Impact explained: how the platform works and pays

Impact, often written impact.com, is where a lot of brands run their affiliate, influencer and partner programs. Affiliates, which Impact calls partners, create one free account, apply to the brands they want to promote, and get one dashboard and one payment for all of them.

From the partner side that looks like a classic network. Underneath, it is built differently, and the difference explains most of what confuses people about it: who sets the terms, what a contract means, and why a commission sits as pending before it becomes money.

If networks are new to you, what an affiliate network is covers the general model first.

Is Impact an affiliate network?

Not in the classic sense. Impact sells software that brands license to run their own partner programs, and it adds a marketplace where partners can find those programs. For you as an affiliate it feels a lot like a network: one account, one dashboard and one payment. The difference is that each brand runs its own program on the platform and sets its own terms.

A classic network such as Awin or CJ Affiliate sits between you and the company, with its own rules for the marketplace. On Impact the brand is closer to the controls. It writes the terms, approves the partners, decides what counts as a valid sale and, within the platform's limits, how fast it pays.

That is also why Impact programs vary so much from one brand to the next. Two programs on Impact can share a dashboard and have very little else in common.

How Impact works for partners

The path from sign-up to first payment has five steps.

1. You create a partner account. You describe your site, channel or audience and how you promote. Joining is free for partners.
2. You apply to brands. You find a brand in the marketplace or through its own partner page, and apply. The brand reviews your profile and accepts or declines you.
3. You accept the brand's terms. If the brand accepts you, it offers you its terms, which Impact presents as a contract. Accepting it is what switches the program on.
4. Impact tracks the sale. A customer clicks your link and buys, and the sale shows up as an action in your reports.
5. You get paid. Once the action is locked and the brand has paid it in, the money joins your balance and goes out on the next payment.

Steps three to five are where Impact has its own vocabulary, so they get their own sections.

What the contract on Impact means

The contract is the brand's offer to you, written down. It sets the commission for each kind of action, the commission type, the cookie window, the locking period, and the rules on traffic, such as whether you may bid on the brand's name in search ads or promote coupon codes.

Two things about it are worth knowing.

• It can be different for you than for another partner. A brand can offer different contracts to different partners, so a figure you saw quoted somewhere is not necessarily the one you will get.
• It can change. A brand can update the terms it offers, and the platform records which version you are on. If a program you rely on changes its offer, read the new contract before you accept it, not after.

Read the contract the way you would read any affiliate agreement. It is the version that counts when a commission is disputed.

How Impact tracks a sale

Impact calls a tracked sale, lead or sign-up an action. When someone clicks your link, Impact records the click and sends the visitor on to the brand's site. If that visitor completes an action within the contract's cookie window, the brand reports it to Impact, which credits it to you.

Brands can also track in other ways: promo codes assigned to you, app installs, or a server-to-server connection with no browser cookie at all. Which methods a program uses is the brand's choice, and it matters if your audience shops on phones or in apps.

The usual rule still applies, though. If a customer clicked another partner's link after yours, the last click usually wins, unless the contract says otherwise.

What pending and locked mean on Impact

A new action shows as pending. Until its locking date passes, the brand can still check it and reverse it, for example after a return, a cancelled order, a duplicate, or traffic the contract does not allow. Once the locking date passes, the action is approved and final.

So the commission in your reports is not yet money you are owed. It is a sale the brand still has time to check, and the locking date tells you when that time runs out.

The locking period is set in each brand's contract. A short one means you see your money sooner. A long one usually means the brand has a long return window or checks orders by hand, which is reasonable, but it stretches the wait.

How Impact pays partners

A locked action still has one more step. The brand pays the commission in to Impact, and only then does it reach your balance. Impact then pays you out on its schedule, once your balance clears the threshold for the payment method you chose.

The payout schedule, thresholds and payment methods are platform settings, and some of them you choose yourself in your account. They change from time to time and can depend on your country and currency, so check the current figures in Impact's own help pages rather than an old forum thread. Our guide to payout terms explains thresholds and payment schedules in general.

Put it together and the real wait for an Impact commission is the locking period, then the time for the brand to pay it in, then the time until your next payout. Comparing two programs on Impact by commission alone misses most of that.

Who pays for Impact

The brands do. A company on Impact licenses the platform, and the pricing is agreed with Impact rather than published as one list. Partners join for free.

That matters to you indirectly. What a brand pays for its partner software is margin it does not spend on commission, which is one reason the same company can offer different terms on another platform or in-house. Our guide to affiliate networks vs in-house programs covers what to compare when a company runs more than one.

Whose terms apply on Impact

Two sets of rules stack up.

• The brand's contract sets the commission for each action, the cookie window, the locking period, the allowed traffic sources and which sales are excluded.
• Impact's terms set the account rules, the payout schedule, the thresholds and the payment methods.

So "how much do I earn on this sale, and when is it final?" is a question for the brand's contract. "When does it reach my bank?" is a question for Impact.

How can you tell if a program runs on Impact?

Follow the sign-up link on the company's affiliate or partner page. If it asks you to join or log in to Impact, the program runs there. The program's application page usually carries Impact branding even when the brand has put its own name on it.

Plenty of companies run on more than one platform, or on Impact and a classic network at the same time, often with different terms on each. Finding a program on Impact does not mean it is the only version, or the best one for you.

When Impact suits you

Impact tends to suit you when:

• the brands you want to promote run their programs there;
• you promote several of them and want one login, one set of reports and one payment;
• you track more than links, such as promo codes or app installs.

It suits you less when the company you care about runs its program somewhere else, or offers clearly better terms there. That is worth checking before you apply.

Before you apply

Open the brand's contract and note the commission for each action, the cookie window, the locking period and the traffic rules. Then compare them with any other version of the same program. Every program listing in this directory shows each network or platform a company runs on, with the terms we read for each and a link to the source, and the network pages group the companies by network. Our data is not complete and terms change, so check the contract itself before you accept it. That is the one that counts.