impact.com December 2023 Release

impact.com / performance

Learn more about your partners with Surveys

Just as with any relationship, it’s important to get to know your partners if you want to work well together. Surveys are a new tool to help you do just that.

You can create a survey to ask just about anything. For example, you might want to ask:

• Are you interested in posting about our brand in exchange for a free product?

• What can we do to make it easier for you to promote our brand?

• How do you prefer to hear from us?

• What is your favorite Coldplay song and why is it “The Scientist”?

You can add as many questions to your Surveys as you like (though we suggest you keep them simple). Beyond the standard response formats (such as multiple choice, paragraph, etc.), you can also format response as a file upload. This can be a great way to handle verification or request other assets. Once the replies start pouring in, you can click View Responses to see what everyone is saying.

You can also add a Survey into your new partner signup flow. Go to Settings > Branding > Partner Sign Up Page, then toggle on Surveys and choose one of the Surveys you previously created. The questions from your selected survey will be inserted into your partner signup flow after the Add Media Properties step.

Looking ahead, we’re planning to build Workflow logic that will let you automatically accept or reject applicants based on how they answer your custom questions. Additionally, survey responses will soon be piped into your partner CRM, so you can see answers to your questions right there in the Partner Detail slideout. You can tie each question to a custom field, so the CRM will know exactly where to put each answer.

We hope you enjoy using Surveys to drive engagement with your partners and take your program to new heights. Try it out today!

Note: The Surveys feature is available with our Professional and Enterprise subscriptions. If you don’t see Surveys in your account (but you wish you did), please reach out to your CSM to discuss upgrading your subscription.

Where did my chat widget go?

Don’t worry, we didn’t get rid of chat! With this release, we’ve made an update that minimizes the chat widget by default, so it doesn’t get in your way. To open your chat widget, simply click on the new chat icon, located in the lower right corner right above the help icon.

Filter by Text 1-6 in the Advanced Action Listing Report

Earlier this year, we expanded the number of Text fields available. And while you could select to “show” the additional text fields in the Advanced Action Listing report, you couldn’t filter by them—until now! With this release, you’re now able to filter by Text1-6, helping you take more control of your data and get to insights faster.

Workflow reject messages can now be added to your custom reject message

You have the ability to add custom rejection messages to Workflows, giving partners context for why they were rejected and helping them understand what they would need to do to possibly be approved in the future.

However, the Workflow reject messages were only getting sent if you were using the program default rejection email (and not if you had a custom rejection email set up at the program level). 

With this release, we’re introducing a new token that you can add to your program-level custom rejection email so you can include workflow rejection messages. If you use a workflow reject message and also use the custom reject email, use the {reasonReason} token in your custom reject email to display your workflow rejection message.

More flexibility with account permissions for Technical Settings, Applications, and Action Inquiries

Before this update, the default permission level for Technical Settings, Applications, and Action Inquiries settings was limited to "manage only," with no option to switch to "view only" permissions. Now, these three permissions can now be configured to include both "view" and "manage" capabilities. The updated permissions cover Technical Settings, Applications, and Action Inquiries, allowing you to tailor your access settings more effectively.

Support Tickets are now private by default

Previously, when you submitted a help ticket through the platform, any user on your account could see it. Now, we’ve made tickets private by default, meaning only you can see it. If you’d like the ticket available for all users to see, simply toggle on the ticket access field to “make this ticket accessible to all users of the account”.

Chinese and Japanese translation improvements

We have made some improvements to the Chinese and Japanese translations within contracts on our platform. The new translations should make much more sense grammatically, and will reduce confusion for anyone who prefers to view our platform in Chinese or Japanese or who works with partners in China or Japan.

Indirect tax data validation

If you are required to pay indirect taxes (such as the VAT), your partners need to provide certain indirect tax information within their impact.com accounts. When that data is not correct, it can cause all sorts of downstream problems which most commonly result in their payouts being delayed (which may in turn result in them emailing you to ask why they haven’t been paid).

To avoid downstream problems caused by incorrect tax info, we have introduced a new tax ID validation system. This system runs in the background whenever your partners provide an indirect tax ID, and will provide real-time feedback if the ID is incorrect. If it takes more than a few seconds for us to verify the tax info, the system will accept their entry without validating it. However, if the system then gets a response that the tax information is incorrect, they will receive a system notification with instructions on how to resubmit their information to make sure their next payout is not delayed.

