Service partner

There are multiple teams and an org structure laid out here, so I’ll try to answer it best according to how our team is currently organized at Aircall. For reference, I sit under—and always have—the demand generation org which is essentially our entire marketing team concerning revenue. Customer marketing has been under operations or product marketing for us. 

I work with our North American-based tech partner managers on their individual partner plans. This includes, but isn’t limited to: partner business development (new contacts and strengthening GTM relationship with existing partnerships), integration GTM launches (major integration updates), and generating new business through referrals, partner marketplaces and comarketing campaigns. 

When customers come into play, it’s generally for integration GTM plays or comarketing campaigns. For example, a joint offer for your partner’s customers and their offer for Aircall customers is a great demand gen play for partners reaching new audiences. We promote these via customer marketing through emails or our monthly customer newsletter. If you’re on Crossbeam, even better. You can identify specific populations of your prospects that might be a customer of your partner, shared open opportunities for co-selling etc.

If we’re launching new integration updates from a partner that may meet our customer’s needs, we’ll segment out those customers and promote the update to them via marketing or even our CSMs. 

For comarketing campaigns like webinars, both partners have to be upfront if they’re willing to promote to their customer bases and that the content is relevant. I’ve found with bigger partners, their customer marketing is often controlled by a different team, so it may not be as streamlined to promote to them as one thinks. 

I think partner managers are worthless without great teammates from marketing, sales and product. The marketing team specifically helps you deliver on co-marketing campaigns, create case studies, launch ebooks, events, webinars, tc. In Hygraph, there’s a dedicated partner marketing person who owns any partner-related marketing activity, but we also work with product marketing because integration announcements fall more into their expertise. I think an important, but often overlooked part of “marketing” your tech partnerships is writing good documentation, so your tech writers will help you greatly too. So most of the time, the partner manager brings the idea, the opportunity to do  something with a valued partner, and then the marketing team will help you make that happen.

Most of the time the marketing team will have a backlog with tons of competing priorities, and it’s your job as a partner manager to help them evaluate the opportunity and assign a priority to it. Most probably you’ll also need design resources (sometimes it’s a different department, sometimes it sits with marketing). In that case, the best approach is to ask for some templates, something that you can work from when you need something quickly that’s relatively easy, but when you need some custom for a bigger campaign, you need to let them know well in advance.


I'm still new here at Celigo, but in my previous role I would have a regular cadence scheduled with the Marketing team to highlight new and existing partners in our Partner Newsletter as well as choose a specific Partner to spotlight that week. We also had a "Featured Partner" section on our directory which would be customized quarterly to highlight key partners that stood out. 

Case studies are an obvious go-to for promoting a partner to your customer base. Whilst there’s no denying that case studies offer great promotional value, they’re not always quick wins. They can take time, patience, and you need buy-in from numerous stakeholders. Furthermore, they’re not a scalable co-marketing activity. Partner marketers aren’t able to create case studies with every partner in their ecosystem - it just wouldn’t be possible and you also need to prioritize the right stories. 

It doesn’t always have to be a huge campaign to drive value to partners. At LoyaltyLion, we identify or create low-lift opportunities to showcase how a partner has driven great results for a mutual customer (e.g. social media spotlights, newsletter spotlights, featuring short partner testimonials/quotes in blogs or ebooks).

We have recently created a partner spotlight social tile that is a trial of “self-serve” content. Our Partnerships Managers can make a copy of the tile, add the logo of the partner they want to celebrate for achieving a particular milestone, and share it across their network. I’m really excited to see how our audience engages with it! 

The partner team works with marketing to decide which partners to have create a closer 1:1 marketing GTM together. Within that plan your marketing person works to help promote the collective value prop - this could be in many ways - social and exposure on social, customer newsletters, case studies, and incentives of our partners solutions or incentive to our IT partners to sell our solution (solely or with another integration partner). You can also invest in a partner “directory” connected to your website so prospects can see who your top partners are and what they specialize in as it relates to your product. 

Signifyd has an incredible marketing team that works in tandem with our partnerships org. We actually nest partnerships into a greater “marketing & alliances” department so that we’re always working together when it comes to marketing initiatives. 

This allows us to seamlessly integrate partners into the planning and design of many of our marketing campaigns. For example, our monthly customer newsletter has a ‘partner’ section where we feature the cool and interesting projects led by our partners. We also tend to have a partner component, whether it’s a sponsor for one of our ‘Crimes & Cocktails’ webinars, a partner that’s selected as part of Signifyd’s 30 Most Influential in Ecommerce, or a speaker at Signifyd’s annual FLOW Summit, partners are part of our go-to-market strategy when it comes to marketing initiatives.

Finding lower-lift content is one of the easiest ways to get the marketing team onboard to promote your partners. Social media spotlights, newsletter spotlights, or having a partner provide a thought leadership quote in a blog that the marketing team is already writing, is a simple but effective way to drive awareness for your partners with your customers. Not everything has to be a huge campaign.

