Partnership management platform impact.com combines affiliate marketing, influencer collaborations, and customer referrals.

Founded more than 14 years ago, impact.com has adapted its mission to address consumer behavior and brand engagement dynamics and help brands cut through the noise of conventional advertising.

“Buyers today want to learn about a brand from other people and hear directly from those they trust, like customers and creators, when evaluating products and services,” says Cristy Garcia, Chief Marketing Officer at impact.com.

She notes that brands leverage partnerships to drive revenue as consumers no longer pay attention to advertisements or what brands say. 

While partnerships aren’t new in business, “today’s partnerships are a game-changer because they enable companies to leverage the community of friends, review sites, favorite influencers, and even customers to drive sales or awareness.”

As the creator economy grows, impact.com sees an opportunity to bridge brands and influential voices online. 

“Creators are no longer just introducers of products, but through technology, social platforms, and buyer preferences, they are driving significant commerce for leading brands,” Cristy observes.

The platform’s approach addresses a key challenge in modern marketing: data fragmentation. 

With a client roster boasting heavyweights like Walmart, Uber, and Levi’s, Cristy details the company’s strategy, sharing her perspective on emerging trends, measurement challenges, and the skills essential for success in the creator economy.

Empowering Partnerships

impact.com offers scalable solutions that cater to businesses of all sizes, from startups to enterprise-level brands with complex program requirements.

“We offer the flexibility to compensate creators via CPA, flat fee, product gifting, or any of those combined for hybrid compensation,” Cristy explains.

The platform provides robust communication tools to facilitate collaboration. Brands can invite creators to campaigns or reach out via an email or in-app message, while creators can apply to brands’ existing campaigns or leverage email and in-app messages to pitch themselves to brands.

“Brands can leverage our marketplace of vetted, engaged creators, our extended search for broader off-app creator profiles, and features like social listening to discover potential partners,” Cristy notes.

Technology plays a crucial role in enhancing campaign effectiveness. 

“Our impact.com/creator solution brings creators and brands together in a single platform to discover new partnerships, contract, manage, pay, and optimize those partnerships based on comprehensive performance insights,” Cristy says.

Addressing industry challenges, the CMO states that “the biggest challenges” for brands are creator discovery and communication. 

“With our opt-in Marketplace, extended search, and social listening, brands are empowered to find and engage the best creator partners for their brand,” Cristy shares.

Measuring Success

impact.com’s platform offers comprehensive measurement and reporting capabilities for influencer marketing campaigns, moving beyond traditional top-of-funnel metrics. 

“Creators can effectively drive conversions across many verticals, and we enable influencers and brands to measure their campaigns at a deep, granular level,” Cristy explains.

The platform provides real-time insights into standard engagement metrics through social media APIs and offers advanced conversion and traffic data tracking. 

“We provide reports that show overall campaign performance, but at the individual creator and social platform level,” Cristy notes.

Two success stories highlight impact.com’s effectiveness. 

BBQGuys, an online grilling brand, leveraged the platform to significantly exceed its engagement goals. “The team reached over 311,000 organic impressions, a combined influencer reach of 636,000, over 90 thousand impressions, and 3,000 engagements more than the starting goal,” Cristy reports.

Similarly, Bowlero, a global bowling center operator, used impact.com to expand its reach on TikTok and Instagram. “Bowlero struck 4.4 million total impressions using influencer-generated content—more than triple the industry standard,” Cristy states.

Influencer Marketing 2.0

Cristy identifies several key trends shaping the future of influencer marketing. 

“There is a shift to more hybrid and performance-based compensation,” she notes, stressing the importance of balancing upfront payments with ongoing revenue opportunities for creators.

The role of influencer marketing is expanding beyond brand awareness. 

“Influencer marketing is being successfully leveraged increasingly for lower-funnel campaigns that convert,” Cristy explains, adding that the shift indicates a growing focus on measurable results and a direct impact on sales.

The exec also highlights the convergence of affiliate and influencer marketing, particularly with new platforms: “With new marketplaces like TikTok Shop and YouTube Shopping, creators are increasingly promoting products for a commission, rather than flat fee or product gifting alone.”

The relationship between brands and creators is progressing towards greater trust and long-term partnerships. 

“Smart brands are trusting influencers’ creative intuition and subject matter expertise more and more, which is essential to success,” Cristy observes.

Emerging platforms, particularly TikTok, are becoming increasingly crucial. 

Cristy points out that “more than half (51%) of Gen Z prefer to search on TikTok, and brands must be there and on other video platforms like Instagram to be discovered.”

Mastering the Creator Economy

Cristy outlines key skills for creators: “Communication is absolutely essential,” highlighting professional brand interaction. 

“Multitasking is another biggie,” she adds. “The creator’s job is not easy, despite what some may say or think.”

Cristy notes that the creator economy is expected to be worth $480 billion by 2027—nearly double its value in 2023. She believes brands should continue focusing on long-term partnerships and content creation with existing partners.

Cristy advises brands new to the creator economy to start with a clear strategy: “Define your objectives and KPIs upfront—whether that’s brand awareness, conversions, or engagement.” For her, quality trumps quantity in creator selection and nurturing relationships.

Cristy also stresses the importance of data-driven decision-making: “Invest in robust analytics. Data is driving more and more decision-making, so it’s crucial to accurately measure the ROI of your creator partnerships across the full customer journey.”

Ultimately, Cristy gives a broader perspective: “The creator economy is about fostering communities, not just driving transactions. The brands that truly excel prioritize genuine connections and value creation for their audience.”