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David A. Yovanno shared thisLast fall, AirOps put a number in writing that should have stopped every CMO mid-planning-cycle. I'm willing to bet most kept planning anyway. 85% of brand mentions in AI-generated answers come from third-party sources. Not your website, not your owned content, not your paid media. People who independently chose to write about you, recommend you, or review you. Most brands treat that as a control problem. It's actually a distribution model. The only one that scales with trust rather than budget. The question this article asks: if most of your brand's story is being told by people who don't work for you, what does that mean for how you invest, who you partner with, and what you actually control? Check out the article below for a deeper dive, including how poppi turned this summer's Love Island into a case study.The Third-Party Revolution: 85% of Your Brand's AI Story Comes from People Who Don't Work for YouThe Third-Party Revolution: 85% of Your Brand's AI Story Comes from People Who Don't Work for You
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David A. Yovanno shared thisNow that we're sliding into the quarterfinal weekend, it's worth spotlighting something cool Levi Strauss & Co. did around the World Cup. Levi's is not an official FIFA World Cup 2026™ - Canada, Mexico and the United States sponsor. Official sponsorship packages run well into nine figures over a four-year cycle. Levi's spent none of that. Instead, FIFA rules forced the Levi's name at Levi's® Stadium to be covered during tournament matches. That could have been a dead brand moment. Instead, Levi's turned the redacted sign into content, extended the idea into stores, and let the community do what communities do. People shared it. Talked about it. Memed it. The brand created the spark. The community made it travel. More than 1 billion impressions later, Levi's had the most-viewed social campaign in its history. That is the Partnership Economy. One path is to spend north of $100 million to buy official association with the event. The other is to create a moment the community wants to carry. You can buy access. You can't buy the right to be the story people repeat. That part has to be earned. The brand can light the match. The community decides whether there is a fire. Check out the article below for a deeper dive into this trend!👇🏼 #partnershipeconomy #marketing #worldcup2026
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David A. Yovanno shared thisLast week at iPX26, I said something every marketer needs to sit with. We have moved from the Search Era to the Answer Era. Three out of four AI-active consumers now start their purchase journey outside standard web search. Not on a results page. In an answer. And one in four is choosing that path specifically to avoid ads and sponsored content. You cannot buy your way into an AI answer. But you can partner your way in. That is the shift. And it rewrites how demand gets created, captured, and converted. Four forces are doing the rewriting right now. AI is rewriting discovery. Retail media has become the third pillar of performance marketing, standing alongside search and social. Creators are measured on the same metrics as paid media - conversion rates, revenue per post, customer quality. And Software Creators are a new partner class most brands have not planned for, building apps with high-intent audiences and looking to monetize through partnerships. These are not four separate trends. They converge on one answer. Commerce partnerships. In the Answer Era, partnerships are the operating system of growth. Read the full breakdown in the link to the article below. Or watch the full keynote here: https://lnkd.in/euRCKAxB
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David A. Yovanno shared thisToday marks an important moment for the partnership economy. We’re announcing a strategic alliance between impact.com and Rakuten - bringing together best-in-class technology with world-class strategic services and consumer data/insights to help scale partnership marketing into a true global performance channel. At a time when brands are looking for more efficient, measurable, and trusted ways to grow beyond traditional paid media, this partnership is about unlocking that next level of scale. Just as important, we’re approaching this with a clear principle: customer experience comes first. For brands currently working with Rakuten, this will be a thoughtful, phased migration onto the impact.com platform: - Agencies will continue to lead and own their client relationships - Rakuten will remain the primary partner for brands working directly with them - In all cases, the goal is seamless continuity with a meaningful platform upgrade over time Grateful for the partnership and shared vision from Amit Patel and Nick Stamos, and the awesome teams across both companies who made this possible. The official announcement is in the joint press release, and I’ve shared more perspective below on what this means for the future of performance marketing.Scaling partnership marketing: impact.com and Rakuten form a strategic alliance to build a global performance channelScaling partnership marketing: impact.com and Rakuten form a strategic alliance to build a global performance channel