As a partner marketer who lives under the partnerships team, it's my role to be the bridge between the marketing and partnerships teams. I work with my partner managers to understand their goals with each of their partners and find the right low-lift opportunities with the marketing team so that everyone accomplishes their goals.

How we promote our partners to customers depends on the type and tier that the partner falls into within our partner program. Here is an overview of the different activities that we focus on; 
1.  Co-marketing - Events, whitepapers, sponsorship, joint case studies 

2. Identify signals for each partner to help identify when their solution is relevant to our customers - Marketing creates content for CSMs and Sales, such as 1-pagers or short videos, for CSMs and Sales team to include in their QBRs or throughout the sales cycle 

3. Enable the sales & CS team so they are familiar with and trust our partners and are happy to make introductions - Marketing helps with the enablement content 

4. Partner Spotlight -every month we feature a partner and push content to our customer base, through social, email and events 

5. Partner updates and promotions in our monthly newsletter 
Promotion of our integration partners within our platform to create more awareness

6. Optimisation of our partner directory (through partnerpage.io) 

7. ABM strategy for Enterprise 

8.Spiffs


When working with partner marketing, it's important to prioritize which partners you want to promote to customers. You'll need to consider what partnerships will be most beneficial to your company and then create a plan of action for how you'll promote them.

Often, co-marketing can be a very effective way to promote partners. This involves working together with your partner marketing team to create joint marketing campaigns that will reach your customers.

It's also important to keep in mind that partner marketing is a two-way street. Your partner team will likely want access to your customer data in order to better understand how to market to them. Be sure to establish clear lines of communication so that both teams can work effectively together.

For example, Pendo created a joint customer case study with Calendly on a mutual customer, Credly, and detailed how they used both products for quicker, deeper user research. 

By using a joint mutual customer, and showcasing how that mutual customer used both products effectively to grow their business, we were able to continue to grow trust in all 3 companies, show examples to current and prospective customers what our product can be used for, and strengthen our relationship with a key partner. I hope this helps! https://www.pendo.io/customers/how-credly-combined-pendo-and-calendly-for-quicker-deeper-user-research/

At Caspio, we're fortunate to have a Marketing team that believes strongly in supporting Partners, and we do that through running joint webinars (one a month), press releases, social media posts, blog posts, and an actively maintained partner directory - besides call outs in our newsletters. We also actively support partners who want to run co-branded campaigns with marketing collateral and assets. Our guidance to partners is bring us any idea you have and we will be open to listening and implementing it as long as it can add value to our customers.

The key underpin to successful partnerships/marketing collaboration is buy-in and support from Marketing so that the work you pitch and request gets done and that they see value in it. This is a whole other conversation I'm happy to dive into to build. Once you have that...

Before I brought on a Partner Marketing Manager: We have a shared slack channel where we'd put all requests/ideas for co-marketing initiatives. We'd put project plans in place for each project, loop the partner in accordingly, and execute on that project with weekly check-ins to monitor progress. You have to be highly involved to make sure things are being handled properly and on-plan/meet expectations. This is a lot of work for a partner manager but important to the success of your partnership/

Now with a Partner Marketing Manager I am less involved in the day-to-day and our PMs give him our ideas/requests and he owns and manages the full execution with our guidance. He leans on Marketing for resources around copy/design/ads but we trust him with leading and owning the vision and overall execution and checks in with us to make sure it's going in the right direction and will help us accomplish our goals.

Great Question. Two (out of 5) core pillars to Snowflake Marketing are relevant to this question: Scale with Partners and Strong Alignment with Sales. These pillars had buy-in from the entire marketing leadership, including the CMO. 

This question is about customer accounts and not prospect accounts. Sales are extra careful about introducing the right partner to the customer accounts, and rightfully so, because Sales has put in a lot of work cultivating these accounts for customers. Thus, alignment with Sales is key. The Marketing team collaborates with Sales and Partner team to identify the relevant partners in customer accounts, especially during growth and planning sessions. Each account planning session requires identifying which partners are appropriate and aligned in an account. 

Then, the marketing team will activate various channels based on the partner's strengths. Some partners are great at Field Marketing, and some are great at Online Demand Generation tactics. It is important to understand the partner's strengths and play on those rather than trying to introduce them through channels where they can fail. For example, asking a partner to do a field event in an account where they must have a field presence for the first time (sales or marketing) will generally lead to a subpar experience.

Interesting side fact: listening to Blackhole Sun by Soundgarden while typing this answer. 

How does your marketing team usually work with your partner team to promote partners to customers?

Relationship building skills
This is a relations-focused role! Being a natural "people person" who is comfortable walking into a room full of strangers is not a dream scenario for most, but that's how the "good" partner marketers make their marks and grow their networks. They are unafraid to start a conversation, to proactively propose a partnership venture, or to simply initiate a connection between other marketers.

Strong negotiation tactics
It can take some clever compromising and bargaining to bring your partner project to life; understanding each sides' priorities and what they would consider a 'win' can help illustrate the best path forward, but the skill comes from knowing how to tactfully ask these questions and move forward with the best plan to meet your collective goals.

