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Who likes bite-size surveys? Marketing Brew readers, that’s who.
In February, Marketing Brew—in partnership with impact.com—sent a survey to our community to better understand how marketers approach technology and manage different channels and partners. We’ve had time to process, chew, and savor the data, and we’re excited to share our findings.
We received 132 responses to this survey, primarily from decision-makers. That means manager level or above across a variety of industries. Our largest respondent group was B2B marketers.
Specialists or coordinators made up 29% of contributors, and professionals in the B2C services and retail/e-commerce industries also made significant contributions.
Where can we agree?
Getting marketers to agree can feel like a Herculean feat. So when a whopping 88% of those surveyed agreed that marketing teams are being asked to do more with less, we paid attention. Want even more alignment? 87% of respondents also agreed that they’re always looking for ways to automate processes.
“Automation will be huge when it comes to initially reaching customers,” one respondent said. “Once things are automated, it frees up time to do other tasks and build genuine connections.”
In this instance, the problem matches the solution. Marketers feel stretched thin, so they’re looking for ways to off-load time-consuming work. Automation is designed to take care of that and let marketing teams prioritize the work that builds lasting relationships.
And better relationships with customers mean more conversions.
Reclaiming your time
So, we identified the problem and how to solve it, but what are these processes we need to automate? Meet ROI tracking (aka the devil’s KPI). Check this out: 59% of respondents agreed that partnerships are currently more difficult to manage, and 46% said measuring true ROI is their biggest challenge.
“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half.” —marketing pioneer John Wanamaker
The “multi” in multichannel marketing keeps getting bigger. More emails, SMS, coupons, paid search, paid ads—the list goes on. Keeping track of all that data is no small feat.
Tracking how much each partner actually contributes to a conversion and who takes customers across the finish line would require a lot of monitoring. And 66% of respondents said conversion rates are the most important KPI when evaluating performance.
The good news? About 42% of these respondents are excited about the growing trend of integrated multichannel marketing platforms like impact.com, which can consolidate data and actually measure the incremental value of each partner. That means seeing where each partner touches the customer during the journey and who has the greatest impact in finalizing the conversion.
AI: The automater
People are curious about the role of AI in marketing. Unless you are totally off the grid (power to you 🔌), the AI conversation feels inescapable.
“The biggest shakeup this year will undoubtedly be AI,” another respondent said. “Reaching consumers can become a task that will be infinitely more precise due to the light-speed reasoning and processing of campaign data.”
Nearly half of all respondents agreed AI would have the biggest impact on reaching consumers. Many are excited about the opportunity it unlocks with scale and automation, and another 43% said they’re most excited about AI supporting content creation.
As the scope of this new technology comes into focus, it’s important to understand what we can do with AI right now. Impact AI, for example, can automatically recommend partners, pull reporting, and answer support-related questions.
Again, we’re seeing a way to automate with an AI tool. In the hands of the right marketer, that means more time to foster successful partnerships instead of draining themselves with digital bureaucracy.
If you build it…
To recap, marketers want better ROI tracking and automation to help teams do more with less. In a less perfect world, someone would take this data and create a tool to meet those needs. In this world, impact.com already did.
impact.com is a singular platform that lets you manage all partners and gather data, quite literally doing more (all partners) with less (one platform). But that’s not all.
impact.com can simplify ROI tracking with:
- contribution reports that show how often affiliates act as an introducer (first touch), a closer (last touch), or an influencer (any step in between), as well as whether they are a solo touchpoint and how often a partner is credited with a conversion
- behavior reports that take customer-level data and identify which partner, ads, or deals most successfully lead to quicker conversions
- top-paths reports that show the most popular conversion paths nine steps or less and identify the most efficient customer journey
When you think about getting leaner, start by identifying your top partners. It shows your team where to invest in strengthening relationships. Boost what works, trim what doesn’t, and don’t risk cutting an effective partner.
impact.com can also help you and your team automate. We already mentioned their AI functionality can take a lot off a marketer’s plate. Features like the Marketplace can filter to discover new partners, and automated discovery/outreach workflows help further reduce workload.
impact.com is designed with marketers in mind. In fact, brands using impact.com see an average of 16:1 ROI on partnership programs, driving sustainable and cost-effective growth. That’s why over 4,000 leading companies trust impact.com.
impact.com is ahead of the curve when it comes to what marketers need and want, so book your demo today before you’re stuck playing catch-up.