Partnerize recently acquired BrandVerity with plans to incorporate the enterprise SaaS platform’s brand monitoring and compliance technology into its Partner Automation Platform. The goal is to enable brands to facilitate more effective partnerships and improve the brand and customer experience.

As brands emerge from a pandemic downturn, the new capabilities should allow them to protect against harmful violations and regulatory risks by monitoring online partner and affiliate marketing programs.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. 

“We didn’t have a suite of tools to help clients better manage these services in an automated way,” said Mal Cowley, co-founder and CEO of Partnerize. Cowley said the company could have built out the tools, but it was a great opportunity to buy the best in the market and expand its footprint and customer list.

Most brands earn between 20% and 30% of their impressions through partner channels such as influencer marketing, loyalty programs, referrals, affiliates, and brand alliances.

These marketing programs help brands to extend their reach and attract new customers, but their highly distributed nature underscores the need for brand compliance and protection monitoring. 

When Search & Performance Marketing Daily asked Cowley why when most people think of the word “affiliate” the next word to follow is typically “marketing,” he said “it’s something the industry has struggled with for years. … A lot of the time the buyer still sits on the marketing side of the house,” rather than the revenue side, which generates advertising. “You could argue it should be called affiliate sales,” he said.

Last year Partnerize raised $50 million in funding to have the opportunity to complete acquisitions like this one to grow the company and build out pay-for-performance models.  

With the acquisition came technology, employees and about 350 new brands as clients, he said. There were very few BrandVerity customers already with Partnerize, which already works with Adidas, Ancestry.com and Sprint.

Through the acquisition, the company added Booking.com, Alaska Airlines, Getty Images, Blue Nile, and Crocs, to name a few.  

David Naffziger, CEO of BrandVerity, along with all employees, will remain with the company, which will retain its name. BrandVerity will not be a separate company within the overall business. Financially, its revenue and costs will be integrated into the overall Partnerize business, but its product lines will be sold either as an integrated solution or as separate solutions.