Time and project management skills
At any given time, there are a lot of competing projects going on (both within your own team, and cross-functionally.) Planning ahead, staying organized, maintaining communication, and anticipating needs are all tools exemplified by "good" partner marketers.

Good partner marketers have to be people persons. If you're interacting directly with partner companies and their staff, you need to be friendly and enjoyable to work with. "Easy to work with" is a qualitative point of data I grade partners on. You have to be social, be a natural at making connections and connecting people, and be able to create relationships that are beyond transactional. 

Partner marketers who are flexible and can see the bigger picture will also go far. If you are very rigid or "by the books" you will miss out on a lot of opportunities. It does take critical thinking to determine which opportunities could be worth taking a shot on versus passing up, but the important lesson here is to have an open mind. There are a million and one things that can go wrong in a partnership or partner marketing campaign, especially when you're dealing with two or more companies with different goals, resources, budgets, timelines etc. but the person who is able to "plan" for inevitable change, thrive in some ambiguity will thrive in partnerships. 

Good project managers also make great partner marketers. With many people, someone needs to keep track of the team, the goal and the project. Someone who is organized and able to keep track of, and drive, many moving pieces will excel. 

1) Relationship management 

Building and retaining great relationships with partners is crucial in partner marketing. Not only is important to nurture your relationships with your internal Partnerships Managers but make sure to spend time building relationships with your peers across the partner network. There’s a small but mighty network of partner marketers out there wanting to share best practices and their top tips with you :) 

2) Communication

Clear communication and visibility are everything in a role like this. Partner marketers have many stakeholders - both internal and external - and you need to keep everyone informed and in the loop with a lot of your decisions and thinking.

3) Organization

At times, partner marketing can feel like juggling lots of mini-marketing campaigns. There are always lots of deadlines and requests to meet that span multiple co-marketing initiatives with different partners.

“Good” partner marketers are incredibly organized so they are able to meet these simultaneous deadlines/requests and be selected as the go-to partner for future campaigns.

“Great” partner marketers are able to take this one step further by planning their partner marketing activity three months in advance. 

4) Creativity 

The ecommerce partner ecosystem is a friendly space, but it can also feel overcrowded at times. With many partners delivering similar co-marketing initiatives, don’t be afraid to be creative - your prospects and your partners might just thank you for it! 


1) The ability to collaborate across teams. This requires having a thorough understanding of both your partner and marketing teams, in terms of their goals, what their day-to-day looks like, and what they find valuable, so you can act as the bridge between the two of them.

2) Proactive. Sometimes you're going to have to create marketing opportunities for your partners before you can expect to receive marketing opportunities back, so being ahead of that will only help drive your success.

3) Story-telling. You're going to have to understand the ins and outs of your company's platform more thoroughly than the average marketer if you want to successfully create a "better together" story with your partners. 

4) Relationship Building- partnerships are all about relationships. It's important to not only build strong relationships with your partner managers, but also your partner marketing counterparts and even partner managers at other organizations. Partnerships are a small world so don't be afraid to fully immerse yourself in your partner ecosystem.

There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, as the skills and characteristics that make a good partner marketer vary depending on the specific industry and company. 

However, there are some key skills and characteristics that are essential for all partner marketers.

Some of the most important skills for partner marketing include:

1. Strong communication skills: Partner marketing requires constant communication with both internal and external stakeholders. A partner marketer needs to be able to clearly articulate their vision and goals, and ensure that everyone is on the same page.

2. Organizational skills: Partner marketing can be a complex process, involving many different moving parts. A partner marketer needs to be highly organized in order to keep track of all the details and ensure that everything runs smoothly.

3. Negotiation skills: Partner marketing often requires negotiation in order to secure the best terms for both parties involved. A partner marketer needs to be able to effectively negotiate on behalf of their company in order to get the best results.

Some of the most important characteristics for partner marketing include:

1. Passion: A good partner marketer is passionate about their work and truly believes in the product or service they are promoting. This passion helps to drive results and ensures that partners are engaged with the program.

2. Creativity: A good partner marketer is creative in their approach, always thinking of new and innovative ways to promote their products or services.

3. Persistence: A good partner marketer is persistent in their efforts, always following up with partners and working to keep the program running smoothly.

The skills and characteristics that make a good partner marketer vary depending on the specific industry and company. However, there are some key skills and characteristics that are essential for all partner marketers. Strong communication skills, organizational skills, negotiation skills, passion, creativity, and persistence are all important for partner marketing success. Thank you for this Q!

A strong partner marketer leads with empathy and collaboration. 
To me, the best way to approach this role is by truly putting yourself in the partner’s shoes, seeing partners not just as external collaborators, but as an extension of your own team. That mindset lays the foundation for building genuine, long-term relationships.

Building strong relationships with both partners and Partner Account Managers is crucial. Open, transparent communication helps you understand their challenges, priorities, and how best to support them. In many ways, you’re the bridge between the partner and your company — their inside eyes. To do this well, you have to be an internal champion, advocating for partners across different teams to ensure they have the visibility, resources, and support they need to succeed.