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David A. Yovanno shared thisAs Martin Luther King Jr. Day approaches this Monday, I’m reflecting on his call for connection, accountability, and shared responsibility. His words remind us that meaningful progress is never built alone - it’s interdependent like the networks we lead and work within each day. In my latest post, I explore how Reverend Dr. King’s vision of mutuality can guide businesses, and how I’m thinking about these principles as we move into 2026.A Network of Mutuality: Leadership in an Interdependent EconomyA Network of Mutuality: Leadership in an Interdependent Economy
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David A. Yovanno shared thisStrong opportunity here, Brian Stempeck. As LLMs increasingly prioritize authentic, community-driven commerce content, the upside for both brands and commerce content creators is significant. Excited to get to work with you and the Evertune AI team and turn these insights into real activation! 🦾David A. Yovanno shared thisOne of the core insights that we've seen across every brand we work with is that affiliate content surfaces a LOT as a source in AI models - it's hugely influential. We're super excited to announce our partnership today with impact.com to help the brands we work with take action on our insights, and educate the AI models with commerce content. Big thanks to Per Pettersen, David A. Yovanno and Brian Marcus as we launch this partnership!
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David A. Yovanno shared thisimpact.com is excited to partner with (and invest in) Brian Stempeck and the rest of the Evertune AI team! This partnership combines industry leading GEO AI insights for brands with the world's largest commerce content activation platform. Brands can now not only understand and optimize how they appear in AI search results, but create partnerships with the creators/publishers/citations of the commerce content that is driving those those AI recommendations. Press release: https://lnkd.in/gBGdCBTi
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David A. Yovanno shared thisAs 2025 comes to a close, I’m reflecting on a year of transformation for impact.com, and the entire partnership economy. From the rise of creator- and community-led marketing to the growing adoption and influence of AI, we’ve seen marketing evolve at an unprecedented pace - and I’m proud of the incredible impact.com team and our partners who are helping shape that future. In my latest Momentum video, I share key highlights from this year and my thoughts on what’s ahead in 2026. I encourage you to watch the video or read the blog post and learn more about how brands are leading with connection, trust, and measurable impact on the impact.com platform! Video: https://bit.ly/3MSdoaq Blog post: https://bit.ly/48NuFcqA year in review: Trust, community, and the future of performance marketingA year in review: Trust, community, and the future of performance marketing
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David A. Yovanno shared thisInfluence is no longer bought - it’s built. Partnerships with creators and other publishers of commerce content now outperform incremental paid media spend, and the data heading into 2026 proves it. This earned-media–style channel is scaling fast and separating leaders from laggards, giving a measurable edge to companies that operationalize it into a repeatable growth system. impact.com’s new report shows how top performers are expanding partner ecosystems, modernizing measurement, and using AI to create real competitive separation. This data is essential for leaders focused on ROI and long-term advantage. Key takeaways: 1) Creators now drive full-funnel performance, influencing every stage of the customer journey. 2) AI is shifting from experimentation to forecasting and spend optimization across partners and markets. 3) Attribution has matured; mixed media models and position-based attribution expose true contribution and guide smarter budgeting. 4) Top performers tie budgets directly to outcomes, strengthening partnerships and maximizing ROI. For performance marketing leaders, the opportunity is clear: in 2026, brands that integrate creators, partnerships, and AI into one growth system will capture more market share and scale smarter. Explore the full report for actionable benchmarks and see how your strategy stacks up! https://lnkd.in/gz9Kc7y7
