The two longest-standing names in the affiliate and partnership marketing category, Rakuten and Impact.com, have decided to stop fighting each other and will instead fight together.
Rakuten is best-known for its consumer retail and rewards apps, but its competed with Impact as early affiliate networks platforms for ecommerce companies and other direct advertisers to connect with publishers, retailers and merchants on link-based conversions.
With this new deal, Rakuten will no longer operate the software and dashboard side of its business, focusing rather on its owned assets, such as Rakuten Rewards, and its agency or managed service business. Thousands of merchants and publishers that previously used Rakuten’s partnership marketing tech (the revamped term for affiliate marketing, grown to encompass social links, vertical videos and other kinds of content) will be transitioned to Impact’s system, which will be the exclusive platform provider for Rakuten’s commerce and affiliate partnership management. Impact will also refer business to Rakuten, since most of its clients also use agency and creative services that Rakuten can handle, Impact CEO David Yovanno told AdExchanger.
The “alliance,” as it’s framed by the two companies, does not entail any investment or change of equity. There is no actual merger angle. It is a purely strategic partnership.
Rakuten and Impact are “aligning on a unified value prop, essentially,” Yovanno said.
For years, he said, affiliate marketing has been “that awkward kid” within the online advertising world. The industry was not considered cool – thus the rebranding from affiliate to the more holistic “partnership marketing” – but after almost 30 years Rakuten and Impact have “put on the muscle” and, together, he said, are equipped to compete with major channels like Google, Amazon and Meta when it comes to scale and the ability to convert always-on budgets at a given ROAS.
Within the Impact platform, Rakuten will now be what’s called a “Titanium Partner,” a new category of partner on the platform. Yovanno said the name reflects Rakuten’s unmatched size as a publisher and traffic source in the affiliate world and the two companies’ commitment to a joint road map.
Rakuten meanwhile, doesn’t have to operate its own platform and software infrastructure, and can instead prioritize the first-party assets and managed service branding deals.
“They’re essentially saying we’re getting out of the technology business,” Yovanno said. Though he quickly followed up with, “don’t quote me on that. I think you should ask Amit [Rakuten International CEO Amit Patel].”
In an email response to AdExchanger, Patel said that he “wouldn’t frame it that way. This isn’t about stepping away from technology.”
Rakuten will continue to invest in AI, measurement and automation within its business, he wrote.
But is it not strange for a company that’s been Rakuten’s closest rival and competitor for many years to now be its closest strategic partner?
“Not at all,” Patel wrote.
“The industry is evolving, and advertisers are asking for better outcomes, not more fragmentation,” he said. “In that environment, it makes sense for companies with complementary strengths to work more closely together to solve shared challenges.”