Partnerships Experience Academy (PXA)

Influencer Kickstart Learning Path

In the dynamic realm of influencers, staying ahead of the curve is paramount. This certification path, led by Head of Affiliate and Partnerships Education, Coady Joy is your guide to understanding everything about influencers. You’ll not only learn about their categorizations but also how to assess the efficacy of your campaigns.

By the end of this learning path, you will be able to:

• Define influencers and how they are typically grouped.

• Strategically plan influencer partnerships.

• Analyze the success of an influencer program.

Partner Spotlight: Card-Linked Offers (CLO)

Card-linked offers (CLOs) are shaking up the affiliate scene, breaking away from the traditional business models. They can add serious value to a brand’s program, extending the publisher landscape beyond the familiar territory of coupons, deals, loyalty, and content.

This short course is a Q&A session between Laura Press, Head of Affiliate and Partnerships Education, and Carrie Paradas, Director of Global Product Partnerships at Fidel API. Together, they uncover all the essential details about card-linked offers.

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Explain what card-linked offers are.

• Describe the types of loyalty rewards available to customers.

• Explain how card-linked offers add value to brands.

• Discuss why and how brands should collaborate with card-linked-offer publishers.

impact.com Product Training – Associate Certification Path (Revised)

In this six-course, intermediate-level certification path, you'll encounter more advanced use cases for the impact.com platform across every phase of the Partnership Life Cycle.

Coady Joy, Head of Affiliate and Partnerships Education, shares all the knowledge you need to manage your account and perform key duties on the platform, all the way from locating potential publishers to creating affiliate tracking links and monitoring your partnership programs.

By the end of this certification path, you will be able to:

• Use the tools in the Discover suite to recruit and contact partners.

• Navigate the Finance section and create watertight contracts to send to partners.

• Investigate and verify tracked partner actions.

• Explain the different ways of communicating with partners.

• Understand each content type and its use case.

• Navigate the Protect suite and understand each of its powerful tools.

• Use the Optimize suite to build productive partnerships.

Grow Your Affiliate Program with YouTube

YouTube is an innovator in the creator economy and the landscape of online shopping, offering brands the opportunity to harness its benefits. In this course, Head of Affiliate and Partnerships Education, Coady Joy, unveils priceless strategies for brands to leverage YouTube Shopping's latest affiliate program offerings to amplify the growth of their creator affiliate programs.

You’ll learn all about the affiliate shopping experience, the steps brands can take to boost their program via YouTube, and the myriad, exciting advantages of joining the program.

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Describe the affiliate experience on YouTube.

• Highlight the tagging options for creators on the YouTube platform.

• Identify the benefits of the YouTube affiliate shopping experience.

• List the next steps for sellers who want to join the YouTube Shopping affiliate program.

Raising the Bar on Referral Marketing with SaaSquatch by impact.com [impact.com / advocate]

Are you ready to boost your audience and revenue all in one go? Referral marketing is your secret weapon! Encourage advocates to share your product with their followers and handpick the perfect rewards with the help of SaaSquatch by impact.com.

Coady Joy, our Head of Affiliate and Partnerships Education at PXA will be your guide to starting your journey into the exciting world of referral marketing. In this course, you'll uncover the magic of SaaSquatch by impact.com and learn how it simplifies the process of scaling, managing, and tracking your referral marketing efforts. Get ready for an adventure that'll make your brand shine!

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Configure the goals and actions of a referral program.

• Understand the different reward types.

• Build and customize a referral widget.

• Create reports to track performance metrics and participant data.

• Assign participants to segments based on characteristics.

TikTok Triumph: Mastering Affiliate Strategy to Boost Sales and Success

Brands and creators across the world are joining the TikTok revolution! 

In this course, our Head of Partnerships Education, Coady Joy, teams up with impact.com's CEO, Dave Yovanno, to explore the powerful, growing presence of TikTok in digital marketing. 

Together, they guide you through the world of TikTok and its affiliate program, sharing invaluable best practices for integrating this platform into your affiliate marketing strategy, displaying your brand’s products via TikTok Shop, and engaging with creators through the TikTok Creator Marketplace.

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Describe the TikTok affiliate program and why you should include TikTok in your affiliate strategy.

• Define the steps involved in setting up your TikTok shop.

• List the methods of engaging with creators via your TikTok shop.

• Highlight best practices for incorporating TikTok into your affiliate strategy.