Impact.com, a management platform that automates the partnership lifecycle for brands and publishers, is eyeing off a segment that's quickly rising in importance for advertisers - creators.
Adam Furness, Asia-Pacific MD for impact.com, said the company bought an influencer marketing business a couple of years ago and there was always the intention to incorporate that into the overall impact.com platform.
"We're seeing this rise in the importance of peer-to-peer recommendations and we've seen this emergence of social platforms like Instagram and TikTok, plus now with Threads and Twitter becoming X, giving those creators more avenues to be able to promote products," he said.
"Our intent has always been to bring that into our existing platform as another partnership type, which can be used within the one platform."
The new platform - impact.com / creator - allows brands, creators, and agencies alike to build long-term relationships through full-funnel performance management.
Furness said that the management of creators is different to when a business is working with another business, so the platform deliberately includes workflow management to suit these needs.
"There’s different type of approvals when it comes to approving creative that goes out from creators, so it's a different type of workflow which needs to happen within the platform. It was taking that and then incorporating it into our broader platform and we needed to make sure that it was purpose built for creators and advertisers that work with creators," Furnesss said.
"Advertisers not only get full funnel reporting, but also the ability to track above and beyond vanity metrics - not just swipes and likes, but all the way through to if that creator has actually sold a product - as well as flexibility in compensation too."
Furness said that typically, upfront payments has been the norm in the influencer or creative world for some time, where the general process follows ‘create something and get paid a sponsorship fee’, with payment for a certain post or number of likes.
Where the impact.com / creator platform differs is the flexibility within the platform to compensate creators all the way through to "how many sales have been driven and what percentage of sale makes sense to pay the creator?", with advertisers able to track, measure and pay creators for all those various parts of that funnel, all in one platform.
"For the creator, there's more ways to make money. It's not just for posts, but if they're performing really well, they can make extra money by actually selling product," he said.
"They've got a whole bunch of quality brands they can work for, because we do have a marketplace within the platform, but the brands that typically license our technology are quality brands, and for creators, they're always wanting to work with quality brands.
"They have their own interface as well, where they can see how much money they're making and when they're expected to be paid, so they can really run it like their own their own business."
Furness said the decline in both interest and trust in digital advertising and media has led to creators filling the void for advertisers and consumers in the market.
"We tend to trust a group of people that we have a connection with, like our core peer group, and we trust what they say," aid Furness.
"When you're following a creator, you like that creator, you've built a relationship with that creator in that you see what they do on a day-to-day basis and you listen to and trust what they say - that recommendation is like that word-of-mouth recommendation, so it's really powerful.
"When you're able to, from an advertiser perspective, look at it and say, ‘Wow, this is actually working, it's building my brand, I can link it to metrics and I have a platform in the case of impact.com where I can look at creators as another channel of partnerships that I can manage in one place’, it becomes a really compelling proposition.
"As a brand, it's no longer viable to just work with one celebrity influencer that may not have a deep connection; maybe you want to work with 10 or 15 or 20 influencers or content creators that have smaller audiences but have deeper connections with those audiences, but once you get to that place, it's really hard to manage unless you've got technology that can help you manage all those different content creators."
Furness said that the rise of partnership channels more broadly has helped to drive the expansion of the impact.com team in both Australia (pictured right) and the APAC region.
Since he joined in January 2018 when there were only four people in the Sydney office and five customers, the business has now grown to seven offices across APAC - Sydney, Melbourne, Tokyo, Shanghai and Singapore, plus shared spaces in Indonesia and Malaysia - and close to 500 customers across APAC.
"The great thing when I look at the APAC business is we are profitable and we’ve continued to grow profitably, which I think is really, really important and not always the case in a tech business," he said.
"I feel really good about the business and I think it comes down to the fact that we've got an amazing team and we've got customers which really love working with us.
"We talk a lot about creating this 'irrational love', which is they don't want to work with anyone else, they just want to work with impact.com and they want to tell everyone about how good it is working with impact.com. Our team are the same - they love working at impact.com so much, they don't want to work anywhere else and want to tell everyone about that as well."
Alex Randall, Account Executive, Enterprise
What’s the biggest challenge in your role?
