How do you know if your partner co-marketing strategy is successful?

The success of a partner co-marketing strategy varies depending on your business goals, but generally speaking, the impact can be measured by tracking a few different sets of metrics. Product Usage: One would be integration installs and usage over time. For instance, at Intercom, once customers use four or more integrations, key metrics such as retention, churn, lifetime value (LTV), average contract value (ACV), and customer health scores improve significantly. The number of integrations it takes to see a substantial verifiable impact varies company to company, but generally speaking, deeper integration engagement drives overall customer success and satisfaction, a stickier product, and better retention over the long term. Pipeline: This will vary depending on your GTM motion(s), but the most common partner-specific I see are sales referrals, sourced partner deals, and acquired leads from partner activations. At Intercom I also pushed for “reengaged leads” which are leads that were dormant but became active through partner efforts. Then you should also use your existing marketing attribution model to measure partner marketing campaigns the same way you measure all your other non-partner campaigns. This ensures consistency across all your campaigns and reporting. We use a W-shaped attribution model and have a specific system for naming and then reporting on campaigns. We “plugged” partner marketing into these systems so we can track those campaigns the same way. For New Business I report on Leads (Total Influenced Conv.); MQLs (Total Influenced Conv.); S2s (Total Influenced Conv.); S2 (Influenced Oppty ARR); S2 (Attributed ARR); Closed-Won (Total Influenced Conv.); Closed-Won (Influenced Oppty ARR); Closed-Won (Attributed ARR). It's the same for Expansion Business but without the Leads and MQL metrics. If you're earlier in your journey, focus on campaign-level metrics—high registration rates and engagement in joint webinars, for example, are strong indicators of an effective strategy and that your campaigns are resonating with your audience.

There should be a direct ROI on your partner marketing spend. I'm in the very luxurious position, in my current role, of having an outbound team who are fantastic at opening opportunities in real life if they're somewhere with prospects who fit within our ICP. It's easy for us to show an ROI on our Partner Event marketing spend, so I haven't to dig too deep in to UTMs from partner content - we can just take a holistic view and do the things that we intuitively know are right to do (like collaborating on partner content), without being concerned about the attribution. This is the dream scenario to be in but, in general, measurable impact on revenue is ALWAYS the right answer to working out whether your partnerships efforts are successful or not...

This is completely dependent on the project, the partners, and the goals they agreed upon before launch. Be it webinar registration numbers, blog click-throughs, social engagements, integration adoption, or lead generation following an email campaign, the most critical success indicator comes down to what was agreed upon as the "north star" metric at the start of the project, and how the results stacked up to that particular metric.

Did it generate the results that were initially discussed and agreed upon between the partners involved? If it didn't, is everyone satisfied with the results that are transpiring? Is there progress toward bigger rocks or milestones in the partnership? You need to have these key metrics outlined and partner growth plans established before you can say a campaign, program or strategy is successful or not. It may also be successful for one side of the partnership, but not for the other. It's important to conduct post-mortem sessions and have open, honest and transparent feedback with your partners in order to mutually achieve goals.

There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, as the success of a partner marketing strategy depends on a number of factors. However, there are some key indicators that can give you an idea of whether or not your strategy is on track: 1. One important metric to look at is engagement rates. This includes measures such as click-through rate (CTR) and conversion rate. If your partner marketing campaigns are generating high levels of engagement, it's a good sign that your strategy is successful. 2. Another key indicator is reach. This refers to the number of people who are seeing your partner marketing campaigns. If you're reaching a large number of people, it's likely that your strategy is having a positive impact. 3. Finally, another good indicator of success is partner satisfaction. If your partners are happy with the results of your campaigns, it's a good sign that your strategy is working well. Ultimately, the success of a partner marketing strategy depends on a number of factors. However, if you're seeing positive indicators in terms of engagement, reach, and partner satisfaction, it's likely that your strategy is on track.