Beyond relationship-building, great partner marketers are adaptable, proactive, data-driven and strategic. They don’t just react to challenges, they anticipate partner needs and identify gaps and improvements to help keep enabling partners for success. At the end of the day, your job is to make sure partners feel supported, empowered, and truly invested in the success of the partnership.

What characteristics or skills do you find most "good" partner marketers have?

We scaled our partner program from 27 members to 1000 members in the course of a year and a half. How we did it was a few different ways:

1. Paid social media advertising
2. Cold outreach to ideal partners
3. Creating an SEO optimized page that attracts our ideal partner

On the paid social media front, we generally made ads that targeted our ideal partner with the message of "do you want a better solution to help document your clients' processes?". From there, we got tons of great leads who were intrigued about the platform, and applied to our program. This was great because we could get tons of partners at scale.

On the cold outreach side, we got really specific on what our ideal partner archetype was. That meant their title, demographic, client size, service offerings, etc. And when we got clear on that, I would reach out to those people via email or LinkedIn to ask if they were looking for a software that could help improve their Process Documentation services for their clients. The catch here is twofold though: you HAVE to make it clear that you are not trying to "sell" them anything. And two, you will HAVE to educate these partner leads much more about your product. So, it takes a bit of an effort to get them up to speed. But when you do, they'll be PRIME partners for you.

Lastly, there are probably partners who are familiar with your product and have an interest in partnering with you. So, they will likely search "[Insert Your Company Here] partnership" into Google or a search engine. If you don't have a partner page that clearly lays out your program details and gives them an easy way to get started, then they might go to another partner who does. So, we created our own partnership landing page that comes up when "Trainual Certified Consultant" is searched, and we get a consistent flow of leads from there consistently.

Since tech partnerships require a lot of cross-functional teamwork, and often quite a bit of engineering time, brand alignment opportunities with non-partners are a great way to reach new audiences (and prospective new partners) with a lighter lift. 

Being a service rooted in forms and surveys, Jotform offers an easy, no-code option for data collection, which comes in handy for a variety of marketing needs. For example, we're working with two non-partner companies on a webinar where Jotform will capture all registrant details for the presentation, and will participate in its joint promotions, therefore leveraging these non-partners' audiences through their social and email marketing. 

Highlighting an aligned, non-partner's achievements on social media is a great way to start building a relationship with a prospective partner (who doesn't love free praise?), and joining forces with a non-partner company on a bundled deal for your services can also provide a strong introduction into a new partner vertical.

Recruiting more partners is like finding a good place to catch fish - go fish where the fish are, and recruit partners where they are. 

One of the simplest ways to meet new partners and recruit new partners is to go where they are in person and online. Personally, I think having a good brand as a company and partner leader on social media is key to help to attract the right partners, and you should physically go in person to events where you can meet with partners and potential partners in person. In my world of enterprise sofware as a service, this is events like Dreamforce or Gartner. 

One other key thing to point out is that many times, the best partners are already listed in other ecosystems and just need to go find them. One example I love is Zapier, https://zapier.com/experts , powered by PartnerPage. This makes it so easy for you to find new partners in adjacent ecosystems. 

Marketing to partners is a very under-developed motion so a great place to stand out in the market and take the burden of partner managers doing outbound acquisition. 

This motion is similar to customer marketing but instead of developing around the product, you're developing marketing motions and content around the value of being a partner. 

I would recommend events, a prospective partner page, and high quality content that goes beyond your program and benefits your ideal partner. Being present in communities and channels where your partners are is also important.

For example, one could sponsor a partnerships conference or the conference of a system of record in your space. The latter events are great for attracting customers, but they are also great for attracting new partners by sharing the value of your program.  

From my experience, your best marketing is to close lighthouse partners. 

During the onset of our partner programs, we only focused on a handful of very high profile partners. Once we converted the market leader into a partner, all of their competitors came knocking on our door. 

We also deployed this approach when we built out the different verticals of our app store: 

1. Identify a target vertical based on customer requests (e.g. donations during events)
2. Integrate with the market leader (e.g. Hopin + GoFundMe)
3. Competitors track GoFundMe, see the announcement, and then become inbound leads for our partner program. 

Success breeds success! 

And outreach to different partners depends on the type of partners (obviously solution partners are very different from CSPs, and technology partners). 

Solution partners love to learn about complex technologies and how to build on them. They also are closest to your customer / prospect, so they love learning about peer success. They also want to solve complex industry problems rather than just being technology experts. They want to know how they can build a services practice on your product. Technology providers want to generally create tighter integrations and be differentiated compared their own competition.

In each case, articulating how partners can be successful in building businesses around your platform with examples is important. Ideally you are activating all channels: Online with regular webinars to promote to new partners, regular in person partner meetups in territory, celebrating successful partners with awards and recognition at conferences, SKOs etc. These efforts should also train partners about your product / solution and highlight how easy it is to work with your organization.

