Gusto Vice President & Head of Partnerships, Sonya Jon Partner Activation

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

Try not to overcomplicate at first, and iterate as you go: Start simple: Leads, new customer adds, revenue generated through rev share agreements, and integration adoption. Iterate to: Partner-Sourced Leads: Leads generated through the partner’s network or co-marketing efforts. This measures the partner’s contribution to pipeline growth. Partner Co-Marketing Performance Metrics: Email open rates, click-through rates (CTR), and event attendance for partner-related campaigns. This tracks the success of joint marketing initiatives. Partner Contribution to Customer Retention: Percentage of customers retained due to partner solutions (to paint the strategic value of the partnership) Getting further into the weeds: Upsell or Cross-Sell Conversion Rate: Percentage of customers adopting the integration who subsequently purchase additional products or services. Formula: (Number of Additional Purchases from Integration Users / Total Integration Users) × 100 which demonstrates the potential for growth through partner offerings. Churn Rate for Integrated Customers: Percentage of customers who stop using your product, with a comparison between integrated and non-integrated users. Lower churn rates among integrated users often indicate the value of the integration (pro tip: partner sourced leads are usually, and should be, lower than direct sources leads. Highlight this to your CFO!) Support Tickets Related to Integration: Number and frequency of customer support inquiries regarding the integration. High numbers could indicate friction or usability issues. Onboarding Completion Rate: Percentage of users who complete onboarding after adopting the integration. Formula: (Users Who Complete Onboarding / Total Enabled Users) × 100. This reflects the effectiveness of your enablement resources. Integration Downtime: Frequency and duration of issues affecting the integration’s functionality. This measures reliability and its impact on customer trust. Other peripheral things to track: Customer CSAT w/integration NPS TTV aka Time-to-Value - The average time it takes for a customer to see the expected benefit after enabling the integration. Shorter TTV reflects the ease of use and immediate value of the integration.

Kickoff & Alignment: Host a welcome call to align on goals, expectations, and success metrics. Share a clear partner enablement plan and resources. Understand their business and how it functions: This is arguably the most important part of the initial conversations. The three main things I want to know is how they acquire, retain and upsell customers. This will help you understand what placements you'll be asking for (in-product, SPIFFs for sales, lifecycle email drips etc) in order to position yourself seamlessly within their normal operational processes. Training & Enablement: Provide a partner toolkit (guides, FAQs, use cases). Deliver tailored training on your product, integrations, and value props. Joint Go-to-Market (GTM) Strategy: Collaborate on a GTM plan, including target segments, messaging, and co-marketing opportunities. Set up co-branded assets and campaigns. Technical Setup: Ensure seamless onboarding for any integrations or APIs. Offer support for technical alignment and testing. Incentives & Milestones: Establish clear incentives (revenue share, leads, bonuses). Define early activation goals and track progress. Launch Support: Promote the partnership via announcements, webinars, or PR. Conduct joint customer outreach to drive adoption. Ongoing Collaboration: Schedule regular check-ins to assess performance and address challenges. Share performance metrics, success stories, and feedback loops. Recognition & Advocacy: Highlight partner successes through case studies and testimonials. Foster loyalty through exclusive opportunities or events.

Onboarding & Enablement: Deliver tailored training and resources to partners. Joint Go-to-Market Strategy: Collaborate on co-marketing, messaging, and sales alignment. Customer Advocacy: Identify and promote shared success stories and use cases. Regular Engagement: Schedule check-ins to track performance and resolve challenges. Incentives & Support: Offer rewards, lead-sharing, and technical assistance to drive adoption. Data-Driven Insights: Analyze adoption metrics and feedback to refine strategies. Community Building: Foster collaboration through partner forums, events, or networks.

AUTOMATE AND OPERATIONALIZE ALL YOUR PROCESSES. I cannot state this more emphatically. Often leadership teams think of this as a later stage initiative, and I frequently debate with fellow partnerships leaders on when the right time to introduce partnership ops into the mix. I am an outlier and think it should be one of the first hires. Here's why: Regardless of how long it takes you find your ideal partner profile, the mechanisms needed to support partners are generally the same. We already know we want to track revenue, adoption, lead gen, conversion etc. We also know that the way to increase partner engagement and contribution is to lower the barrier to entry and that ops processes will need to be iterated on over time. So why not start building out those capabilities as much as possible. When we talk about scale, with partnerships already being a 1:many motion, the key here is to replicate those same activities across all partners as much as possible, which cannot be done with only human assist. Plus partner managers are already expected to do too much administrative work. Where do you want their time spent, being ops or driving growth? Here are some examples of things that can be operationalized and/or program managed: Standardize Enablement: Develop repeatable processes, toolkits, and training materials for onboarding and activation. And share them on a regular cadence to your whole partner base. Automate Outreach: Use CRM and marketing tools to run targeted campaigns at scale. Leverage Data: Track performance metrics to identify high-potential segments and optimize strategies. Incentivize Growth: Introduce scalable rewards or co-marketing opportunities for partners who drive adoption. Automate your accounting and reconciliation process Implement automated onboarding of partners Implement standard terms and include volume incentives for referral partners. Consistency, automation, and alignment are key to expanding beyond initial engagements.

Your CFO! Partner generated business often has the best metrics aka lower CAC, better LTV:CAC ration, higher conversion etc. Start highlighting these to your CFO and they'll be your biggest advocate and will resource you. Don't forget to show them how to scale (CFOs sometimes think the ROI on p'ships is lacking due to the perceived idea that it's a heavily human-led LOB) Sales: Why: Ensure alignment on goals, pipeline integration, and partner-driven revenue targets. Marketing: Why: Support co-marketing initiatives, partner enablement campaigns, and brand alignment. Customer Success: Why: Drive partner adoption through onboarding, training, and retention efforts. Product Management: Why: Collaborate on integration development, roadmap alignment, and technical support. Operations: Why: Streamline partner processes, data management, and reporting systems.

Revenue Goals: Partner-sourced revenue: % of total revenue attributed to partner-driven deals. Partner-influenced revenue: Deals where partners supported or contributed. Year-over-year revenue growth from partners. Adoption: Number of active partners generating revenue or providing services. Percentage of customers using partner services. Enablement Metrics: Number of certified partners trained or onboarded within a specific timeframe. Completion rate for partner certifications or training programs. Customer Success Metrics: Customer satisfaction (CSAT) or Net Promoter Score (NPS) for partner-delivered services. Retention rates for customers using partner services. Operational Efficiency: Average time-to-revenue for new partners. Decrease in partner churn rates. What the Exec Team Needs to See: Revenue Impact: Clear, measurable contributions to growth and profitability. Scalability: Consistent growth in partner numbers, certifications, and customer adoption. Customer Value: Increased satisfaction, retention, and advocacy driven by partner services. Strategic Alignment: How the program supports overall business goals and differentiates your offering in the market with supporting data.

Provide Clear Messaging: Share a standardized pitch deck, value proposition, and key talking points tailored to your audience. Offer Training: Conduct regular workshops, role-playing sessions, and onboarding to ensure partners understand your product and positioning. Equip with Tools: Supply partners with sales collateral, FAQs, competitive battlecards, and customer success stories. Provide a space for them to ask questions and make sure to respond in a timely manner. Co-Selling Support: Partner with them on initial pitches to model best practices and build confidence. Feedback Loop: Gather partner feedback to refine messaging and address gaps in understanding.