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David A. Yovanno liked thisDavid A. Yovanno liked thisI built a system that can automate roughly 80% of what I do on a computer. That should scare me. Instead, it made me ask a scarier question: How much of my life have I spent operating a machine, when the machine could have been working for me? Time is the only resource we can never regenerate. And I would rather watch one more sunset than spend another evening navigating menus, moving information between tools or repeating a process a computer could learn. That is why I’m building this. Not to remove humans from the equation, but to remove the friction between human intention and machine capability. Apple and Microsoft taught billions of people how to operate computers. I believe the next operating system should learn how to operate for us. You describe the outcome through voice or text. The system discovers the capabilities it needs, connects to the right tools, learns how they work and executes the task, whether it is simple or highly complex. Online or offline. But most importantly: your way. It learns how you think, what you prefer, the standards you expect and when it needs to ask before acting. That changes more than productivity. It democratises access to expertise. A person shouldn’t need years of software experience to turn an idea into something real. A blind person can speak. A deaf person can type. A beginner can express the same outcome as an expert. A creator can focus on the vision instead of learning every tool required to build it. Accessibility should not be a setting!! It should be the architecture! Of course, autonomy at this level must earn our trust. Actions should be visible, permissions deliberate and important decisions reversible. But imagine a system you can trust to act like you, work alongside you and continue getting things done while you are living your life. That is the human-machine connection I’m interested in. The attached video shows barely 2% of what this system (Yes it's a System built on a Linux kernel, not another App...) can currently do, and it still amazes me every time I use it. If you want to see it handle more complex autonomous scenarios, message me on LinkedIn. I’ll happily share more. The question is no longer whether computers can do more of our work. It is what we will do with the time they give back. #Accessibility #ArtificialIntelligence #HumanComputerInteraction #AutonomousAgents
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David A. Yovanno liked thisDavid A. Yovanno liked thisWhat an honor! We're celebrating 10 years of Adam Pavley 👏🏾 Thank you for being a proactive, collaborative, & impactful team member who drives initiatives forward 🤩 Here's to the lessons you've learned along the way👇🏾
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David A. Yovanno liked thisDavid A. Yovanno liked thisWhat's going to be obvious in hindsight that the #affiliate, #creator, and #partnerships industry is missing right now? Check out Kyle Dougherty's (Self Financial, Inc.) take: #ipx26 #affiliatemarketing #influencermarketing impact.com
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David A. Yovanno liked thisLast year, I had a crazy idea: What if our board of directors at Homeless ID Project spent one night sleeping outside on one of the hottest nights of the year in Phoenix? Because for tens of thousands of people experiencing homelessness in Phoenix, that’s not a symbolic gesture. It’s reality every single night. To my surprise, the board said yes (enthusiastically). About a dozen of us slept outside. ABC15 Arizona and KTAR News, Arizona Sports & ESPN - Bonneville Phoenix came and covered the story. We live-streamed the experience throughout the night. Ultimately, I think I slept about 30 minutes, woke up drenched in sweat (the concrete I was sleeping on stayed hot all night), and I gained a completely different appreciation for what so many people endure night after night. Well, two weeks from tonight, we’re doing it again. This time, we’re making it even bigger. I reached out to Arizona-based Boring Mattress (a fitting partner for a sleep-out). They immediately embraced the mission and helped bring Culdesac, Tempe’s innovative walkable community, on board to host our kickoff event. We’ll gather at 6:00 PM at Culdesac, hear from community leaders, welcome media, local creators, and supporters, then ride the Valley Metro RPTA Light Rail together into downtown Phoenix for the overnight sleep-out. We’ll once again livestream the experience and spend one night standing in solidarity with our neighbors who have no choice but to do this every day. Phoenix will always have a special place in my heart 🌵 ❤️ It’s where InfluenceLogic grew from an idea into a real business. It’s where I experienced a personal