impact.com Sets New Partnership Economy Standards in 2023 with Market Expansion, Client Growth and Technology Innovation

impact.com, the world’s leading partnership management platform, announced its 2023 company growth and strong performance, driven by client and agency partner growth, return on strategic business investments, new integrations, and product innovation and development. As the global standard partnership management platform at the forefront of the Partnership Economy, impact.com now serves more than 225,000 active and productive partnerships for approximately 3,500 customers collaborating with all partnership types — from influencers through to customer advocates.

“The Partnership Economy is increasingly commanding a very prominent seat at the revenue table in today’s leading businesses. Due to changing consumer behaviour and declining efficiency in traditional marketing channels, we’re witnessing an immense transformation, resulting in a shift from an advertiser-controlled environment to one where customers are firmly in the driver’s seat,” said  David A. Yovanno, CEO, impact.com.

”Today, brands, businesses, publishers, creators, and agencies have tapped into this crucial channel for not only growth, but to understand their customers in ways that are meaningful, relevant, and driving bottom-line performance. impact.com’s growth is a testament to how influential these partnerships are to global brands, and we’re continuing to deliver the technology, marketplace, and services needed to meet the modern buyer at the critical point of their decision making to purchase – which is through seeking out reviews and authentic recommendations from those they trust, including publishers, creators, and more.”

In 2023, impact.com welcomed more than 1,000 new clients, including leading brands SeatGeek, B&Q, Hydro Flask, Daily Harvest, Pepperstone, Endeavour Group, and more, and 70 new agency partners to its customer portfolio.

Leading with its vision to be the unified, global standard platform for all partnership types,  impact.com announced impact.com / creator — the world’s first influencer partnership platform allowing brands and creators to discover, create, manage, and scale full-funnel influencer marketing programmes, all from a single interface. With flexible and diverse payout models, brands and creators can now choose between commission or other performance-based fees, flat fee or any combination of both. In addition, enterprise clients looking for a fully customisable environment where they can collaborate directly with influencers and creators to meet their specific programme goals also have access to a Branded Portal add-on. Leading brands like Target are already leveraging Branded Portal as a part of their partner strategy.

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The company also announced several strategic investments, including the acquisition of best-in-class customer referral software provider SaaSquatch. The acquisition marks the company’s fifth in three years, including Activate in 2020, Affluent and Trackonomics in 2021, and Pressboard in 2022. SaaSquatch’s technology helps brands build authentic trust with new audiences through the brand’s own customer base — turning loyal customers into trusted advocates. SaaSquatch’s technology has the flexibility to handle the most advanced customer referral programmes, giving brands the ability to reward advocates for any behaviour they choose — from completing a form to making a purchase. impact.com’s platform integration with SaaSquatch allows brands to build stronger customer partnerships managed through a single platform.

Equally aligned, impact.com continued its technology leadership including new innovations and integrations – key to underpinning its 2023 growth and performance. During the year impact.com expanded its strategic collaboration with Google with an enhanced integration powering affiliate link deals across select Google surfaces. Shortly following, the company integrated with BigCommerce’s Channel Manager and was established as a certified app in the HubSpot App marketplace. 

Additional notable 2023 impact.com highlights include: 

• Developed and released significant platform enhancements and upgrades, further signaling the company’s global technology leadership including: New impact.com Mobile App that enables brands and partners to utilise the impact.com platform directly on a mobile device. In just the first 3 months of launch, brand and partner adoption rates hit 40,000 links with more than 26,000 new partnerships formed; Promo Code Monitoring that automatically alerts publishers when using expired or unauthorised promo codes, ensuring brands deliver a smooth and positive customer experience; avoid abandoned shopping carts; maintain brand reputation; and prevent revenue loss; and Extended Search, which provides brands with the ability to easily discover high-quality partners beyond the impact.com marketplace. Using keyword-based searches within the platform, this tool scours the Internet to bring in partner results directly aligned to target audience preferences.    
• Hosted annual Partnerships Experience event, known as iPX, in New York City, London, and Sydney– bringing together more than 1,000 attendees and 80 speakers from every aspect of the Partnership Economy to share knowledge, learn from industry trailblazers, and build connections for the future.
• Launched the fourth season of “The Partnership Economy,”  podcast that boasts more than 120,000 downloads and includes episodes featuring a line-up of fascinating guests from Uncommon Goods, Apollo Neuro, HubSpot, and others. 
• Released industry-leading first and third-party research with Adweek on how brands can forge lasting, results-driven relationships with quality creators, Digiday on the state of commerce content and how publisher revenue, budgets, and partnerships are expanding, an impact.com “State of Influencer Marketing in 2023” research report, and a report on  influencer marketing in Southeast Asia revealing what consumers value when engaging with influencers. 
• Recognised with more than 25 leading industry awards globally for delivering innovative technology solutions and leadership to the Partnership Economy including being named Best Overall Martech Company of 2023 by the Martech Breakthrough Awards, received “Partnership of the Year” award for Walmart Creator as part of the US Partnership Awards, named Best Marketing Technology Solution by The Wires in the UK, and Marketing Technology Company of the Year by the Mumbrella Awards in Australia, recognised for successful client and agency campaigns for work with clients including Solo Stove and Purple Orange, Revolut, Ellos, Myer, Silverbean, and more, and CMO Cristy Ebert Garcia named a Top 30 Changemaker in Partnership Marketing by Hello Partner, and CEO David A. Yovanno recognized as a Top 50 SaaS CEO by The Software Report. 
• Announced growth of Partnerships Experience Academy, or PXA, the industry’s first partnerships certification programme that provides free online training courses. In the last few months, PXA has provided  80 full-length courses, registered over 15,000 learners, and created an onboarding centre that offers weekly, hour-long live training sessions for brands and partners who are new to the impact.com platform. 
• Expanded Agency Partner Programme — providing agencies with referral opportunities, certification courses, co-marketing resources, and more to drive growth and mutual customer value. Industry data shows as much as 50% of partnership activity is driven by agencies and that agency-managed programmes develop more productive partnerships, grow faster, and deliver more incremental revenue.    
• Made key internal investments to improve the company’s workplace, employee satisfaction, engagement, and community volunteerism. This includes the hiring of Chief People Officer, Michelle Denman, the promotion of Dirk Oberholster to Chief Productivity Officer, the launch of impact.com’s employee Global Citizenship Initiative and Global Day of Service, and the introduction of impact.com’s new sustainability efforts to better understand and lower the company’s carbon footprint.