Impact research: Companies using Impact’s Partnership Cloud see 3 year ROI of 314%

Business, Digital & Media, Studies

Impact, the global leader in Partnership Automation, released a commissioned global study conducted by Forrester Consulting that discovered organisations that deploy Impact’s Partnership Cloud™ experience a ROI of 314 percent with payback in under six months. Furthermore, the study, titled “The Total Economic Impact™ of Impact’s Partnership Cloud,” found that 55 percent of the quantified benefits from using the Partnership Cloud were tied to incremental partnership revenue, with the remaining 45 percent of quantified benefits tied to creating efficiency, time-savings and streamlined partner discovery and recruitment processes via its automation capabilities.

The study interviewed five customers from around the globe currently using Impact’s Partnership Cloud to manage a range of different types of partnership programmes, including: affiliates, social influencers, premier publishers, sponsorships and B2B partnerships. The study analysed the benefits, cost, flexibility as well as risk factors that could affect a company’s investment decision in the platform.

In terms of benefits, respondents identified the following top three:

  1. Growth in revenue by providing improved tracking and reporting methods, ability to credit, pay and optimise relationships with top funnel content partners and identify value of influencer spend;
  2. Labour efficiencies, allowing the organisation to replace manual processes with more efficient, repeatable and productive automated workflows; and
  3. Time savings associated with discovering and recruiting new partners, resulting in an increase of 30 to 40 placements a month, and a 10 percent lift in conversion rates.

The study found that the payout achieved from these benefits outweighed the risk in investing, concluding that the estimated payback period to be less than six months during a three year investment.

“Since the inception of our partnerships strategy and launch of the Partnership Cloud, our goal has been to help brands understand and reap the benefits of partnerships as a revenue driver,” said Scott Brazina, CMO, Impact. “The TEI study by Forrester Consulting is another proof point that the Partnership Economy is running on all cylinders, and it’s a no brainer for companies looking to increase conversion rates and profits through authentic and engaging interactions with consumers.”

“The best part of Impact’s Partnership Cloud is its simple UI that allows multiple team members to log on and easily pull concise data and reporting in real-time,” said Priest Willis, Senior Manager of Global Partnerships Marketing, Lenovo. “This has allowed us to not only get a clear view into which partnerships are driving the highest conversion rates, but has helped us streamline the numerous relationships we manage on a daily basis.”

Impact is the global leader in Partnership Automation and catalyst for the new Partnership Economy. Impact accelerates enterprise growth by automating the full partnership lifecycle, including: discovery, recruitment, contracting, engagement, fraud protection, optimisation and payment processing for enterprise partnerships. Impact’s Partnership Cloud™ manages over $50B in e-commerce sales and processes over $2B per year in payments to partners. Impact drives revenue growth for global enterprise brands such as Bass Pro Shops, Fanatics, Getty Images, Lenovo, Levi’s, Techstyle and Ticketmaster. Founded in Santa Barbara, CA in 2008, Impact has grown to over 500 employees and twelve offices worldwide.