I do want to ask whoever submitted this question, why do you want to get more partners? I have seen programs try to recruit partners for different reasons. However recruiting partners just for the sake of numbers is not a great way to grow your business. You need to grow it with purpose. So feel free to ping me on LinkedIn and I would love to dive in more into your problem. 


At OutSystems our primary focus isn’t on acquiring new partners but rather on nurturing and enabling our existing partner ecosystem. We’ve built a robust network over the years, so our focus is ensuring continuous enablement and engagement with top-tier partners as well as activating less engaged partner sellers and marketers through tailored initiatives.

When it comes to attracting new partners, we have running paid media campaigns for less engaged partners with assets that also target prospective partners. I'm talking about foundational messaging, such as "Why partner with..." to communicate the value of joining our ecosystem. While new partner acquisition isn’t our primary focus, we want to ensure that the right opportunities are reaching the right prospects.

What marketing do you do in order to reach partners that are not in your program, so that you can get more partners?

1. Service/consulting partners
 - We host our top partners in our booth at the conferences that align with their industry. 
 - Host an "experts" directory where Sales and customers can send partners leads. 
- Offer Referral bonuses for leads coming into our sales teams. Do not require spiff or rev share on leads we send to partners. 

2. Technology Partners
 - We host an integration marketplace, and offer top partners priority listing. 
 - We call out integration partners in our product where the partner adds value for the customer. 
 - Offer rev share to partners on integrated locations. 
 - Run all of the typical co-marketing projects -webinars, blog posts, etc.  

At Aircall, check out our Aircall Partner Program: https://aircall.io/partners/ but in a nutshell:

Channel Partners: 
- Rev share
- Comarketing opportunities
- Dedicated CAM

Tech Partners:
- Integration dev support and open API
- Campaigns-in-a-box and partner marketing resources
- Custom comarketing opportunities (top performing and strategic partners)

For both social announcements on both sides, customer success stories for joint customers, co-sponsorship opportunities, blogs, and webinars. 

At LoyaltyLion, we see the great value in working closely with our partners and we’re always trying to find ways that we can thank our wonderful partner network.

In terms of marketing benefits for our technology partners, co-marketing with us is a key opportunity. In addition to the light lift activities mentioned in my answer above, we have numerous campaigns (content and event) throughout the year that we invite our technology partners to join. 

For each campaign, we execute a thorough organic and paid promotion plan to help featured partners gain exposure to new audiences. As is standard practice with lead gen partner marketing, the featured partner gets access to the full campaign lead list in exchange for promotion and participation.

We don’t currently work with consulting partners in a marketing capacity at this time. 


There are several marketing benefits that consulting and technology partners can enjoy when working with us here at Pendo.io! 

These include:

1. Access to our extensive library of marketing content
2. Partner-exclusive discounts on our services
3. Specialized partner training and support.
4. Access to our extensive partner network
5. Joint marketing opps
6. Pendo Partner Marketing Academy (in Skilljar)

In addition, we work closely with partners to create customized marketing programs that meet their specific needs and help them achieve their business goals. We believe that providing strong marketing benefits is essential to building successful partnerships, and we are committed to providing our partners with the tools they need to succeed.

I think distribution is king for any type of partner that has a joint offering for your shared customers. As long as there's tangible demand for partner offerings from your customers and prospects and you have a means to bring your message to this audience, there's very little else that trumps this benefit. It can come in a number of forms (directory placement, features in newsletters, guest blogging, etc.) and you should always deeply consider how a partner earns / qualifies for distribution benefits based on the value they've brought to your company.

Something I learned from one of the best Marketing leaders B2B SaaS in the industry, Denise Persson, CMO Snowflake: Always play on strengths! 

So, to answer the question, let’s focus on the strengths of each partner type. Consulting Partners, Services Partners, SIs, whatever name you use, are great at 3 things: 
1) Daily use of technology. These partners are users of your technology just like customers, sometimes at customer locations; thus, they can produce great technical content. Build benefits that incentivize the production of content. 
2) Developing solutions to solve vertically focused customer problems. Focus your vertical efforts, showcasing vertical solutions on your website. Evangelize these with sales, especially as you move towards a vertically aligned model. 
3) Access to customers / c-suite. As your customers and deals become bigger, the access to c-suite becomes much more important. These partners sit with the customer daily. Thus, it offers benefits to make high-level introductions. 

Technology Partners: 
1) Create products and technologies that work together seamlessly. Thus, focus benefits on showing how to demo, labs, and customer examples of integrations.
2) Driving direct consumption in accounts of your product. (Not limited to tech partners but directly measurable). Thus focus on the consumption of SaaS in accounts

For strategic partners, we offer access to our Partner Marketing Funds program. This program goes beyond just financial support for co-marketing activities, we also provide hands-on marketing guidance to help partners maximize their impact and the sales team is involved.

We collaborate on strategic initiatives like target account campaigns, demand gen and lead-nurture programs, and even sales development support to follow up on leads generated through co-marketing efforts. A major advantage of this program is that opportunities from these activities are co-sell or co-sell classified, which ultimately benefits the partners. By combining marketing and sales enablement, we create a win-win environment where both sides see tangible growth.

