ACTIVE helps organizers transform and grow their businesses. The company hosts the world's largest directory of sports and recreational activities, facilities, venues, and classes—and collects all participant and event data so thousands of organizers can manage data and payments seamlessly and effectively. "Our goal is to help transform and grow event organizations everywhere," says Kristin Carroll, vice president of corporate and consumer marketing.

"We had an API. We just didn't have the knowledge or resources to implement it to its full potential from development to monetization," explains Ms. Carroll. The company was looking for ways to broadly share customer activities that would fit with its cloud infrastructure. Further, it wanted to replace ETL systems with APIs, increase IT efficiency while keeping costs below average, and implement a secure API management solution that could scale with global growth.

"We looked at our API program as an innovation and incubator opportunity, but we wanted to lean on experts to guide us," says Carroll. "We needed to align with a company that would allow us to move forward and expand the functionality of our API, as well as leverage connections with the developer community to drive usage and adoption. That company was TIBCO." And the product was TIBCO Mashery®.

More Partners, More Traffic

Through Mashery, ACTIVE built its open data ACTIVE Access Platform that provides multiple APIs so partners everywhere can serve different needs. The company added hundreds of partners that range from vertically focused companies like Running in the USA to larger organizations like PGA, Rodale, and Eventful. Partners use one or more of its 42 APIs and 17 apps.

Fast Developer Onboarding

Developer relations have also become an integral part of the company's API strategy. ACTIVE created a dedicated support team to communicate with the developer community and foster relationships. To eliminate the pains of onboarding, it uses Mashery automated account and API key creation, which provides quicker and smoother onboarding. "Our partners know they have support from a dedicated technical team, as well as comprehensive API documentation and Mashery I/O Docs," says Carroll. "We need much less account management to complete partner implementation."

Monetization

ACTIVE has empowered partners and driven innovation, which has resulted in great ROI for both ACTIVE and its partners. The Mashery-made developer portal allows all types of partners to easily learn about ACTIVE's multiple APIs and how to monetize opportunities. They can monetize through the affiliate program, which awards a percentage of every transaction or activity sign-up. The program has driven exceptional results, and 99 percent of the value is a result of the ACTIVE API.

For example, the company quickly saw a 250 percent year-over-year increase in transactions from its API. Top tier partners saw incremental month-over-month growth of 5 to 10 percent in the first year of the Mashery API program, and that number continued to increase. By the second year, the website had a 130 percent year-over-year increase in visitors.

Security and Efficiency

Mashery cloud-based API management supports fast and secure data exchanges, including for the company's custom application architecture for which APIs are mandatory.

"The ACTIVE API is a vital part of our strategy, and there's still a significant amount of runway," says Carroll.