Impartner PRM vs. Pepperjam Ascend (discontinued)

I have worked with many other PRM platforms. ImpartnerPRM is in the middle of the pack. There is still a lot of opportunity for making the platform more intuitive and automating some of the processes. However, it is better than some of the others that I have used in terms of there being better continuity between the PRM and marketing functions.

Incentivized

For our business, affiliate marketing is by far the lowest ROI marketing channel. If you're looking to get products, brands, and offers listed on coupon sites, Pepperjam Ascend is a great tool. If you're looking to engage with influencers or drive sales without giving away margin, Pepperjam Ascend is likely not for you.

Incentivized

• Providing data in an easily digestible format.
• Intuitive workflow, really easy to learn in an afternoon.
• Cloud access feature allows for easy access on any device.

Incentivized

• Lots of coupon sites.
• Enables different tiers of commissions.
• Can blast out newsletters to your network.

Incentivized

• Training was very difficult to set up and maintain
• They show you this awesome demo environment and then you realize once you purchase the tool how much it takes to get that. At least one web designer, help from marketing, and at least a few months of dedicated work
• The most expensive tool we looked at

Incentivized

• The dashboard/platform is the furthest thing from user-friendly. It looks like a high school student with zero experience designed it in excel and hoped for the best with the results.
• Reports are hit and miss. They may load, they may not! It's ridiculous, in my opinion.
• No mobile options whatsoever, everything has to be desktop. It's 2022, they need to catch up!

Salesforce was too expensive for us at the time and required too much customization and internal strain at the time. We ended up choosing Salesforce over Impartner later on once our channel business was more established and we had more resources internally. Impartner was more simple and easy to deploy than Salesforce, which is why we chose it when we had fewer resources

Incentivized

Pepperjam Ascend's user interface is way behind these other platforms. It's not intuitive nor is it easy to create custom reports and engage with your publishers. We have been stuck with Pepperjam and many other affiliate networks have a very similar layout without much upside.

Incentivized

• I do think our lead to demo rate increased a significant percent
• We were able to communicate easily with over 1k partners that were hard to reach before

Incentivized

• I was hitting anywhere from $130 - $450 per month in commission payout before Pepperjam Ascend. Now with Pepperjam Ascend, I maybe get $40! I am still waiting on payouts from January.