impact.com Closes 2021 With New Google Pay Integration, $150M in Funding And 51% Increase in Clients YoY

The company’s notable moments include four major tech integrations, two acquisitions, a new C-Suite hire and extended parental leave policy 

impact.com, the world’s leading partnership management platform supporting more than one million partnerships for more than 1,900 brands, announced record growth in 2021. In the last year, impact.com has seen enormous traction with success in new capital funding, two acquisitions, and four new tech integrations. The company has also seen growth with 51% increase in their client portfolio and 15 award wins so far this year. 

impact.com kicked off 2021 by joining Shopify Plus as a certified app partner for influencer and affiliate marketing. Over the course of the year, impact.com also announced new product functionality for B2B partnerships through a partnership with HubSpot, a tech integration with BigCommerce and most recently an integration with Google Pay. Additionally, impact.com acquired Trackonomics, an SSP for publishers’ partnership programs that provides page-level revenue attribution and ROI, and Affluent, an analytics and automation platform designed to help agencies manage partnership programs for brands. Earlier this year, the company also disclosed financial growth, exceeding $100 million in annual recurring revenue and closing a $150 million round of funding at a $1.5 billion valuation in preparation for an IPO.

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The last two years have been an uphill battle for marketers. When both Apple and Google announced in 2020 that they would severely limit online targeting, tracking and measurement as a result of the loss of cookies and other online user identifiers, many had to readjust their strategies to reach and convert their audiences. At the same time, there has been a surge in ecommerce; however, it’s been met with growing consumer backlash against advertising. As such, marketers have shifted their focus toward leveraging partnerships to connect with consumers through third party trusted reviews and recommendations, a trend expected to continue for the foreseeable future. With an influx of influencer and affiliate strategies, along with commerce content, the partnerships industry is equipped to provide solutions where advertising has failed.

“As today’s marketing landscape shifts to accommodate changing consumer behaviors and the skyrocketing ad prices on the big tech platforms, we have seen a greater need for innovation within the partnership economy. We’ve tackled this head on through our product innovation, tech integrations, acquisitions and new capital funding, to provide our clients with the leading global partnership management platform available for all partnership types,” said David A. Yovanno, CEO of impact.com. “The modern day consumer is in control of their own shopping journey and is actively seeking out trusted, genuine and authentic solutions from trusted sources to meet their needs. impact.com provides a marketplace, contracting solution, tracking, payment, reporting and more through the platform and is the answer for any brand, publisher and agency eager to reach consumers in the way they want to be reached.”

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In addition to impact.com’s corporate growth, the company has actively showcased its industry expertise this year. In October, impact.com released two new commerce content reports that found brands with at least 20 content publisher partners are 2X as likely to see increased revenue and publishers expect revenue from commerce content to grow by more than 50%. Earlier this year, the company also launched Partnerships Experience 2021, a first-of-its-kind virtual partnership event featuring speakers from Canva, Hubspot, Conde Nast and HSBC, introduced The Partnership Economy podcast and debuted the Partnerships Experience Academy, a free online academy that educates learners about how to drive growth through affiliate marketing and partnerships. 

More recently, impact.com named HubSpot veteran Kim Walsh as Chief Growth Officer, in which she will support long-term commercial success as the company moves toward IPO in 2022. impact.com also added customers globally, increasing its customer count by 51%—including EcoHotels.com, Jabra, Virgin Australia, Puma, Skyscanner, Swarovski, Tempur Sealy, The PAS Group and Virgin Australia. The company also announced a company-wide paid parental leave policy, offering 26 weeks for parents. 

impact.com’s award winning work was also recognised by the industry in 2021 with a few below:

• Vendor of the Year at the The Drum for Digital Industries
• Most Innovative Use of Martech (Silver) at B2B Martech Awards 
• Best Performance Marketing Technology at Performance Marketing Awards (PMAs)
• Best Travel, Leisure, and Lifestyle Campaign with TUI at PMAs
• Best Influencer Marketing Platform (Bronze) at the Influencer Marketing Awards
• Most Effective Use of Affiliate Marketing with Canva at the Drum Digital Advertising Awards APAC
• Best Managed Affiliate Program USA: impact.com & DMi: Transform TUSHY’s Bottom-Heavy Affiliate Program at the International Performance Marketing Awards (IPMA’s)
• Best SaaS Platform: Impact’s Partnership Cloud at the International Performance Marketing Awards (IPMA’s)

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