Technology partner

Not focusing on how to scale integrations, think about who is building, it can be both you and/or your partners, and ensure that your API has the endpoints you need to enable the customer utility required for the partnership to have a "better together" value prop. 

Review the health and activity of your integrations and double down on integrations that customers find useful, think from a customer workflow mindset, "what does this type of integration do for our customers?" and look to expand partners based on who can also deliver that type of workflow. 

Tech Partners are best at expanding the value of your product for your customers. 

Also don't forget to set up bi-directional data feeds, integration partners deal in the currency of data, make sure that goes both ways to ensure a great partnership. 

Treating all partners as equals and not having a way to rank and prioritize your partnerships on both qualitative and quantitative metrics. These can change, grow and evolve as your program matures. You don't even have to publish them or tier your partners publicly to begin with--it can be on the backend--but make sure there's some system of making sense of partnerships. Even when you're starting out, map out what types of partners (integration/tech, community, affiliate, resellers etc) will be helpful in meeting X and Y business goals. You need to rank these partners and tie them to particular areas of the business in order to set up your metrics for success and prove value. 

Another common pitfall is expecting immediate results. Partnerships are generally a longer-term play. If your company doesn't already have existing relationships or have employees who have those relationships, it's going to take some time to build them. You have to give a lot in the beginning and learn how to provide value, show your own value and be the best partner before you start receiving from partners. 

Lastly, I'd say another pitfall is not realizing that partnership people are human and the job is inherently relationship-based. People want to work more with people they enjoy working with. Don't be robotic, rigid or vengeful. You won't get very far in your partner program. 

The most common pitfall is having a tech partner program that is detached from product strategy. Tech partnerships can be a force multiplier across sales and marketing but at the core they are about developing technology to take to customers. Partner leaders must collaborate closely with their colleagues in product to help prioritize discussions happening across the partner landscape. Without that collaboration, it's very difficult for a BD or partner team to action on opportunities that come up in the market when technical work is required. 

Two other pitfalls I see - having unclear ways that tech partnerships can be measured and lacking a strong method to prioritization of activities. Lacking in both of those areas make working internally (product, sales, marketing) and externally with tech partners very difficult. 

Tech partnerships / integrations are wonderful because it can help you enter new markets and make your product better / stickier, but too often, they just get built, but never adopted and they become a waste of time and resources. I think it’s just understanding the use case on a very deep level. Some integrations are a no-brainer, while some are nothing more than a nice-to-have. So the technical synergy is the baseline, and then once you have a pool of tech partners and use cases that you’d like to support, then comes the business aspect. How many customers do you have in common, how much revenue you can drive, what reach can they drive for you, what regions they’re strong on, etc.

If the use case foundation is not there, building an integration is exercise in futility.

Not deeply understanding your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile), your KPI, and the resulting IPP (Ideal Partner Profile). Having these points buttoned up tightly will vastly improve your ability to source and evaluate successful partnerships. 

Making programs too complex when you are just getting started. You may not need tiered programs or top of the line partner ops tools when you only have a handful of partners.  Keep it simple initially and add complexity needed as with program growth.

Not viewing integrated customers as joint customers. Instead consider thinking more about the workflows or insights the joint solution is providing those customers. There is some unique value that can be driven ONLY by you and said partner. Find that value and make it as easy as possible for customers to access.

Missing opportunities to reconnect with partners (even those who aren’t top performers). There may be a need your program is not meeting and once unblocked that partner may become a power player in your ecosystem. 

Track customer adoption AND activity where possible. Activity will provide context for improvements and innovation down the line.


1. Spending too much time/resources on partners that don't have the maximum opportunity and/or align with your mission and vision. 
     -->  Identifying what a good partner looks like and having clear criteria from the start will help prevent this 

2. No alignment between partners and product with a lack of understanding of roles and responsibilities set for all team members 

When it comes to tech partnership programs, there are a few common pitfalls to avoid. 

One pitfall is failing to properly align the partner's goals with the company's own marketing objectives. Without this alignment, it can be difficult to measure the success of the partnership and determine whether or not it is worth continuing.

Another common pitfall is failing to invest enough resources in partner onboarding and training. This can lead to partners feeling like they are not being supported and ultimately result in them disengaging from the program. It is important to make sure that partners feel invested in the program and have the tools and information they need to be successful.

