How Arduino Increased User Conversion 3x by Simplifying Logins

Arduino is helping to democratise the IoT revolution by putting open-source software and hardware into the hands of educators, students, and “makers” of all stripes. Creators use Arduino to turn their dreams into working prototypes, with projects ranging from an automatic shirt-folding machine to low-cost ventilators that were saving lives during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Arduino’s revolutionary concept has made the company an international success, and 35 million visitors flock to their website each year. However, Arduino’s commitment to creating a simple, accessible user experience was held back by their in-house identity and access management (IAM) system. Arduino needed a modern, secure IAM platform that would serve the needs of customers ranging from schoolchildren to professional engineers.

In-House IAM was costing $100K per year

Arduino had an IAM solution based on open-source tools, but struggled to keep it updated, with maintenance alone costing nearly two full-time employees, or $100,000. This solution also increased security risk, as any upstream security bug in the open-source tools would inevitably trickle down to Arduino’s homegrown solution, and would require active remediation by the team. It soon became clear: the company needed to find an alternative. 

Arduino had three priorities in choosing an identity as a service (IDaaS) provider: scalability, GDPR compliance, and user security. They found all three in Okta Customer Identity Cloud, powered by Auth0.

3x Faster logins fuel 3x faster growth

Arduino has more than 19 web apps in addition to their main website: there’s the e-commerce shop, the resources geared toward educators, and the forums on which creators can share their projects. Arduino uses Customer Identity Cloud’s Single Sign On (SSO) so that when a user logs into any of these apps, they are automatically logged into the rest, simplifying onboarding. 

Arduino also used Customer Identity Cloud to enable social logins with Google and GitHub, which has increased conversions even more than Arduino’s team anticipated. Initially expecting 7% growth month-over-month, conversions grew by 20% on average, which the company attributes to a simpler experience on mobile, and authentication that takes less than a second.

Okta Customer Identity Cloud also sped up Arduino’s scaling on the back end by enabling their developers to release products faster. For example for the app, Arduino IoT Cloud, which developers needed IoT and Android log-ins, they were able to implement each in two and a half days. This rapid implementation enabled the product team to roll out the app nearly a month and half earlier.

Okta security and support are part of Arduino’s product

Because Arduino is based in Europe, under the jurisdiction of the GDPR, they take privacy and security very seriously. The Customer Identity Cloud platform has proved instrumental in maintaining legal compliance and high standards of security. In recent months, Arduino rolled out Multi-factor Authentication. This is an important feature for their professional users, and already 20% of them have adopted MFA. From Arduino’s perspective, MFA isn’t just a nice feature; it’s a value-add for their product giving them an edge against the competition.

With Arduino popular with hobbyists and in classrooms, the company’s userbase inevitably includes many minors. Customer Identity Cloud allowed the company to create ephemeral accounts bound to another person, like a parent or a teacher. This isn’t just secure — it’s also GDPR-compliant, and helps reduce and eliminate administrative and legal costs. Arduino delegates many compliance responsibilities directly to Okta, reducing the amount of paperwork that needs to be filled and reviewed by lawyers. 

Going forward, Arduino is excited to use Okta in a post-COVID-19 world, in which remote access to online tools will be more crucial than ever. As a company representative explained: “Customer Identity Cloud is a clear winner, not just in time to market but also in shipping your features to the user. Because for us, authentication is a piece of the product itself.”

About Customer

Arduino is an open-source hardware, software, and content platform with a worldwide community of around 2 million active users. It has powered thousands of projects, from everyday objects to satellites and complex scientific instruments, providing the building blocks for innovators to power connected experiences for the future. This success has been made possible by combining a wide variety of electronic boards, easy-to-use tools, a collaborative community, and practical project examples to suit all levels.