of monetization features supported by each application, visit our Monetization Matrix.

Features Supported 

Each application has its own set of supported UI/UX features through Zype. To learn about the supported features by application, visit our Support Matrix.

Building Your App

In this guide, we've provided the basics you need to know to get you started but there a bunch of other resources available to help, too!

Our Applications section is where you'll find all the necessary information to help build your app and get it approved as quickly as possible.