Finally, many companies make the mistake of expecting their partners to do all the work when it comes to marketing and promotion. While partners should certainly be expected to put in some effort, the company should also be prepared to invest time and resources into promoting the partnership. Otherwise, it is unlikely to be successful.

By avoiding these common pitfalls, companies can set themselves up for success with their tech partner programs. By taking the time to properly align objectives, invest in partner onboarding and training, and promote the partnership, companies can create programs that are beneficial for both themselves and their partners.

FOCUS. Casting a wide net to see what sticks is a recipe for disaster. Go after a limited set of strategic tech partners whose tech is (1) complementary to yours (2) shares a similar buyer persona (3) technical integration is an option (4) creates a better together story that resellers would be compelled by to create a bundle / service offering to sell to their clients

One of the most common pitfalls I observe is the North Star as number of partners, number of integrations, etc. A large tech partner ecosystem is certainly  beneficial as a moat and competitive product advantage, but not a replacement for tracking direct business metrics like attributed ARR, LTV of shared customers, etc. 

I'd pile on the answers that are advising getting your marketing and sales and support messaging/strategy dialed in. I'd say you need to have those conversations/alignment before you start any, but it's never too late to start. Even if it's as simple as knowing that "Support will get a doc, sales will get a primer, marketing will get screen shots and value prop, for every partner and here's where to find it"... we've built so many integrations that didn't have these all lined up, and they all failed to do as well as they could have.

I would also suggest being up front and probably pessimistic on the expected outcomes in the short term. Activating folks to use the integration itself is part of the whole partnership roadmap, and it takes time.

That's also where having tight alignment with Customer Support and Sales really helps- you can reach out to specific customers or leads and ask them for their help evaluating the solution.

And lastly... don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Get something out, refine/iterate.

Successful tech partnership programs require a balance of Strategy, Partner Selection + User Experience, and GTM + Enablement. There are common pitfalls in each of those respective areas, including: 

- Strategy: Lack of roadmap alignment. Make sure the partnerships you’re pursuing complement your company’s product roadmap, augment the user experience, and are positioned to accelerate progress toward specific goals. Set joint success metrics for tech partnerships with your product team. 

- Partner Selection + User Experience: Prioritizing quantity over quality. Think of each tech partnership or integration like a product feature. You want to create great product experiences between your software and your partners’ software, and it’s easy to get distracted with vanity metrics like the quantity of integrations you’ve built over meaningful quality, user experience, and adoption. 

- GTM + Enablement: Under-utilizing marketing. Driving awareness is key to driving adoption of your partner integrations. In-house enablement for customer-facing teams, external-facing partner marketing tactics, and co-marketing with tech partners are all opportunities you don’t want to miss


Rather than avoiding pitfalls, I’ll give a few tips on things that help avoid creating pitfalls in general.

1. When entering partnerships, it’s important to have clearly defined goals and expectations from both partners. Having alignment in values, target markets, and long-term vision between partners creates a roadmap for success. Ideally, the goal is to create a well-defined partnership agreement that outlines roles, responsibilities, and expectations.

2. Create effective communication channels and utilize collaborative project management tools. Establish regular check-ins bi-weekly and then adjust to either monthly or weekly if needed. Create realistic expectations regarding timelines, deliverables, and outcomes. Likewise, make sure to provide proper support and training for partners.

3. Do the proper due diligence to thoroughly evaluate a potential partner's capabilities, reputation, and financial stability. It shouldn’t be awkward, the partner should be proud to share case studies, client references, and industry reviews. Don’t take for granted the partner's technical expertise, resources, and track record.

4. I’m not sure whether to make this its own or  include it with #1, but it feels like it’s worth its own spot: Establish key performance indicators (KPIs) to track partnership success.


What are some common pitfalls to avoid for tech partnership programs?

The product should be the primary channel driving adoption. You can write the best newsletter, create the best promo video, spend a ton on ads, etc. If your integrations marketplace doesn’t feel like a core part of your product, it’ll be hard to drive adoption.

