4 ways a system of records can help you power partnerships

The mall directory map provides crucial reference points to help shoppers easily find their bearings and direct them to the desired stores. A partnership system of record (SOR) serves the same purpose of creating a centralized data source and pinpointing targets for brands and partners to work toward.  

Find out how the right Partnership Management Platform can act as a reliable SOR, providing accurate data to set informed projections for business growth and benchmarks for partner performance. 

System of record—A database of accurate metrics and reports

A system of record is an information storage system that collects and stores valuable data from internal and external sources. With a partnership SOR, your team and partners can access a central database for accurate metrics and reports to help partnerships function more efficiently and avoid errors.

A SOR creates a strong foundation for your partnership network. Brands find great value in a SOR as it organizes data, enables automation, regulates compliance, and increases security. 

4 benefits of choosing a partnership management platform with a built-in system of record 

A reliable SOR can help your brand adapt to evolving digital marketing trends. Partnership management solutions, such as impact.com, enhance partner management and offer purpose-built tools and data storage options—all on one platform. Learn how impact.com’s SOR can benefit you and your partner to run a successful partnership program.

1. Gain deeper insights into partner incrementality 

Different partner types play varying roles in the customer journey, creating unique touchpoints—influencers typically promote awareness, while coupon sites often help close a purchase. Verified data from impact.com’s Optimize reports help measure partner incrementality to provide rewards along the journey, motivating partners to excel at various stages. Incrementality data from a SOR gives crucial guidance on where to invest your marketing budget—ensuring you get the best possible return on investment (ROI). 

The Contribution report helps visualize each partner’s contribution as an introducer (first-touch), influencer (middle-touch), or closer (last-touch) at every point in the funnel. You can align partner commission strategy based on value with a better understanding of partner contribution. 

The Top Path report investigates trends in the Contribution report to identify the most frequent paths that lead to conversions. You can access insights into total conversions for that specific path, average path time, average order value, and revenue generated. 

The Crediting Concerns report introduces data that helps credit partners proportionately for the value they drive—eliminating over or under-compensation. 

2. Access valuable financial reports and documentation 

A partnership SOR keeps your financial documents and reports at your fingertips. Contract History Reports by impact.com allows you and your partners to check contract terms and status instantly and ensures that event triggers, commission payments, and cookie windows are always accurate. 

3. Make more data-driven decisions

Partnership management platforms offer innovative tools to help brands make decisions that promote higher ROI, better partnership efficiency, and increased sales from improved customer insights.

Leading brands have used impact.com’s performance reports to achieve impressive results. 

• HubSpot aligned partners to produce quality leads, increasing signups by more than 50 percent. 
• Mizzen+Main identified top-performing partners and increased commission by 10 percent, leading to a 7 percent boost in conversion rates. 
• Sephora hora optimized partner and different segment performance to achieve a $7.4m revenue growth. 

The impact.com Data Lab also allows you to create powerful custom reports tailored to your partnership needs and objectives. The report makes visualizations that portray various data sets to answer unique questions and piece together strings of data to provide valuable, immediate insights. 

Brands like Rugs Direct used Data Lab to gain visibility into sales down to the product level and unique insights into performance. The team made improved decisions with access to information like top-sales products, high-achieving partners, and best-performing campaigns—leading to a 600 percent year-over-year revenue growth.  

4. Empower partners for optimal performance

Your partners can also benefit from a centralized SOR provided by a partnership management platform. Partner Performance Reports give updated metrics, helping partners make data-backed decisions to optimize performance—leading to increased commissions and business revenue success. The impact.com platform provides partners granular insights with in-depth reports, including:

• Performance by Device report shows the devices your partner’s audience uses to convert. 

• Performance by Month report breaks down tracking data—actions, clicks, and more—by month

• Performance by Promo Code report tracks specific data about promo codes within your program. 

• Performance by Ad report displays tracking data—online tracking links, banners, coupons—by specific ads 

Making the most of your data with a system of record

Access to accurate, actionable information gives brands and partners a competitive edge. Performance metrics and reports can guide future campaigns, answer tough questions and make data-backed decisions to optimize strategies.

A partnership management platform, such as impact.com, with a built-in SOR, provides access to a wealth of insights to increase performance and take business growth to the next level. 

Tap into the following impact.com resources to dive deeper into optimizing partnerships with robust reporting and analytics: 

• Optimize: Affiliate and Partnerships Industry Training – Expert [Free PXA course] 
• Prove the truly incremental value of partnerships with Optimize [one sheet] 
• Best practices for optimizing your partnerships [ebook]