As performance marketing fragments across platforms and channels, two of the industry’s biggest players are betting that consolidation is the answer.
Rakuten International and impact.com have announced a strategic alliance designed to consolidate the affiliate and performance marketing ecosystem, combining their respective technology platforms, managed services and consumer data into a single integrated offering.
The partnership brings together three distinct assets: Rakuten Advertising’s global partner relationships, managed services and performance intelligence; Rakuten Rewards’ cash-back shopping platform and direct consumer signals; and impact.com’s technology infrastructure for contracting, tracking and payments across commerce partnerships.
For advertisers, the alliance is designed to deliver expanded platform capabilities alongside Rakuten Rewards’ first-party consumer data — giving brands a clearer picture of incrementality, attribution and return on investment. Publishers and creators will gain access to a unified platform and a broader portfolio of advertisers, offers and monetization models across affiliate, creator and commerce channels.
“As a global network, publisher, and strategic operator for more than two decades, Rakuten has developed an unparalleled perspective on what drives performance,” said Amit Patel, chief executive of Rakuten International. “This alliance brings together infrastructure, service excellence, global reach, and consumer intelligence to offer a fundamentally stronger approach to performance marketing. By pairing with impact.com’s industry-leading platform, advertisers will have access to a unified technology and services solution that combines performance intelligence, managed execution, and consumer insight to deliver programmatic, data-driven programs with smarter insights, stronger execution, and measurable results at global scale.”
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“Partnership marketing has become one of the most important growth channels for modern businesses, but the systems supporting it have remained fragmented,” said David Yovanno, chief executive of impact.com. “Bringing our platform, Rakuten Advertising’s global scale, and Rakuten Rewards’ consumer platform into a unified value proposition will make it easier for advertisers to achieve their goals with better economics, greater transparency, and measurable outcomes. This is a significant step toward a more scalable and powerful alternative to traditional performance marketing channels.”
The companies said they plan to share additional product and capability details in the coming months.