It has to be how quickly the industry and consumer purchasing habits are changing, especially post COVID. However, this is what excites me the most about my role as I’m constantly having to learn new things to ensure that I’m not left behind. For example, in the last six months the brands I’m speaking to have shifted from ROAS (return on advertising spend) as their north star in terms of metrics to MER (marketing efficiency ratio) as a way to measure the success of digital campaigns.
What does a typical day look like for you?
No one day is the same which is what makes my role so enjoyable. Being in the sales team means I’m constantly working with other parts of the organisation and collaborating with multiple teams within the business on one given day.
However, one thing that stays consistent everyday of the week is blocking out ‘focus time’ in the first two hours of the day. I know I’m at my most productive in the morning and I look to utilise this time to focus on my most important tasks for the day. This means no meetings and my Slack is closed. I’m usually plugged into a dance playlist or All Out 80s on Spotify to ensure there’s no distractions. The first two hours of the day will be spent researching businesses, prospecting and keeping up to date with any new industry trends or developments.
What attracted you to impact.com?
I’ve always been fascinated by the advancements in technology within the affiliate marketing industry. I started my career brand-side but moved network-side to be closer to the new developments in technology.
I’d followed what impact.com has been doing in the space and loved the role they were playing in the market to promote new ways of working within the affiliate channel. One example I love showing clients is how Zero Co, a company that delivers home-cleaning products minus all the single-use plastic, has partnered with schools to educate students and parents about single use plastic. If that household then purchases from Zero Co, that school is remunerated for generating the sale.
It's these types of innovations and the opportunity to work for a company that is constantly evolving, is what attracted me to impact.com.
What are you focused on for 2023?
As a company, impact.com has doubled down on the creator economy this year and integrated the influencer management platform we bought two years ago, to give brands the opportunity to bring all partnership types together under one platform. A partner can be any third party that promotes the brand to drive a desired outcome.
My focus for the second half of the year is to upskill myself and potential clients on the new product suite, it now includes the ability to create, track and report on all partnerships within one dashboard.
What do you love most about your role?
Externally facing, my role means that I’m speaking to different brands who have different goals and objectives every single day. It’s then my job to work with the brand, find out what they’re doing now and see whether impact.com’s technology can help fill the gaps to help them achieve their goals and KPIs. I love working with prospective clients to help them get to where they want to be, and work with them to solve problems to help take their affiliate and partnership channel to the next level.
From an internal perspective, I work very closely with the tech, marketing and partnership development teams to uncover new and innovative ways that our technology can help move the needle for new prospective customers. Having played team sports throughout my life, I thrive in a team environment and my current role allows me to collaborate with different personalities throughout the APAC business.
Helena Barroso Zarco, Customer Success Director ANZ and SEA
What do you love most about your role?
I love having the chance to work with a group of outstanding individuals in my team from all different backgrounds, ways of working and culture. It’s amazing to see how different things are seen from different perspectives but our goal is the same. It doesn’t matter how we get to the goal, as long as we get there by being true to ourselves, honest and always pivoting based on not only our culture but also on our customers’ culture.
What attracted you to impact.com?
The fast-paced environment of an outstanding tech and local team with the support of an international company. Global coordination is always tough, especially if you are part of one of the emerging regions, but that brings so much movement and feelings of fulfillment as everything you do has a direct impact on where the company is heading locally.
What does a typical day look like for you?
I manage a team of seven, so a lot of my time is spent with each customer success manager (CSM) to ensure they’re fulfilling their role successfully; I’m there to clarify any questions or escalations if needed. I’m also on team calls with the customer success team itself or with other departments to ensure that we coordinate and run cross-teams as smoothly as possible. These communications happen via Slack or phone calls.
Aside from that, I normally work on a big operational project per quarter. For example, I have worked on a 90-day plan where each CSM has to strategise what the priorities will be with their customers in the following quarter, or an agency project to coordinate better with that team. The project topics vary from team to team and country to country. As a high-growth company it’s important to take a step back, breathe, plan and attack!
What’s the biggest challenge in your role?
We’re growing exponentially and onboarding new clients every week so my focus (and biggest challenge) is ensuring I’m across all key client updates whilst not getting too deep into the weeds! My fantastic customer success team is responsible for the day-to-day activities and as the Director I need to find the balance of giving our new customers time, without forgetting about the existing ones. My role is making sure that they’re all happy, growing, succeeding and getting the best of our tech and our customer success team.