For strategic partners, we also offer an agency support model for demand-generation campaigns. Our agency provides a turnkey solution—handling everything from co-branded content creation and asset design to lead collection and nurture strategies. The partner then works the leads directly, ensuring a seamless handoff from marketing to sales.

Ultimately, our goal is to provide the right mix of resources, strategy, and support to help our partners grow their business alongside us.

What are the most valuable marketing benefits you provide to 1/ service/consulting partners and 2/ technology partners?

Co-partner marketing material, like any partnering activity, only really works when it delivers or has the opportunity to deliver net new leads to both parties. That may seem obvious to state, but I have seen plenty of examples where this isn't the case - particularly around events where partners bring in very different people that do not overlap. 

To overcome this, I advise being deliberate about setting the goal of the co-partner activity early and communicating it to all parties involved (internal stakeholders and externally with the partner(s)). This will ensure that things aren’t done just for the sake of producing content but with a real purpose behind it. 

For events, the focus must be on curating the guest list in collaboration with the partner way in advance. Who must you both bring to make this an ROI-positive event? There is nothing worse than swinging out invites a few days before just to ensure that it isn’t empty. 

Being a very SEO-focused company, I'd say blog publishing opportunities are one of the strongest drivers of engagement and conversion for us. A well-developed, engaging, and informative post can help illustrate a particular use case for a partnership or an integration, and help a user better understand how they might better streamline their own projects by using it. 

Additionally, video is a fast-growing marketing lever that we've heavily invested in, and we're seeing terrific engagement from viewers through our email newsletters, social posts, blog posts, and directly from our YouTube channel. We publish a wide variety of how-to tutorials, customer stories, podcast interviews, and product ads (starring your favorite Jotform employees!) that help give context about a particular feature release, integration launch, or use case.

Quick marketing wins at the start of an ecosystem build are combining a mutual customer success story with an internal and external enablement session catered to specific department (e.g. CSMs or AMs instead of multiple groups). 

Integrated campaigns around categories of technology that includes partners is a successful way to market tech partnerships. Being practitioner focused and aligned on the outcomes that customers will see from using two products together is the basis behind successful co-marketing. There seems to be less interested in higher-level content focused on industry trends. Ultimately, the marketers will know best and having a good understanding of your marketing org's goals is crucial. 

I like to rely on something that gated because your performance will rely on generated leads / pipeline / revenue, so in terms of co-marketing it's usually # of captured leads. 

In 2020, when the first wave of covid hit, we've had a full event strategy for the year ahead, and we needed to quickly come up with something for the loss of leads. I think plenty of us made the same exact decision, and we've seen webinar popping up every minute. For us it was successful, but I also found that the results deteriorated over time. 

At the time, we came up with topics like 'how to utilize these two software and their integration to reach your goals' but after a while, no one wanted to listen to those. 

So after that, we changed the topics a bit, and focused on thought leadership type of content and honest, open discussions rather than product pitches and features. 

Long winded answer there, but shortly, I think a webinar is usually a safe bet, but need to experiment with other formats and channels.

Take a step back and focus on activities that Put Customers First! B2B SaaS buyers want to learn from their peers, not just from another vendor or a bunch of vendors. Preferably, lead with customers' examples of how they use it. 

Then, you can decide which channels are good/beneficial for both partners. Make sure, though, that you are using partners for their advantages rather than focusing them on activities where they don't have strengths. If you ask a partner without a strong online demand engine to drive an online motion, they will fail. 

What I have seen is that capturing attention with customers examples, and following up with “how to solve your problem” campaigns generally leads to the best results. These could be solution deployments, or trial campaigns, or labs / campaigns getting prospects hands on with your products. 

Before considering the activities, another thing that helps is strong messaging together. This can be a short form document. Sometimes, a slide on better together with 3 - 4 core pillars of advantages is all you need. Sometimes, the best messaging is the simplest messaging. 
 



What co-partner marketing activities are generating the best results in your opinion?

You have to define success first and what results you're looking for. This question is asking about specifically generating leads. So, for higher-funnel lead generation, I would recommend: 

- Virtual Industry panels or AMAs: Bring in an expert from your industry (or a few), or even an influencer if there are any in your field. You can have someone from your company and your partner company either moderate and/or be a part of the panel. This gets a lot of attention and leads if the topic is timely and relevant to your audience. Split the coordination and set-up of the webinar (landing page, emails, graphics etc) 50/50. 

- Comprehensive "State of" or Benchmark Reports: If you're able to partner with a company or two you can use your own customer data, conduct research or hire a 3rd party to compile data and create an overarching authoritative type of report. These are great for your industry or field for lead gen, will often be able to collect leads throughout the year and then be repeated again on a regular basis (quarterly, monthly, yearly etc). 

- Templates: Another content download. Partner with a company and create a template that can be used by your target audience and provide value to their everyday. Whether it's a sales plan, a sales cadence outreach,  or an end-of-the-year checklist, it can live as an evergreen lead generation asset honested on one, or both of the partners' websites. 