Creating additional moments for customers to become aware of, be inspired by, and easily implement. These can take the form of: 

- Including announcements of new integration launches and success stories in customer newsletters (I had to get at least one mention of email marketing in here 😀)
- Ensuring the integration connections are as simple as possible and easy to find within your application.
- Implement in app notifications (with the appropriate context of course)
- Sharing content about successful customers using the tech partner/integration <--- this is my favorite option and makes for great sharable social media content as well.
- Creating very clear setup documentation and templates/recipes for success 
- Host workshops, courses, and challenges for customers interested in using the integrations
- Provide some sort of training to the sales or customer success teams (for both partners) where possible. The more comfortable these folks are in understanding the solution’s benefits and implementing the tool the more easily they will be able to make recommendations during conversations with customers. That’s a win!
- Talk to integrated customers (from power users to folks who installed but have not used the integration). Use your findings as a guide. Regular and power users are going to be the best fit for the integration in its current state — knowing this you can find more existing customers that match their characteristics. Then make adjustments to the integration if necessary to convert those inactive integrated customers to active ones.


Exposing how I/we as a company use those technology/platforms and integrations ourselves.

Caspio provides open REST APIs along with exhaustive documentation and clear in-product callouts for integrated services besides covering it in our documentation. We have some exciting plans in this space which we will be announcing soon to make it even easier to integrate with us and build joint solutions – we encourage potential tech partners to reach out to us from our Partners page with ideas.

1. marketing that integration to your customers via newsletters, blogs, landing pages, and other co-marketing activities.

2. training your internal teams on the details of the integration and giving them supporting assets to share with customers/prospects when specific conversations come up.

3. literally going through customer accounts and finding ones that would see value in that integration and giving CS scripts to use to share the integration information with that customer

to name a few...

Evergreen marketing > campaign-based marketing 

Whenever possible, highlight tech partners with always-on, evergreen marketing, such as a dedicated email in drip series or in-product messaging during onboarding. This allows the partner to grow as you grow, versus flash in the pan co-marketing like on social or events, and is particularly impactful if you have a strong PLG motion. 


Once a partnership is established/integrated the partner success team analyzes performance and looks at leading metrics like conversion (quote to policy). They discuss on recurring meetings with partners how these metrics can be improved:
- adding a new relevant product in the mix (ie pet insurance next to renters insurance, home warranty next to homeowners insurance)
- figuring out where in the customer journey the best conversion happens and adjusting the flow or API 
- adjusting the quote API to have less questions in the flow, making a purchase easier for the end consumer 
- to have more partner adoption, we can also work on easier integration options like iFrame or affiliate marketing

There are several ways you can do this: 
Educate Your Customers: Webinars & Demos are an easy and quick way to educate customers on the partners' value props and functionality (include use cases). Host live sessions, try to keep them as evergreen as possible so they can be reused. 

Knowledge Base & Tutorials: Create easy-to-follow guides, competitive battlecards, FAQs, and videos highlighting how to use and benefit from the partners (integrated or otherwise).

Success Stories: Share case studies or testimonials from customers who have successfully adopted the integrations. Bite sized videos are best.

Tailored Messaging: Customize communication to address specific pain points of different customer segments. Emphasize time savings, cost reductions, or improved workflows that the integration delivers.

Simplify Onboarding: Reduce friction in the integration process with detailed instructions, technical support, or even white-glove setup.

Guided Tours: Use in-app walkthroughs or interactive guides to show customers how to activate and use the integration.

Leverage Existing Touchpoints such as:
Email Campaigns: Send targeted emails to segments that would benefit most from the integration, including step-by-step activation instructions (include a bonus promotional offer)
Account Manager Outreach: Have your team reach out to customers directly to discuss how the integration aligns with their business needs.
CX: Train support teams to promote integrations when assisting with relevant queries.
Incentivize Adoption: Offer discounts and/or promotions for a limited-time to drive the behavior you want. An iterative approach would be to tie adoption to loyalty points or to gamify, use badges or recognition programs to encourage early adopters and power users.

Build Awareness in the Product
In-App Notifications: Use pop-ups or banners to highlight solutions (scale this by using AL/ML to target based on your partner's target ICP within your base (eg NAICS code)
Action Triggers: Prompt users to activate integrations when their behavior indicates a potential need.

Engage Your Advocates
Customer Champions: Enlist power users to promote integrations through reviews, forums, or community events.
Communities & Forums: Foster discussions in customer communities about best practices for the integration.

