Charting 2024: Heeling into partnerships and inspiring innovation for strategic growth

As we reflect on the remarkable journey of impact.com and our industry in 2023, I’m thrilled to share the incredible successes and highlights achieved by our global team. I’m truly thankful for the chance to collaborate with such a talented team of over 1,000 impact.com colleagues spread across several offices around the world — from New York to Cape Town to Tokyo. And what unites and motivates us is our shared passion for making partnerships happen and our vision to be the global standard platform that creates, manages, and scales all types of partnerships.

And what a journey we’ve all experienced in such a short amount of time! Our industry has seen incredible shifts in the past few years, and impact.com has been at the forefront of these changes. If 2022 was about exploring the potential of partnerships, then 2023 was the year we boldly heeled into the winds of progress.?

Partnerships of all types — with creators, with commerce content publishers, with traditional rewards affiliates, with other businesses, as well as with customers — are the inspiration and driving force behind our progress. And despite a tough year around the world — from war to economic uncertainty — we remain focused on uplifting our industry as a whole. Together, we are not just setting sail; we are shaping the winds and propelling ourselves into a brighter, more promising 2024.?

Today, impact.com is the global, standard management platform at the forefront of the partnership economy. The platform supports more than 225,000 active and productive partnerships for more than 3,500 customers who are partnering with creators, publishers, customers, traditional rewards affiliates, as well as with other businesses on our platform.

As the partnership economy grows, we at impact.com continue to make strategic investments, providing essential tools and leadership for successful partnerships and revenue growth. In 2023, we welcomed over 1,000 new customers, including renowned brands like SeatGeek, Hydro Flask, Daily Harvest, Pepperstone, and Endeavour Group, along with 70 new agency partners.?

In pursuit of our vision to service all types of partnerships, we proudly introduced the impact.com / creator platform — the world’s first influencer marketing platform that allows brands and creators to discover, create, manage, and scale full-funnel influencer marketing programs, all from a single interface. We know that marketers and customers need innovative technology to stay ahead of the constantly changing curve, and we’re proud to have created an industry-first, influencer partnership management platform that meets that need.

Our commitment to innovation was also the tip of the spear of our strategic investments. We were proud to announce the acquisition of best-in-class customer referral software provider SaaSquatch. SaaSquatch’s technology helps brands build trust with new audiences through their own customer base — turning loyal customers into trusted advocates. SaaSquatch’s technology has the flexibility to handle the most advanced customer referral programs, giving brands the ability to reward advocates for any behavior they choose. impact.com’s platform integration with SaaSquatch allows brands to now build stronger customer partnerships through a single platform.

Moreover, we remained at the technological forefront with cutting-edge innovations and integrations – key to underpinning our growth and our clients’ performance. We expanded our strategic collaboration with Google with an enhanced integration powering affiliate link deals across select Google properties. We also integrated with BigCommerce’s Channel Manager and became a certified app in the HubSpot App marketplace.?

We also released several new product features, from Workflow automation, to Promo Code Monitoring, to a new Mobile App. A notable feature for me was our Branded Portal add-on for enterprise-level brands. The add-on provides a fully customizable environment where brands can collaborate directly with creators to meet their specific program goals. Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to roll out this exciting new opportunity!

It was also gratifying to see that commitment to innovation recognized. This year, we were honored to have been recognized with more than two dozen leading industry awards globally for delivering creative technology solutions and leadership in the partnerships industry. Notably, impact.com was named “Best Overall Martech Company of 2023” by the Martech Breakthrough Awards, and our groundbreaking technology was named “Partnership of the Year” by the US Partnership Awards for Walmart Creator. And most importantly, our work with our clients was recognized this year. Various awards highlighted our successful campaigns with clients and agencies like Solo Stove and Purple Orange, Revolut, Ellos, Myer, Silverbean, and many more.???

We were also honored by the response to our thought leadership in the partnerships industry. We published several key reports that dove into the intricate relationship between brands, partners, and consumers with Digiday, Adweek, and our own “State of Influencer Marketing for Consumers in 2023” report.??

We were proud to launch our “Marketing is Hard’ campaign and website to dive into the challenges marketing teams are facing today and how the partnerships channel and impact.com’s platform can help them achieve a better customer experience and drive ROI.

With all of these great findings and content, we were thrilled to dig deeper into these topics with customers and prospects at our flagship Partnerships Experience, or iPX23, conference in New York in June. We hosted an exclusive group of over 1,000 attendees — both in-person and watching online — and heard from nearly 40 speakers across two days of great content and learning opportunities.

But we couldn’t just keep that to New York! We also hosted iPX London and iPX Sydney for nearly 400 attendees. Both events brought together publishers, creators, advertisers, agencies, and other partners to discuss the future of partnerships.?

We also represented the industry at global events like DMEXCO, PI Live Miami, and more. Additionally, we hosted our own events, like our iPX Connect, Creator Edition in Los Angeles and our Partnerships “IRL” gatherings in cities across the U.S. These events were aimed at bringing brands, creators, and partners together to learn and collaborate with one another.?

We also dove into the fourth season of our podcast, “The Partnership Economy,” and were thrilled to reach over 120,000 downloads and be recognized with a Gold Award in the Marcom Awards! Our episodes feature a line-up of fascinating guests from Uncommon Goods, Apollo Neuro, HubSpot, and more. We believe in partnerships and sharing knowledge within our industry, and we’re excited to continue doing so with all of you.

As we navigate the new frontiers of the partnership economy, we're not just setting sail; we're heeling into the wind—we’re innovating, making strategic investments and offering the resources needed to guide brands, publishers, creators, and agencies to successful partnerships and revenue growth.

I’ve created a video that takes a look back at many of these successes and more highlights from this past year, and our outlook for what’s ahead in 2024. I hope you’ll watch, or check out the blog post, and feel free to send me feedback directly at [email protected].?

Thank you for being part of this extraordinary journey. Here's to a healthy, joyful, and prosperous 2024, where we continue to foster partnerships and set the global standard in our ever-evolving field.

All the best for the New Year!