What are you focused on for 2023?
Keep supporting my team and ensuring that we are not only retaining our customers in a challenging economic climate, but also that we keep making them grow and be excited about being part of our impact.com family.
Jamie Wong, Technical Services Engineer
What attracted you to impact.com?
It was mainly the technology of the platform at that time. Before impact.com, I was working for a price comparison platform which was on the publisher side of the advertising industry. impact.com was one tool that I used on a day-to-day basis. When the recruiter of impact.com reached out to me, I was so excited because I knew that the technology was awesome.
Now that I have worked here for a few years, I think impact.com is so much more than just awesome tech. The company culture and the people are also what I would recommend impact.com for. Our colleagues are intelligent and very supportive of each other.
What are you focused on for 2023?
My focus in 2023 is to define processes for our APAC Technical Services division and make sure that they are aligned with our company objectives as well as industry direction, in order to be able to provide more timely support for our clients in the region.
Upskilling is also another focus. Our industry is moving so fast, it is important that our skills and knowledge keep up with all the changes. You should never stop learning.
What do you love most about your role?
The diversity and the unpredictability. I love it when I’m challenged and my brain cells fire at full strength while troubleshooting complex problems. It gives me a sense of satisfaction when problems are solved.
I also like helping others solve their problems. It gives me a good reason to show up each day because it’s meaningful.
What’s the biggest challenge in your role?
The biggest challenge has to be the unpredictability. My job is to provide technical support to both internal and external clients when there are problems, and since most issues that come to me are often unique and unprecedented, it is not always easy to plan ahead how to spend my time each day. I just started in my current role a few months ago, and I am still trying to figure out how to improve efficiency and agility so that I can act on and resolve reported problems quickly.
Having said that, the unpredictable nature of my job is also what makes it fun and interesting. I have worked in a routine job in the past and I found it quite soul-destroying.
What does a typical day look like for you?
I start my day with my morning walk and a cup of coffee. Before I turn on my laptop, I decide what I would like for lunch. I have to plan it in advance or else I will end up eating junk when I get busy at work.
The first one hour at work is usually spent on self-training and clearing off remaining tasks from the previous day, if any. Then I move onto new tasks and many meetings. There are also a fair amount of laughs and banter with my colleagues throughout the day.
Laurence Nelmes, Marketing Executive ANZ
What are you focused on for 2023?
Bigger and better. Learning from previous years, building upon existing foundations and trying new and exciting things. As a company we’re on a steep growth journey, which means we’ve really had to throw everything at it this year from a marketing perspective. What’s more, we’ve released a new, game-changing influencer management solution called Creator. Not only will this product transform influencer marketing for our existing customer base, it opens up a whole new addressable market for us. Watch this space!
What do you love most about your role?
My love and challenge are one and the same. Variety keeps me motivated, engaged and coming back to the office each day. If I’m not challenged, I’m bored and I need to find something new.
What attracted you to impact.com?
The technology and the culture. I was immediately compelled by the scope and the potential of impact.com’s Partnership Cloud. This was marketing like I had never seen, and it benefited everyone involved - brands, partners and customers. Tech aside, the company’s culture ticked all the boxes. Great people, hustle as a standard, and unlimited PTO - I can get behind that.
What does a typical day look like for you?
There is no typical day. My days vary greatly depending on the various projects and campaigns I have in play. One day I could be off at an event in Melbourne drinking cocktails and talking shop with prospective clients, the next I could be head down in reports and dashboards identifying new (and missed) opportunities and ensuring the more glamorous elements of marketing are generating results. Of late, an AI friend who goes by the name of Ben has entered my life with the goal of streamlining our marketing development process. He’s great, but he’s needy.
What’s the biggest challenge in your role?
Two challenges come to mind, education and juggling. impact.com has redefined a legacy channel, affiliate marketing, and created a new category for marketers, partnerships. Now, when you get it, you get it, and it’s really exciting and presents an incredible opportunity for marketers. However, not everybody gets it right away, and that’s when we need to work a little harder. As a juggler, I oversee the full gamut of the marketing function across Australia and New Zealand - the challenge is making sure I keep all the balls in the air.
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