and spiritual transformation that changed the trajectory of my life. Even though I now live in Texas, a piece of my heart will always belong to this city. Giving back to Phoenix, especially serving its most vulnerable, is something I feel deeply called to do. If you’re in the Phoenix area, I’d love to have you join us. Whether you come to the kickoff event, help spread the word, or choose to spend the night sleeping outside with us in solidarity, your presence matters. Send me a DM here if you’d like to get involved 💪 I’m excited that Josue Ponce from InfluenceLogic will be joining to document the experience throughout the night with short-form and long-form content, and my good friend and colleague John Jarvis from Backyard Ventures will be joining as well. Who’s willing to give up one night of comfort so others don’t have to face every night alone? Zach Ferres Yaniv Masjedi Daehee Park Tyler Marino Zach Grove Gabriel D. Kruse Michael R. Hunter Anthony Sarandrea Jeremy Ellens Brian Krupski Ken Robertson 🤠 🙏
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David A. Yovanno liked thisDavid A. Yovanno liked thisIf automating your busiest workflows is a crime, we plead guilty ✋
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David A. Yovanno liked thisDavid A. Yovanno liked thisProfound has a data problem. Their sampling techniques have a margin of error that makes the data unreliable for both measurement and optimization. To get into the analysis, read on… But the TL;DR - ask Profound - or any GEO provider - about the margin of error in their data before you start investing in efforts to influence AI models. We’ve been doing head-to-head comparisons of GEO data sets with clients for months, which I’m going to share in a series of posts. I believe that the current data sampling practices used by Profound and others are at best misleading, and at worst damaging the fledgling GEO category at a time when it’s imperative to build trust. Let’s start with the gold standard. Gallup polls typically survey 1,000 respondents, with a margin of error of ±4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. Market research follows similar guidelines. For an important topic, ±3-6 points margin of error is acceptable. For directional analysis, ±10 points might be good enough. AI models give very different answers in response to the same prompt. So margin of error becomes critically important. Let’s take the SUV category as an example. If you ask ChatGPT, “What’s the best SUV?”, you need to repeat that question to understand how often your brand is visible. Profound’s method is to run that single prompt once per day for 30 days. That's not enough. It’s only by repeating the same question 100 times for a single AI model that you get to an acceptable margin of error of ±6% for a brand like Acura. We've seen this trend hold across industries, and across brands (data on that below). Brands aren’t just measuring AI models. They’re actively trying to improve their AI visibility. That means they’re making expensive investments in new content, PR, content creators, affiliate sponsorships, and more. If Acura creates a new content strategy aimed at growing visibility in ChatGPT, it’s realistic to think that they can improve their visibility score by 10 percentage points. But if their margin of error is ±12 points, they’ll never actually know what worked. They're chasing noise, not signal. Coming next: Profound and other platforms suggest that running a large group of different prompts, one time each, solves the margin of error problem. I’ll talk about the flaws in that method, and a better approach.
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David A. Yovanno reacted on thisDavid A. Yovanno reacted on thisFun fact: we have 3 CPOs 🤯 and they're dropping the advice they'd give to their younger selves. Say hi to our... 👋🏽 Chief Productivity Officer, Dirk Oberholster 👋🏽 Chief People Officer, Michelle Denman 👋🏽 Chief Product Officer, Max Ciccotosto #InspiringThroughImpact
Experience & Education
Publications
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The Partnership Economy
Wiley
See publicationWho do consumers trust in today’s world? More than ever, consumers turn to the authentic voices of publishers, influencers, content creators, and even other businesses that recommend and refer consumers to products and brands. This commercial information and these relationships are at the heart of the new partnership economy — and you need to be a part of it to thrive. That’s why you need this essential new guide.
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The rising tide: A 2021 momentum recap - impact.com
LinkedIn Pulse
See publicationReflecting on this year, impact.com CEO David A. Yovanno shares in this video how partnerships serve not only as a channel for growth, but also as a powerful tool for resilience.
