What are some of the most tried, tested and proven co-marketing activities to propose to tech pârtners for the objective of lead gen?

Let me cut through the fluff and give you what actually generates pipeline, not just vanity metrics. The consistently reliable plays: Joint webinars with a twist: Standard webinars are oversaturated, but here's the formula that works: Target a hyper-specific pain point, limit it to 30 minutes, and make 70% of the content a live demo or case study walkthrough. The title format that performs best: "How [Customer Name] achieved [specific outcome] using [Your Solution + Partner Solution]." Real customer, real results, real demo. These generate 2-3x more qualified leads than thought leadership webinars. Caveat: Thought leadership is great but only if it is tangible, valuable and can relate back to your product without overpitching it. Co-created industry reports: Partner with 2-3 complementary vendors to survey your shared customer base about industry trends. You share the research costs, everyone gets to use the data, and you co-promote the findings. Reports with original data earn media coverage and become year-long lead generation assets. I've seen a single well-executed report generate 500+ MQLs over 12 months. Solution bundles with dedicated landing pages: Create a specific offer—"The Complete [Use Case] Stack"—bundle your solutions with special pricing or extended trials, build a co-branded landing page, and drive traffic through both partner networks. The key is making it time-bound (30-60 days) to create urgency. This works because buyers prefer integrated solutions over point products. Account-based co-marketing (ABM): Identify 20-30 shared target accounts, create custom content addressing their specific challenges, and orchestrate coordinated outreach. This might include direct mail, custom video messages, or executive briefings. The ROI on ABM co-marketing is dramatically higher than broad campaigns because you're focusing resources on accounts already warm to both brands. Integrated marketplace campaigns: If both companies are on AWS/Azure/Google Cloud marketplaces, create a campaign specifically targeting marketplace buyers. These campaigns convert higher because the friction to purchase is lower. The underutilized goldmine: Customer co-case studies with active promotion: Most companies create case studies and let them die in a PDF. Instead, turn one customer success story into 10+ assets: written case study, video testimonial, blog post series, social media snippets, sales one-pager, webinar featuring the customer. Then both partners promote across channels for 90 days. One great story, maximum leverage. What doesn't work anymore: Co-branded whitepapers that are thinly veiled product pitches, un-gated blog posts (gate your best content), and generic "lunch and learn" events. These generate volume but not velocity. Start with the 80/20 rule. Pick the two activities above that align best with how your ICP actually consumes content. Invest properly in those—quality over quantity. Each quarter, measure cost-per-MQL and MQL-to-opportunity conversion rate for each activity. Double down on what works, kill what doesn't. I've seen companies run 15 mediocre co-marketing campaigns versus three excellent ones. The three always win.

To generate leads through co-marketing, start with your focus on activities that have proven to drive engagement and ROI for you and your partner already. At Intercom that is webinars, virtual events, and in-person gatherings like conferences or workshops tend to work best. These formats allow for rich content sharing, direct interaction, and follow-up opportunities. Limit the number of partners involved in any one activity to avoid complexity and ensure alignment. For larger events, consider cost-sharing on booth space or co-hosting smaller, private events like dinners. Joint case studies can reinforce success stories but are often less effective for immediate lead generation compared to live events. While content campaigns (like blogs or whitepapers) can build awareness, they typically don’t drive as many leads, so prioritize live engagements if lead gen is your primary objective.

Co-Hosted Webinars have worked really well for us.

This is a much debated topic, which varies by industry. But what we have seen in our SMB B2B market is that collaboration at conferences/expos/trade shows have the biggest short term impact for lead gen. The next best would be cross selling blitz calling between the two partner's customer bases. Make sure to have a short clean partnership value prop, and have both partner and company sales teams on the calls together prospecting. Webinars are not very impactful, for anyone, customer, partner, company.

One of the easiest ways to co-market with a tech partner is by jointly creating a single asset (PDF, video etc) and having that asset live behind a gated form that has a double opt-in to receive communications from you and the tech partner (aka new leads!).