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

Having helped to dozens of executive teams seeking partner investment, I can tell you they care about exactly three things: growth, efficiency, and risk mitigation. Here's how to speak their language: The metrics that unlock budget: Partner-influenced revenue as percentage of total revenue: Executives want to see the trend line. If partner-influenced revenue is growing faster than direct revenue, that's your proof point. Show that you're at 20% today with a credible path to 35% in 18 months, and you'll get attention. The magic threshold in most B2B companies is 30%—once partners represent a third of revenue, they become strategically critical. Customer acquisition cost (CAC) comparison: Show that CAC for partner-sourced customers is 30-50% lower than direct-sourced. This is usually true because partners cover pre-sales costs, but you need to prove it with data. Even better, show lifetime value (LTV) is comparable or higher—that partners bring quality, not just volume. Sales efficiency ratio: Revenue per sales rep with vs. without partner leverage. If your direct reps closing $1M annually can close $1.5M when actively working with partners, that's a 50% productivity gain. Executives understand leverage. Market expansion velocity: Can partners help you enter new geographies, verticals, or segments faster than hiring direct teams? Show the math: Partner path to $5M in APAC costs $500K and takes 12 months. Direct path costs $3M in hiring and takes 24 months. This resonates especially with growth-stage companies. Win rate improvement: If deals involving partners have a 40% win rate versus 25% for direct-only, that's powerful. It suggests partners provide credibility, reduce buyer risk, or solve integration challenges. The risk mitigation angle executives love: Revenue diversification: Executives lose sleep over customer concentration risk and channel dependency. A mature partner ecosystem reduces reliance on direct sales and spreads risk across multiple go-to-market motions. Competitive moats: Strategic partnerships create barriers to entry. If you've built deep integrations with industry leaders, emerging competitors can't easily replicate those relationships. The narrative that ties it together: Numbers matter, but story matters more. Frame it this way: "We're at an inflection point. We can add 10 direct reps for $2M and potentially generate $10M in new revenue with high execution risk. Or we can invest $1M in partner program scaling—dedicated resources, improved enablement, co-sell incentives—and activate 50 partners who collectively represent $20M in potential pipeline with distributed risk. Both are important, but the partner multiplier is 2x more capital efficient." Tangible takeaway: Create a one-page executive brief updated quarterly with these six metrics, each showing current state, trend, and comparison to industry benchmarks. Add one customer story showing how a partner-led deal closed faster, bigger, or in a market you couldn't reach directly. Present this in business reviews even when you're not asking for budget—you're building credibility for when you do ask.

ROI ROI ROI The key here is to reasonably account for the contributions made by partners....the big discussion is 'sourced versus influenced'. However, when you find teams fighting more about attribution and action, you've hit a breaking point. "Lifetime value of a customer" maximizes the value of a partner ecosystem. • Revenue Attribution: Track partner-sourced and partner-influenced pipeline and closed-won revenue by quarter. • Integration Adoption & Retention Impact: Show how integrations correlate with renewal rates, upsell, or TTV improvement. • Campaign ROI & Ecosystem Coverage: Demonstrate efficiency of co-marketing and strategic value in plugging product gaps.

Direct revenue attribution is king; as a partner leader I always want to own a P&L and contribute to revenue directly. That can take the form of resell, referral or distribution partnerships. The more direct the line to revenue is, the easier it is to make the case for additional spend. Of course, there are many partner programs you will need to build that don't directly source revenue - but those need to be supporting the overall revenue motion. For example, building a program that sub-contracts consulting partners into your sales engagements doesn't bring significant revenue on its own; however it feeds business to the partners which in turn makes it much easier to ask for referrals and intros from them.

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.

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.

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.