impact.com posts record growth in 2025 as brands move from ads to partnerships, fueled by creators, AI innovation, and global expansion.
impact.com, the commerce partnership marketing platform, reported record growth and product innovation in 2025, underscoring a broader shift in global marketing: away from transactional advertising and toward relationship-driven growth built on trust, creators, and communities.
The company said accelerated adoption across creator, affiliate, and B2B channels, alongside continued product innovation and international expansion, fueled a landmark year. impact.com is on track to surpass $270 million in annual recurring revenue as it closes its fiscal year on Jan. 31, up roughly 20 percent year over year. In 2025, the platform powered nearly $120 billion in partner-referred gross merchandise value and more than $5 billion in gross transactional value paid to partners.
The results come as brands confront rising advertising costs and declining consumer trust in traditional channels. Of the more than $1 trillion spent globally on advertising last year, over $600 billion flowed into performance marketing channels such as paid search, paid social, and programmatic display. impact.com positioned itself as an alternative to that model, supporting nearly 350,000 active partnerships in 2025 and adding more than 3,500 new customers, including New Balance, HydroJug, Udemy, and Upside.
“People no longer trust ads—they trust communities,” said David A. Yovanno, chief executive of impact.com. “The brands that win are the ones showing up where that trust already lives, partnering with creators and advocates who shape what people see, share, and buy.”
That shift was reflected in the company’s Cyber Week research. Shoppers concentrated 31 percent of total Cyber Week spending on Black Friday, using Cyber Monday primarily for final purchases. Creator-driven revenue rose 51 percent year over year, while transaction volume from technology partners focused on price comparison and validation increased 79 percent—evidence, impact.com said, of growing reliance on trusted voices and data-driven guidance.
Also Read: Human-in-the-Loop Isn’t a Crutch. It’s the Safety Net.
Internally, the company expanded its leadership and global footprint. It appointed Jessica Breslav as its first chief customer officer, promoted Justin Morrison to chief revenue officer, and reported a 20 percent increase in new-logo bookings alongside a 23 percent expansion in sales headcount. impact.com also named new regional leaders in the United Kingdom and Spain, opened a Madrid office, and announced upgraded workspaces in six major cities, supporting a workforce of more than 1,400 employees across 20 countries.
Artificial intelligence was a central theme of the company’s innovation strategy. impact.com launched ask impact, a conversational intelligence tool embedded in its platform that delivers real-time partnership recommendations and analytics, built on billions of e-commerce transactions. That same data foundation underpins its strategic investment in Evertune, a company focused on Generative Engine Optimization, helping brands understand and influence how they appear in AI-powered search results.
Throughout 2025, impact.com also unified its product ecosystem, expanded creator and advocate tools, improved publisher discovery, and introduced new capabilities for partners to manage programs across multiple networks more efficiently. Its educational initiatives grew as well, with more than 45,000 learners enrolling in its Partnerships Experience Academy and more than 100 agencies participating in its coaching program.
Also Read: Will AdCP Be Advertising’s Next Great Standard?
The company earned more than 30 industry awards during the year and hosted record-scale Partnerships Experience (iPX) events across four global cities, drawing more than 2,000 attendees. It also published a series of widely cited research reports examining shifts in affiliate marketing, creator commerce, and consumer behavior.
Taken together, the results point to a broader recalibration in marketing. As trust migrates from ads to relationships, impact.com is betting that partnerships—measured, managed, and scaled with rigor—will define the next era of performance-driven growth.
