impact.com announced the launch of impact.com/creator, an influencer marketing platform that allows advertisers to discover, create, manage and scale full-funnel influencer marketing programs from a single interface.
The new technology from the partnership management platform simplifies and improves the user experience for both brands and creators.
The creator economy is estimated to be a more than $100 billion market. Given the sizable creator landscape, marketers say that finding the right partners and evaluating creators against their needs are among their biggest challenges today.
According to impact.com, research also announced today that the same pain point exists for creators. Eighty-six per cent of creators say that while they want to expand brand partnerships with selective criteria, it’s challenging to identify quality prospective brand partners that will work long-term.
impact.com/creator brings creators and brands together in a single platform to discover new partnerships, contract, manage, pay and optimise those partnerships based on comprehensive performance insights.
The technology provides a marketplace for brands to find new partners based on filters such as geographical location, social platform, follower size, vertical, and soon, AI-based recommendations and more. The two-sided nature of the platform also allows creators to seek out brand collaborations.
This empowers brands and creators to collaborate efficiently and view performance in one easy-to-use platform. Now everyone, from CMOs and VPs to managers and coordinators, can better understand the incremental awareness and revenue that their partnerships are driving.
David A. Yovanno, CEO at impact.com, said: “We recognise that marketers require innovative technology to stay ahead of developments within the fast-paced creator economy, which is why we’ve created an industry-first creator partnerships management platform.
“Creators are a critical and expanding part of our industry, and with impact.com/creator, we are enabling clients not only to scale these partnerships, which is notoriously difficult, but also to help establish longer-term relationships. But first, brands must know what’s working, and tracking and performance insights are where impact.com has been leading the market for some time.”
Now, with a single login and integrated interface, brands can drive optimal customer journeys from the awareness stage through to conversion. Brands can also diversify their partner mix and compensate them with a variety of models, from CPA and commission to flat fees or combinations of both.
According to impact.com’s new research conducted in partnership with AdWeek, the majority of creators prefer to be paid with a combination of flat fee and performance bonus, known as a PostPlus compensation model; until now, the industry hasn’t offered flexible, scalable payment options in one interface.
With impact.com’s new offering, brands and creators will:
• Discover best-fit partners: Brands can recruit qualified influencers to promote their products by searching and filtering through an opt-in marketplace of highly vetted creators. They can view performance metrics across all social platforms and manage influencer collaborations in one place. Creators can start working with brands and earning income immediately by searching for campaigns that align with their interests and values.
• Pay out faster with more flexibility: With automated contracting, brands and creators can choose between flexible and diverse payout models, such as commission or other performance-based payment model, flat fee or any combination of both, based on contract terms that are put in place. Creators also receive the fastest payouts in the industry, processed as fast as the next day.
• Manage end-to-end campaigns with full transparency: Brands and creators can negotiate flexible contract terms, automate task reminders and payouts, usage rights and more. The user-friendly interface and intuitive tools also make it easy to manage and scale partnerships efficiently.
• Track, analyse and attribute performance accurately: Brands and creators gain best-in-class performance tracking and reporting, get access to first-party creator data and view detailed performance insights, including engagement, demographics, conversions and attribution. Users can see how their content is performing and which posts or videos drive the biggest impact so they know where to focus their efforts.
• Access to more dynamic content management: Brands and agencies can store, review, share and amplify influencer content directly from their impact.com account. Creators can also easily store and share published content, assets, and creative for their brand partners across all social networks.
In addition, enterprise clients who are looking for a fully customisable environment where they can collaborate directly with influencers and creators to meet their specific program goals also have access to a Branded Creator Portal. An example of this was recently announced with the launch of Walmart Creator.
Chloe Wen, Nashville lifestyle influencer and YouTuber, said: “Now, with impact.com’s new influencer and creator platform, content creators like me will not only have access to brand relationships but also the ability to get eyes on more detailed analytics. This makes it easier to see how partnerships perform and provides the data to help approach other brands moving forward.”
“I’m also really excited for the marketplace to be open to creators, letting them directly submit applications to partners and have the opportunity to change the scope of work like post dates, usage terms, and deliverables. All of these features will be of great value to both creators and brands, making what we hope to be intentional and seamless partnerships.”
These new capabilities cement impact.com’s position as the most comprehensive partnership suite in the market — one that drives efficient workflows, removes manual processes and allows teams to track and report on progress and KPIs across the full funnel.
“As someone who has been in the creator management business for the last ten years, I’ve worked with countless creator platforms and impact.com/creator takes into consideration what is and isn’t working,” said Becca Bahrke, CEO of Illuminate Social, a creator management and brand partnerships company that has partnered with impact.com for more than six years.
“I’m thrilled to see the negotiation options from creator fee to usage, as this is the most important part of my job as a manager and bringing fruitful partnerships to our roster of creators. There is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ package, and while that would be easier if every creator agreed to the same terms and rates, it’s not realistic.
“impact.com/creator takes that into account while still providing the best data and metrics for a brand to evaluate if a partnership was impactful. The future of influencer marketing is where influencer and affiliate merge and this platform truly brings the two together,” Bahrke added.