Congrats, you've made it to the final step of the partnership life cycle! At this point, you've recruited partners, signed contracts, received tracked events, and streamlined your partnerships program for fraud prevention.
The Optimize step is where you'll make adjustments to your program. They'll be based on keen observations of how each partner contributes to your wider program, setting up your program to capture as much of the massive revenue potential possible through partnerships.
Consider what success means to your program and your business. What are your goals? Which key performance indicators (KPIs) do you use to measure success, what drives them? Align your partners with your business goals, identify those that drive high value, and work closely across all partnerships to maximize return.
ROAS (Return On Ad Spend) is a quick and simple metric you can use to easily understand how much value a partner drives in relation to your ad spend on that partner.
To calculate ROAS, use this formula:
{revenue driven by the partner over a specific time period}
{total payouts to the partner over the same time period}
The result of the calculation above is your ROAS.
Example: $100 in revenue divided by $8 in payouts to the partner driving that revenue would result in a ROAS of $12.50. This equates to a ROAS of 1,250 percent—a 12.5 times return for each ad dollar spent on the partner. You can express this metric as a monetary amount or a percentage to adapt to your organization's needs.
The higher your ROAS, the more value you get out of your partners relative to what you put into your program. While your optimal goal should be to grow this number, your target ROAS may vary depending on your business goals, profit margins, and other variables.
By using ROAS in conjunction with other metrics your program values, like customer lifetime value (CLV), customer status, and conversion rate, you'll begin to identify which partners drive the most value for your business. Adjust payouts accordingly to reward these partners for their hard work, and you may see your favored metrics get even better.
Your chosen metrics can also help you reduce wasteful spending by identifying areas of weakness and prompting you to rethink your partner portfolio. Get more out of your budget by reallocating focus and spending towards higher-performing partners that play key roles in customer journeys.
When you take control of your data, you gain a valuable tool: real insight into the progress of your partnerships program's success. It doesn't get much better than that!
Note: While Optimize is considered the final step of the partnership life cycle, it's not the end of your program's journey. Continue building upon your program, keep recruiting partners, and pursue new and exciting ways to reward your highest performers. The partnership life cycle operates continuously, and partnerships managers ideally should actively recruit and onboard new partners while optimizing others.
Explore the following help articles, blogs, ebooks, and webinars to supplement what you've learned above.
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