I think that ultimately, the partner wants to know if they can trust you with the prospects and/or customers that they are sending your way. If they feel that you are handling the lead hand-off with care, they will feel more comfortable sending more and more leads your way. The other part of that is making sure that you are able to take it further than just another sale - can you generate content from this new relationship such as creating data sheets and/or case studies, customer references etc. involving (and highlighting) the referring partners technology in that content.

Customer success stories for joint customers and webinars targeting the partner's customers 

Great comments from everyone else here. I'd add asking partners to give your customers an offer—this could be a discount, a walk through of their integration, a consultation with one of their experts. It'll help your team promote their company to have something exclusive to your customers to share in content, emails, etc.

Plan promotion effectively - as mentioned above, it’s key that you work out how and when you will promote the co-marketing initiatives that you commit to to maximize the number of sign-ups you drive. 

Make sure the content is relevant to your audience - it seems obvious, but ensure the partner marketing opportunities you take part in offer value to your customers and prospects - they’ll be much more likely to engage with the content if it resonates. 

Don’t get lazy with promotion material - some partners very kindly create sample copy to help you promote webinars and ebooks. Make sure to tweak this copy to avoid overlapping contacts getting exactly the same messaging from numerous partners. To my point above, I always try and position how the co-marketing initiative I am inviting merchants to will help them enhance their retention strategy. 
 
Highlight brands’ involvement with co-marketing -  If a partner marketing event/webinar has a brand on the lineup make sure to highlight it! Brands love hearing about what other brands are up to, or how they have achieved great results. We always see an increase in CTR and sign-ups when we do this.

I have leveraged a BDR team to call out to partner lists or internally generated lists. You could give them a chance to go after deals that were “no shows" meetings or fizzled out for some reason. Sharing specific customers for them to upsell post-sales services they provide in return for new front end opportunities. Joint events that you sponsor or co-sponsor on a local level have been good ways to economically generate leads. In any arrangement, be sure that you both get something out of it. 

When we co-market with a tech partner, we know they have a sizable marketing database and can usually help drive leads together. We'll put a minimum lead threshold and if they make that, then we share the full lead list with them. This is pretty standard practice for co-marketing amongst tech partners.

But for agency partners, it's often about giving and not just getting. They don't always have the same large database sizes as a tech partner, so we know co-marketing with them won't always drive us leads if we include them in a webinar, e-book, or even an in-person event. But including top partners in these campaigns gives us an opportunity to share the lead list with them, which is a value for top partners that have already driven a lot of value to our company with their referrals.

Generating leads for partners can be a challenge, but it's not impossible. Here are a few tactics that have worked well for me:

1. Develop a co-marketing campaign. Partner marketing can be extremely effective when done in conjunction with a co-marketing campaign. This involves developing content or offers that are mutually beneficial to both parties, and then promoting them together.

2. Host webinars or other online events. Online events are a great way to generate leads for partners, as they allow potential customers to learn more about your product or service without having to leave their homes or offices.

3. Use lead magnets. A lead magnet is an offer of something free in exchange for contact information. This can be a great way to entice potential customers to provide their contact info, which you can then use to generate leads for your partner.

It really depends on the partner type (service provider, ISV, referral partner, etc.) and their offering, but generally speaking, the more you can leverage your organization's distribution to showcase a partner's value proposition to the right audience, the better off you'll be in generating leads on their behalf. More specifically, I've seen a few tactics work really well:

Joint Webinars with the Partner: These provide an opportunity to combine both brands’ expertise and thought leadership, giving potential customers insights into how the partner’s solution integrates with or enhances your product. Webinars can generate high-quality leads because they attract attendees who are actively interested in the topics being discussed. Ensure that you align the content with mutual goals and follow up with attendees promptly to convert interest into action.

Campaign Kits: Providing partners with ready-to-use marketing kits that include email templates, social posts, landing pages, and educational content (like eBooks or white papers) allows them to run co-branded campaigns efficiently. The easier you make it for partners to execute marketing campaigns, the more likely they are to engage and drive leads. These kits help partners maintain consistent messaging while saving them time on campaign creation.

Content Syndication: Sharing co-branded content across digital channels is another powerful way to generate leads. This could include blog posts, case studies, or joint research reports that highlight the value of both companies working together. The key here is to ensure that the content is positioned to solve specific pain points for the target audience, making it a compelling reason for prospects to engage.

Partner Listings in Directories/Marketplaces: If your organization has an app marketplace or partner directory, featuring your partner prominently within these platforms can significantly increase their visibility and generate inbound leads. Customers who are already in your ecosystem are more likely to explore partner solutions that are trusted and integrated with your platform.

Joint Sales Plays: Aligning your sales teams with the partner’s sales teams can also drive lead generation. By collaborating on specific accounts, running account-based marketing (ABM) plays, and sharing target lists, both companies can maximize outreach and tailor messaging. This cross-pollination between sales teams can dramatically increase the chances of landing new business.

