Rakuten and Impact Shakeup: What This Means for Your Affiliate Program

Dustin Howes and co-host Cristen Evans recap Dustin’s experience at Optimism, praising it as a selective, high-quality networking event with strong meeting scheduling, useful gifts, and standout activities, but criticizing the lack of concrete information about Rakuten’s new integration and strategic alliance with Impact. Dustin describes the CEO keynote as offering only vague, high-level remarks, frustrating attendees who came seeking clarity, and notes backlash over a private brands-only meeting that excluded agencies. They compare the situation to the ShareASale/AWIN acquisition timeline and discuss concerns about moving brands quickly without clear communication. Cristen shares updates from her week negotiating aggressive CPA placements for a pet food brand focused on LLM visibility, including challenges with newer partners demanding high rates.00:00 Nothing Burger Tease00:47 Show Intro and Welcome01:01 Optimism Conference Highlights02:35 Gifts and Engagement03:07 Impact Integration Disappointment05:03 Brands Only Meeting Backlash05:51 Tight Lipped Industry Speculation08:08 Optimism Next Year and Logistics09:34 Cristen Week Pet Food Wars10:34 Negotiating CPAs and Visibility13:07 Conference Buddy Networking14:06 Wrap Up and Sign OffSubscribe to this channel for more affiliate program growth tactics.Want to recruit more affiliates? https://affistash.comConnect with Dustin Howes on Linkedin:   / dustinhowes  #AffiliateMarketing #Rakuten #Impact #AffiliateNerdOut#DigitalMarketing #AffiliateConference #PerformanceMarketing #MarketingNews #AgencyLife #AffiliateManagers #RakutenOptimism#MarketingStrategy Have you heard about Inflektion yet? They are changing the game in Affiliate marketing.The only platform with personalized funnels to scale partnership marketing for brands, agencies, influencers, and affiliates. Catering to the health and wellness space, this tracking soluition is helping build landing pages for partners in a manner of minutes instaead of weeks. They have social listening to capture all the content your brand is creating so that you can find more partners talking about yFor more tips on how to scale your affiliate program, check out https://performancemarketingmanager.com