CEO of impact.com, David A. Yovanno on the Power of the Partnerships Economy

In the final installment of our CEO series, we’re so pleased to bring you insight from impact.com CEO David A. Yovanno. In truly great style, his answers round off the series with a hugely positive look towards 2022 and beyond.

David talked about the fact that brands are waking up to the true power of the partnerships economy, and how we as an industry can prepare for this…

It has become clear that partnerships are a hugely important factor in a brands’ success. How do you think the partnership economy will further develop in 2022?

There is no doubt that the partnership economy growth will continue to accelerate this year. The ad crisis in big tech has continued to drive ad rates upward, but more importantly, brands are beginning to fully realise consumer distrust with ads. Meanwhile, new partnership types with creators, major publishers and businesses are emerging and evolving all the time – it’s truly an exciting time to be in the industry.

It seems that brands have woken up to the power of the partnership economy – a more authentic way to engage consumers and be more relevant in their daily lives. They are learning how to become part of the commerce content that is created, versus continuing to interrupt natural consumer online behaviour with traditional advertising formulas. Today, when I use the term ‘partnerships’ I rarely have to explain what I mean – especially when compared to a few years ago. I’m sure that 2022 will see a continued rise of partnerships across all sectors, with many brands getting involved for the very first time – and being impressed with what they see and the results that they achieve.

impact.com announced its $150 million funding and a $1.5 billion valuation. How will this funding allow you to progress?

impact.com’s latest round of funding last summer will enable the company to accelerate its investment in the platform experience to drive more partnerships, increase channel partnerships, and scale its go-to-market efforts for brands, agencies, and publishers globally. In turn, this will accelerate growth for all participants in the partnership economy. We’re starting 2022 stronger than ever. We’ve acquired two market-leading companies, established new strategic partnerships and we’ve seen record growth. Many lessons have been learned.

Today, we support more than half a million partnerships for more than 2,000 customers – and we are partnering with all types of content creators, from influencers to publishers, traditional rewards affiliates and other businesses. We are firmly in growth mode – not only as a result of this increased funding but also due to increased clarity and confidence in our vision. Each day, we are observing the transformation that happens when you put great technology into the hands of brands, publishers, creators and their agencies.

How do you see less traditional publisher types causing a stir within the space?

For publishers, commerce content is a particularly exciting area as it’s growing fast. I’ve talked with a number of major publishers recently and they’ve grown their commerce content editorial teams, and revenue, 10x over the last few years. We’ve long known that the best publishers maintain their audience’s trust by adhering to their editorial integrity standards and ensuring the brand or product they endorse aligns with their ethos and, perhaps more importantly, their audience. Today, our brand clients have opportunities to leverage that consumer trust through this commercial information that is being published by publishers where there is a good fit.

We’ve also announced an integration with Google Pay, whereby impact.com now powers an updated, premium offers experience for the app’s users. What this means is that brands currently working with impact.com can submit exclusive offers for promotion within it. These can include special deals, deep discounts, exclusive rewards, or regional in-store promotions.

What do you see being the next big innovation that will fuel or evolve our industry?

What will fuel our industry further will be increasing awareness that every business today needs a mature partnership strategy to be competitive – and a platform that helps them manage and automate this effort. As ad prices on the big tech ad platforms continue to skyrocket, and as consumers take full control of their buying journey in their search through commerce content, more brands are waking up to this reality. The fact is that if brands can tap into this channel they will be more relevant to the lives of consumers, and everybody wins.

We’ve seen more use of the term ‘Partnerships’ over the last 12 months as we describe affiliate marketing, what’s driven this in your opinion?

Historically the term “affiliate” has been used to describe the transactional nature of a relationship that brands have had with loyalty and rewards publishers and where the compensation model is primarily commission-based. However, the term “partnerships” has overtaken this industry as it more accurately represents the nature of today’s business relationships. They’ve moved beyond the transactional relationship with publishers to where publishers are going much deeper to understand and get behind the brand they are recommending, and do it in a way that connects with their audience or customers. 

Creators may still be compensated on a commission-basis; however, the compensation model is not the determining factor here. Many influencers, for example, prefer to be compensated on a fixed fee at the start of a partnership which might start off as campaign-based with a time duration, but then revert to “affiliate” links afterwards for residual compensation which may last for years for their original content. The term “partnership” is a much more accurate description of the nature of today’s relationship between businesses and these creators. 

What are the industry trends that you feel may become bigger in 2022?

Business-to-business (B2B) partnership programmes are really picking up speed, and one of the most important learnings from this year was that our B2B clients especially required capabilities to enable them to partner with other businesses and channel partners efficiently. B2B companies that work with impact.com can now earn from their entire B2B funnel and get full visibility into the customer journey.

Influencer marketing has seen an increasing budget for the past half a decade and expect influencer partnerships will grow to be an even bigger contributor in 2022. As a market leader in influencer partnerships, we are integrating and scaling an all-in-one, end-to-end influencer platform for every type of influencer campaign – from a one-time endorsement to a long term partnership with macro, micro and even nano influencers, across all of the social platforms. We’ve found, time and again, that influencer partnerships have been successful where traditional advertising hasn’t.

What challenges do you envision lying ahead for the industry in the next 12 months?

A number of macro trends in the industry, such as continued tracking changes from big tech (e.g., Facebook, Google, Apple), have provided strong tailwinds for the partnership economy as a whole. In 2022, the exodus from display advertising and towards more authentic recommendations through partnerships will undoubtedly continue, fuelled by a massive spike in consumer-driven e-commerce and backlash against ads.

Businesses and brands must avoid stasis. They must be bold and make changes in order to evolve in line with this rapidly shifting landscape. As such, last summer, we launched the industry’s first certification platform and free online academy for affiliate marketing and partnerships called the Partnerships Experience Academy. We have already trained over 1,600 learners and we’ll be expanding our team and course offerings in 2022 in the face of this increased demand. One thing we’ve learnt is that our learning is never done!

Also published in: Performance In

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