Internally align Integration to Core Business Goals by tech-stacking: 
Tie the integration to critical workflows, making it an essential part of using your platform.
Frame the integration as a key element in achieving broader customer success goals internally

At Figma, we often mirror the tactics that our product and GTM teams use to drive adoption of native features - but partner integrations also have the benefit of leveraging partner data and co-marketing opportunities for a multiplier effect. 

Data is so valuable here! Examine the characteristics of customers who use existing integrations and work with your marketing and customer-facing teams to communicate the value of other integrations with these customers. When you launch a new integration, refer back to any data you have around customers’ requests and follow up with them directly. Educate your sales and customer-facing teams about existing and upcoming integrations, turning them into advocates for integrations with their customers. 

Strategic co-marketing is also a leading driver of adoption. Explore in-product prompting across both platforms to drive awareness of the features. Work with your partners to understand overlapping customers and prospects, and then target these users together via joint case studies, webinars, and events. You can also leverage your other partners for co-marketing! Services, consultants, and other distribution partners are champions for integrations. Our partners are often working alongside our customers inside Figma’s platform, and they can recommend workflows and integrations from the inside. These partners are often a great resource for integration feedback and requests too. 


You always need to highlight and go back to your answer to what's in it for them? Check out “Start with Why” by Simon Sinek. More specifically, clearly communicate how they solve specific customer pain points or enhance their workflows. Be sure to show tangible benefits like increased efficiency, cost savings, or improved data insights. Examples include video tutorials or interactive demos and examples of how customers have been successful in adopting XYZ.

I always think it’s useful to have a user-friendly interface within your platform where customers can easily discover and explore available integrations. If not within the platform, a partner directory or marketplace works great. Make sure to provide clear descriptions, screenshots, and ratings for each integration. If you are able to do it within your platform and you have the data and messaging capabilities for it, utilize in-app messaging to notify customers about relevant integrations based on their usage patterns.

Eliminate friction for your customer. Minimize the complexity of the integration setup process. Provide step-by-step guides, tutorials, and readily available support, but make them unnecessary for customers. Create detailed documentation, including FAQs, troubleshooting guides, and API documentation, but once again make them unnecessary for customers.

What are some ways to increase the adoption of tech partners/integrations with your existing customer base?

Milestones can vary wildly from program to program. Factors include KPI, the size of the ISV/Tech partner, growth rates, how deeply integrated the solution into the platform or sales cycle, platform complexity, customer type, etc. That said, I have seen quite a few programs with initial partner milestones ranging from 10 - 100 connections. 

These lower ranges make “unlocking” basic program benefits attainable and are likely to encourage partners to continue moving towards the next milestones. You will also get to see how quickly some partners blow past these milestones… keep an eye on those folks. They may be killer partners for scaling. Only time will tell the long term value of those connections. The next milestones you see are typically gated at 250 - 500 connections, 1K connections, 5K+ connections. Again this varies quite a bit.  

Beyond that I generally take the following approach to setting goals: 

If possible, I like to get an average [insert your specific metric here :) ] partners drive in their first month/quarter/year and beyond. Then I use these averages to tailor goals towards partners within these specific buckets. 

Otherwise, I take a look at my KPI and determine how much revenue/LTV lift/new connections I need to hit that goal within a certain time frame. Next I determine a realistic rate for that KPI based on relevant existing data — this could be industry data, your company’s average conversion rate, or ARPU for example. Then I would calculate the average number of connections per partner I would need to hit that goal. 

The leads and pipeline that both partners refer to each other are a valuable metric to keep track of. Towards that goal, some initial milestones can be generation of joint solutions, case studies, and articulating the value of the combined solution vs. other offerings. 

Kicking off right an integration partnership is crucial. The two tech teams should connect and have a relationship. Communication is key thus sometimes its better to not just have email but incorporate more timely slack or other ways. 

Some important steps: 
1) Once partnership is signed, there should be an organized kick-off call to discuss partner timelines and resources for integration, partnership goals and an MVP launch. 

2) During API integration work, partners generally have many questions and like to A/B test the integration. This is where the tech teams need to be directly in touch and work together. As an insurtech, we enable partners with our expertise in going live with the product and use cases to help them from other parnterships. 

3) GTM goals and live date: before going live, QA testing and the MVP have been done and the partnership is ready to go public. This can be helped with PR as well. At this stage sales enablement (email templates, support staff being ready, FAQs created) is important as a lot of questions will come through from customers. 