Exclusive Offers or Trials: Offering exclusive discounts, product trials, or bundled solutions when both products are purchased together can create urgency and appeal. This approach can be particularly effective for ISVs or service providers that rely on differentiated value propositions. The key is to ensure that both parties actively promote the offer through their respective channels.

Co-Branded Events: If budget allows, hosting in-person or virtual events with partners—such as industry conferences, workshops, or user groups—can be a great way to generate leads. These events provide a platform to showcase both solutions and their combined value to a broader audience, offering direct engagement with potential customers.

Overall, the success of any partner marketing tactic hinges on close alignment between the marketing, sales, and partner teams. Regular communication, goal-setting, and performance tracking are essential to ensuring that both parties are investing equally and benefiting from the campaigns.

With a global partner base, I’ve seen firsthand how different tactics resonate depending on the region, cultural factors, and market maturity. What works in one market might not be as effective in another, so adapting to regional nuances is key.

In less mature markets, I’ve found that thought leadership webinars, especially when hosted by high-performing local partners and customers showcasing industry-specific use cases, consistently perform well. These help establish credibility and build trust in regions where awareness is still growing.

In more mature regions, webinars still play a role, but pairing them with in-person events, tradeshows, or exclusive networking opportunities tends to drive stronger results. In some areas, we’ve had great success with co-sponsoring industry events with partners, running highly targeted digital campaigns, and hosting roundtables to spark meaningful conversations.

At the end of the day, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. The most successful partner marketing strategies always combine thought leadership, networking, and tailored campaigns, but the secret sauce is understanding what works where and being agile enough to adapt.

What have you experienced to be successful partner marketing tactics to generate leads for partners? 

At Intercom, Partner Marketing is integrated deeply within the demand generation team (specifically Integrated Marketing), rather than being a standalone function. This setup fosters better collaboration, as the partner marketing lead is in tune with both the overall marketing strategies and the needs of the partnership team. This collaboration enables smoother planning and more efficient execution, allowing us to align partner activities with broader marketing goals, such as product launches or thematic campaigns.

Collaboration is key: by working closely with content, product marketing, sales, customer success, and other teams, we can seamlessly integrate partners into existing marketing motions. This leads to more impactful campaigns and stronger alignment on goals.

The key metrics we track include both sales and marketing indicators. On the sales side, metrics like referrals, source deals, and influenced ARR are essential. On the marketing side, we focus on acquired leads, reengaged leads, and the progression of these leads through the funnel (e.g., MQLs, S2s, closed deals). Integration installs and app usage are also critical, as they reflect direct engagement with the partner ecosystem. Over time, we track how deeper integration usage correlates with improvements in LTV, ACV, retention, and churn, helping us understand the long-term value of these partnerships. For teams just starting out, simpler metrics like event registrations and webinar attendance can provide early indicators of campaign success.


Partner Marketing at Snowflake was about scaling Marketing for Snowflake with Partners. So we focused on scaling various functions Marketing and measured accordingly.

Typically Partner Marketing will have yearly targets around partner involvement in Marketing activity like joint pipeline, joint customer success examples, and investments in activities. And then it is important to focus on quarterly targets which focus on large initiatives. 

Collaboration with different teams is dependent on how bought in is the leadership on commitment to partners. At Snowflake we were lucky that the leadership was very committed to partners. Thus from the beginning all teams collaborated and thought about bringing in partners. It is important to have strong collaboration with the Partner team, demand generation teams (online and field marketing), and product launch teams (PR, Product Marketing etc). 

At Snowflake we would make sure to share our priorities, yearly targets and quarterly goals with all teams regularly. And at times the Partner marketing team set the goals 2 - 3 quarters ahead of every one else, thus making sure we were ahead of all campaign planning processes. We even shared our priorities with our partners before the beginning of a fiscal year, thus making sure any joint planning / execution can focus on these. 

My role in Partner Marketing focuses on nurturing and engaging partners with to-partner focused programs. 
A big part of my work involves keeping partners engaged with the company's marketing content and sales activity, so one of my goals is building mindshare so that our company is top-of-mind next to 12 other vendors our partners are working with, some also in the low-code space. To achieve this, I run regular newsletters, partner-exclusive virtual and in-person events where partners can get together with other partners, but also our company's executives and sales teams, and ready-to-use digital campaign kits designed for minimal customization.

On a day-to-day basis, I'm looking at campaign responses from partners to track engagement. Broadening the scope for the sum of the tactics, I'm looking at net new partner seller contacts and engagement, and marketing influence opportunities. Other usual metrics in Partner Marketing include the number of sales-qualified opportunities, marketing-qualified leads, deal registrations, new ARR, etc.

Internally, collaboration is key. On top of the great Partner Marketing Team I'm part of, I'm working closely with our channel and sales teams to ensure that our to-partner motions address priority topics and provide tangible value. Regular touchpoints with the partner sales and technical enablement teams ensure that we align on the tools, strategies, and agendas needed to help partners succeed. 

My guiding principle is simple: partners are an extension of our team. When they succeed, we succeed, so our job is to empower them with the resources they need to thrive.