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The Cookie Will Crumble, But Authenticity Offers A Solution
Forbes
See publicationConsumer TRUST in brands and their advertising has been deteriorating for years. And it has reached a tipping point to where big tech is finally responding. But at the same time they are making targeting, tracking and measurement near impossible for advertisers. Partnerships provide brands a new path forward for scalable revenue acquisition, and allows brands to connect with people on a more authentic level, which is all they are asking for. #advertisingiscancelled #createpartnerships
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Masks, milestones, and momentum: A 2020 recap
Impact Blog
See publicationA global public health crisis; an overdue awakening to systemic injustice; a new way of working and living—2020 has put our societal, mental, and emotional fortitude to the test. This year asked a lot of us as individuals, and it demanded action from us as a company.
We witnessed partnerships and partnership automation serve not only as a channel for business growth, but also as a powerful tool for business resilience. We have had to re-examine our role and responsibility in the…A global public health crisis; an overdue awakening to systemic injustice; a new way of working and living—2020 has put our societal, mental, and emotional fortitude to the test. This year asked a lot of us as individuals, and it demanded action from us as a company.
We witnessed partnerships and partnership automation serve not only as a channel for business growth, but also as a powerful tool for business resilience. We have had to re-examine our role and responsibility in the resurging fight for social equity. And we have had to rethink how we work and work together to support the wellbeing and emotional health of our colleagues around the world.
I want to share with you a bit about how these forces have reshaped our company this year and informed our roadmap for 2021. -
How Authenticity Strikes A Chord In The Age Of Noise, Distrust And Way Too Much Information
Forbes
See publicationImpact's CEO David A. Yovanno explores the big issue of consumer trust and how it is eroding traditional marketing channels.
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(IAB Executive Series) How Tech is Helping Brands Understand the Role of Performance Marketing
IAB Australia
See publicationIn this episode of our “Executive Series” we talk to Dave Yovanno, CEO of Impact and former IAB U.S. board member. IAB Director of Research Gai Le Roy talks to Dave about what Impact (formerly Impact Radius) does; the role of performance marketing; social influencers and the consumer journey; and advances in tackling fraud and where the industry sits now with hygiene levels.
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Marketing Technology Is Transforming the Way Brands Work With Influencers
Adweek
See publicationThe advent of new data-based technology is poised to wholly transform how brands find and negotiate with influencers. Artificial intelligence-powered discovery can help brands identify trustworthy talent that best fits their sensibilities, the use of predictive analytics can make for more equitable partnership contracts and more nuanced attribution methods can better show the scope of influencer contribution to sales.
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How the Navy Prepared Me to Be a Better CEO
Fortune
See publicationThe ultimate respect has to be earned, and the only way to do that—and instill a culture of togetherness—is for the CEO to lead by doing, not by issuing orders.
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How Marketing Technology Is Forever Recasting the CMO Role
Adweek
See publicationThe CMO is no longer the executive with the big vision to develop flashy ad campaigns, but a leader who must be conversant across big data, creative and technology.
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One on One: CMO's Need a Marketing Platform of Record
DMNews
See publicationJust a couple of weeks into his new role as CEO at Impact Radius, David Yovanno is an industry veteran. He explains how his wide-ranging experience affords insight into the evolution of Impact Radius from its affiliate marketing roots to a natively integrated marketing platform.
Projects
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iPX22: impact.com's Partnerships Experience
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See projectiPX is the one event where all players in the partnership economy come together to discover, network, and exchange ideas for business growth, and we were excited to be LIVE for the first time in three years!
Attendees tapped into the experiences and insights of industry leaders, innovators, analysts, and trendsetters from across the partnerships industry, and there were plenty of opportunities to learn, network, and have fun! -
Why Partnerships Are the Next Big Driver for Revenue Growth
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See projectCEO Dave Yovanno took center stage when the internationally acclaimed 2019 Web Summit Lisbon chose Impact to speak. In this video, Dave shares how partnerships and automation are key to enterprise growth with sales and marketing results flattening. In less than 5 minutes, Dave concisely shares exactly why partnerships are poised to make the difference for business growth now and in the future.
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Impact Growth 2019: Opening Remarks
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See projectOpening remarks to kick-off Impact's second annual thought leadership event.
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