4) Funnel metrics: it is often important to discuss with partner how they open up their top of funnel customers, what % or regions we target with insurance integration. A phased approach to slowly see adoption and work out kinks helps a lot with API partnerships and helps drive revenue in a strategic, slowly increased funnel manner. 

I love this one. A few different ways you can approach it and adjust goals over time. Here’s a “menu”:

1. Adoption & Activation Milestones

A. Set a target for the number of customers who activate the integration within a specific timeframe (e.g., 30, 60, 90 days).
B. Track the percentage of customers who successfully onboard and use the integration.
C. Monitor how frequently customers are using the integration features.

2. Sales & Revenue Milestones

A. Establish a target for the number of joint sales opportunities created within a specific period.
B. Set initial revenue goals for the integrated solution, share these revenue goals between both companies.
C. Set targets for how many of each company's customers are utilizing the other company’s product.

What milestones or initial goals are good ones to set up for ISV partners after they complete and integration and become an official partner?

Some* factors to consider:

- Use case of a possible integration and what value it can provide to existing customers and new prospects.
- What gap does the partner fill in our product. Are we going to build anything similar internally?
- What overlap do we have from an ICP, revenue, region and account perspective?
- Is this tech partner relevant just from a product perspective or can it be used to help co-sell, co-market or assist with retention of existing customers?

Always important to find the healthy balance of variety tech partners with similar services/value. e.g. partner with a variety of QA tools at the start but too many. Too many options can spread partner momentum too thin and can act as a blocker for your internal team to feel confident selling partners within their roles (choice overload/paralysis).

What partners can provide value to what your customers need? What tech partners can fill gaps where your product is weaker or missing? It depends on your business and product strategy and that will determine where tech partners come into play. 

Tech partners are inherently different from affiliate or reseller partners (often referred to as channel). While co-selling and referrals will come from tech partnerships, think about the core need that's coming from your customers, your target audience, which audiences you want to reach 1-3-5 years from now etc that a tech partnership can solve. This is also thinking about your partnerships proactively and in an outbound mindset. If you have an open API and provide support to developers, you'll find that there's also the opportunity for inbound integrations being built and your own business being that central node in the ecosystem. 

Which ecosystems does it make sense based on your customer pain points and business opportunity to be a part of? What type of ecosystem could your business lead or be a central node in?

The short answer is: align partner selection around your ideal customers, IPP, and KPI.

When I am identifying potential partners for outreach I first build a list while considering the following: 

Reviews of specific tools your customers use outside of your platform 
The personas/or use cases your company serves most effectively. What tools/platforms are these folks using? What workflows could be streamlined with an integration?

As the program grows take a step back and look at the types of tools your successful customers use (ie CRMs, Website Builders, Communications Tools, Hardware, Sales Automation). Find all the major players within these areas.

Once I have an initial list together I begin to gather information to evaluate each potential partner’s alignment with my team’s mission, values, and goals. I use a simple scorecard that has each of the IPP characteristics and requirements outlined — each value is weighted based on its importance to the team. Willingness and ability to build are line items on this scorecard by the way. The higher the total score, the more tightly aligned that prospect is to our partnerships program. More highly aligned partners are the relationships that are typically more likely to succeed, so they are prioritized for further exploration.  

It is valuable to review these evaluation metrics from time to time … things change after all. Also, take a look back at existing partners and determine which partners are helping you meet goals consistently. Find or grow more of these partners.

This depends on what we are seeing in the field. I think we all tend to gravitate towards partnering with the most popular tech apps, thinking that those partnerships will naturally bring in more business because they are deemed the "most used" apps, but that isn't always the case when it comes to what you find within your customer base's tech stack. I tend to try to document the types of tools found in our customer's tool box, figure out what those tools could possibly connect those tools to, and then partner with those companies.

I would look at: what customers are requesting for integrations, what product features are missing from your product and could be filled by partners, what the partner is willing to invest technically, what the partner is willing to invest on the GTM side, what the partner is willing to invest to support and upgrade the integration, the quality of the partner product, the number of shared customers, the number of shared prospects, and the cultural and brand overlap with the partner.  

