Impact unveils impact.com/advocate to boost SEA brand trust

impact.com has announced the launch of impact.com/advocate, a new customer referral marketing solution aimed at helping brands in Singapore and across Southeast Asia build trust and connections with their audiences. The platform allows brands to engage their customers with tailored offers by transforming loyal customers into motivated advocates.

According to impact.com, the platform is designed to manage fully automated referral marketing programs effectively. This new solution addresses current consumer behaviour, which shows a shift from conventional advertising towards personal recommendations and social media reviews. A recent survey conducted by impact.com indicates that 49% of consumers in Southeast Asia discover products through social media platforms like Facebook and TikTok. Moreover, 43% rely on customer reviews on retailer websites, and 32% rely on recommendations from peers such as friends and family before making a purchase.

The research further reveals that 83% of consumers in Singapore value recommendations or referrals from people they know, with nearly half of young adults (aged 18-35) finding it very influential in their buying decisions. In contrast, only 2% of consumers find traditional advertising impactful. Additionally, 18% of shoppers feel uncomfortable recommending products solely for a reward, highlighting the importance of genuine endorsements.

Antoine Gross, General Manager for Southeast Asia and India at impact.com, stated, "Today's modern buyer no longer trusts conventional advertising techniques; they're seeking out reviews and recommendations from people they can trust and searching social media where they can see the product being used."

impact.com/advocate offers a seamlessly integrated referral partnership solution, enabling brands to manage their partnerships, including traditional affiliates, influencers, media publishers, other businesses, and now customer referral marketing, from one platform. This new capability enhances impact.com's existing suite of tools and builds on its 2023 acquisition of SaaSquatch, a provider of customer referral software. The integration of SaaSquatch's technology with impact.com's platform is intended to give brands a comprehensive toolkit for maximising customer referrals.

With impact.com/advocate, brands can create tailored referral programs that fit their strategic goals and customer needs. The platform allows brands to build flexible programs, offer attractive rewards, create branded referral experiences, and embed them at key conversion points in the customer journey. It also provides robust tracking and analytics capabilities for program optimisation.

Giacomo Bertollo, Head of Product Marketing at Hack the Box, a cybersecurity workforce development platform, commented on the new solution: "Leveraging impact.com's customer referral solution to enhance our monthly user acquisition has helped our business achieve a significant boost in revenue and ARR. Combining our customer referral and affiliate programs into one platform with impact.com has also helped us ease security reviews, reduce costs, and streamline our workflow. We're excited about the future of this platform which can evolve and grow with us, and look forward to leveraging its full potential to drive even greater results."

impact.com aims to address the decline of traditional advertising by leveraging the power of peer recommendations with the launch of impact.com/advocate. This new platform seeks to build authentic, profitable, and scalable partnerships between brands and their customers in Singapore and Southeast Asia.