I look at a few things:

- How many customers does the partner have? How many people on their email list/social channels. This is basically getting a sense of their reach and how established they are in the market.
- How many joint customers do we have? Who is their audience? Are they aligned with ours?
- Do they have access to marketing resources? Do they speak in a similar voice and tone as us?
- How do they approach building integrations? Security? Updates and support?
- What is their vision for the future of their business? Where are they going?
- Why should we prioritize this partner? Is their solution/integration something our customers are asking for?

This will give you a really good sense of the partner and how you might work together.

Easy: are there joint customers? If yes, who and how many? 

Over the past 3 years, I've found this to be the single biggest determiner for the success of a partnership. "Build it and they will come" can work, but it's a gamble. You want assurance that when you build the integration, somebody will use it.

Similar for service partners and agencies: if they have happy joint customers, it means they 
a) know how to provide services for your product
b) likely have a lot more customers who fit your ICP. 

Tools like Crossbeam and Reveal allow you to measure customer overlap before you commit to an integration. Joint customers are table stakes. 

I was responsible for selecting Grammarly's first-ever technology partners. I applied the product prioritization framework "RICE" to this process. 

Here's how I made it work for partnerships: 

- Reach: What is the partner's audience (# customers)? Will they support us with co-marketing to expand our reach? 
- Impact: Does the partner's audience fit with our ICP? Does working with the partner unlock valuable new functionality for our customers?
- Confidence: How confident are we that we can get this partnership over the finish line?
- Effort: What is the level of effort to get this off the ground? Do we need to build an integration? How complex is it?

Adding quantifiable scores to these indicators made prioritizing the most impactful partners easy, and using a familiar framework made it easy to align with product leadership and stakeholders. 

Curating a portfolio of technology partners really comes down to customer experience. Are these prospective partners enriching your customers' experience, or are they just creating noise and distraction? Your customers should be able to look at your directory of technology partners and understand immediately why you have partnered with them.

By choosing to partner with a technology platform, you are telling your customers "We think this partnership will create a better experience for you, and we fully support this partnership," so you need to make sure that's actually true. Having a desirable logo in your partner directory is nice, but if it creates a confusing or broken customer experience, it could do more harm than not having the partnership at all.  

First, decide what you want to accomplish with tech partners. What are your product and business goals and how can partners contribute? 

Partners can fill gaps or extend functionality and personalization that your own team doesn’t plan to address directly. For example, communication platforms like Slack and Microsoft Teams are useful integrations for Figma users because notifications and conversations about work are happening within those platforms. These integrations engage a broad audience, extend collaboration workflows, and help direct users back into Figma’s platform. 

Great tech partners can also help accelerate or provide access to a new user base. When Figma launched Dev Mode, our new product for developers, it was important for us to partner with tools that developers already know and love, like GitHub, VSCode, Jira, and Linear. Meeting developers in the tools they’re already using helps create a tighter connection between their design and development workflows. 

Tech partnerships won’t flourish without a clear value proposition for each partner and the intended users; it’s important to be explicit about your own goals, your partners’ goals, and the value you create for users together. 


It's not just about finding a company with the right technology, it's about finding a partner that aligns with your goals and values. First make sure you’ve defined your needs and clearly articulated what you're looking for in a technology partner. 

Here are some questions I like to ask:

- Does the partner's technology and expertise complement your existing offerings and support your overall business strategy?

- Does the partner's target market align with yours?

- Will the partnership help you reach new customers or expand existing accounts?

- Can the integration be achieved seamlessly?

- Are they responsive and easy to work with?


I think its always important to have input from other parts of the business or certainly have a clear view on what some other areas of the business would like to see from a partnership. For example, if you are recruiting technology partners be sure to understand what your product roadmap looks like, what some of the technology dependents might be in a typical client set up and what factors, such as data feeds or connectors, are able to enhance your offering. The product teams will have a good view on this and also know what is being considered from a roadmap perspective – don’t recruit what you are about to build.
You can also get feedback from customer/product teams on what existing customers most ask for in terms of complimentary functionality or if you are recruiting agencies – who are the agencies in and around the projects that your technology enables.
All of this information helps you build an IPP (Ideal Partner Profile) which you can use to map potential partners against. An IPP can be created using the info above and some basic company profiling and go as deep as you want it to go. I think that an IPP is a constantly evolving profile that gets better over time. For example, you may have one or two really successful partnerships that display certain traits relating to culture, org structure, branding - these are things that its hard to predict but you learn as you build an ecosystem so always revisit the IPP and add to it.
If you need a place to start, work it back from the company ICP, you should be targeting partners that have a similar target customer profile and can add some basic info on what type of characteristics a partner should have that can drive value from working with you


How do you choose which technology partners are a good fit for your business?

This is a bit outside of my expertise as we do not have non-native integrations at Adjust. However, I would advise thinking about them similarly to a traditional tech partner whereby the expectation should be less on them driving net new business (which is something they can very much still do) but on building relationships that can be leveraged when influencing a deal, partnering on an event, or producing a piece of content.

If they are integrating to your platform through Zapier, then you should be doing the same with their platform, find ways to create reciprocal value with data exchange, and start the partnership conversation with real substance. 

Dig in with customers who are using these integrations and find out what value they get out of them and capitalize on that value statement.

Margot has it right, get the partner into your ecosystem, IF it benefits you or the customer. 
BUT if the value is the same, the integration method doesn't really matter to the GTM partnership opportunity.

Yeah, this is a great question, and actually I'd be really stoked to hear from other partner managers on how they've worked with these kinds of partners. Personally, I do not prioritize these relationships, and I could be in the wrong here. 

Zapier integrations are incredibly helpful and I think they're absolutely amazing in solving problems for customers quickly. I'm very happy to recommend Zapier integrations to customers who aren't finding exactly what they need in the HubSpot ecosystem. However, I do not prioritize those partnerships if they aren't building into the HubSpot ecosystem. Although these kinds of integrations can absolutely impact customer retention positively, I'm focused on prioritizing and omissions.

If you're just ramping up your integrations, linking back to Zapier is a great idea to help customers find what they're looking for. At the end of the day, you're trying to solve for the customer. It's also a great way to see what is possible for a potential integration partner to build. If you know that X people are using a Zapier integration with partner Y, consider reaching out to the partner and having them build into your ecosystem. Then, you can do all sorts of go to market together, and grow your mutual customer numbers.

Again, I'd love to hear from others on how they have worked with these kinds of relationships, as I likely have a lot to learn here.

What role do non-native tech integrations (ex: A company building and marketing an integration via Zapier) play in partner program strategy? What kind of guardrails should be created and marketed for those "partner" types? 

When you have two types of integrations, integrations that your team builds and integrations that partners build, where do you draw clear lines of ownership? 

Do you have an integrations squad as a part of the product team that works with the tech partnership team? Or do you totally separate integrations (optional for customers to use) your team builds from product partnerships where companies are developing to your platform?

To expand a little bit on my earlier question - they’re going to care most about demonstrable impact your team is having, that’s clearly aligned with wider business priorities.

So be prepared to dig in and show up as a strong driver of new business growth and/or existing business expansion and retention.

But, in addition to that, being able to show comparative impact versus other channels on things like win rate and deal size, as well as team metrics like productivity, is really crucial. 


At SmartSuite, it's pretty straight forward:

MRR/ARR impact.
Number of trails and conversions.    

We try to attribute partnerships to rev as closely as possible.

Metrics will differ based on your partnership team’s goals (see notes above on metrics like total user engagement, influenced revenue, etc.). Demonstrating quantifiable impact that aligns with stated company goals is most important here, coupled with clear customer stories and examples that back up the value of your partner program. A good exercise here is to take materials that outline your company’s goals and overlay your partner program’s contribution(s) to each relevant area. 

You also want to be clear on the expected outcome from an increased investment in partner budget; if partner budget is increased, what can leaders expect and why does that matter to them? Be clear and realistic on the upside, downside, and risks associated with increasing partner spend. 


Gladly Software, Inc. Head of Partnerships, Nathan Smithon Partner Program Strategy

What are some common pitfalls to avoid for tech partnership programs?

What are some ways to increase the adoption of tech partners/integrations with your existing customer base?

How do you choose which technology partners are a good fit for your business?

What milestones or initial goals are good ones to set up for ISV partners after they complete and integration and become an official partner?

What role do non-native tech integrations (ex: A company building and marketing an integration via Zapier) play in partner program strategy? What kind of guardrails should be created and marketed for those "partner" types?

What metrics are top of mind for executives and leadership teams when deciding to increase spend on partner budget?