How to Evaluate the Success of Marketing Partnerships

Partnerships have a honeymoon period. But you can't build a successful partnership strategy that way. A successful partnership strategy can't survive on starry-eyed excitement. It needs consistent tracking, review, and adjustment. Setting up a routine for regular partnership reviews helps ensure that every partner continues to contribute value and align with your goals. Here’s a straightforward guide to establishing an effective review cadence: DURING MONTHLY CHECK-INS: Monitor Engagement and Pipeline Health: - Partner Engagement: Are partners actively promoting your solutions? Monitor how frequently partners engage, share leads, or collaborate on content. - Pipeline Health: Review the current status of partner-sourced leads. Are they progressing through the pipeline or stalling? This provides a pulse on lead quality and pipeline velocity. (Pro Tip: Use CRM dashboards to quickly visualize monthly trends. A partner falling behind in engagement or lead generation can be flagged for extra support before the issue impacts quarterly goals.) DURING QUARTERLY CHECK-INS (Quarterly Business Reviews or QBRs): Assess KPIs and impact: - Revenue Contribution: Track revenue from partner-sourced leads. Are partners contributing to target revenue goals? Compare this against previous quarters to detect any patterns. - Deal Velocity: Examine the average time for partner-sourced deals to close. Faster deal cycles may indicate strong alignment with your audience, while slower cycles could highlight areas for enablement improvement. - Retention and Renewals: Review retention rates for customers acquired through each partner. Higher retention often suggests the partner is bringing well-aligned, high-value leads. (Pro Tip: Share a summary of the QBR data with the broader team and executives. Keeping everyone informed boosts alignment across departments and reinforces the value of your partnerships.) DURING ANNUAL CHECK-INS (Annual Pipeline Audit): Evaluate & adjust long-term strategy - Trend Analysis: Review metrics like partner-sourced revenue, pipeline growth, and retention over the year. Look for trends that show which partnerships delivered consistent value and which may need reevaluation. - Resource Allocation: Identify high-impact partners and consider how to deepen those relationships. This could mean exclusive training, co-marketing, or more dedicated support to further accelerate growth. - Forecasting and Goal Setting: Use annual metrics to set achievable targets for the coming year. Which partner types or industries contributed the most? (Pro Tip: Use insights from the annual audit to adjust your Ideal Partner Profile and refine your partner strategy. Trends from a full year’s data will guide resource allocation and pinpoint where to focus for maximum impact.) Anything you'd add?

I’ve been asked a few times lately: What does a successful partnership actually look like? It’s a great question, with a myriad of answers, but the one I keep coming back to is this: Two companies fully functioning in the market together, driving impact to the bottom line of the business. Not JUST co-marketing. Not JUST a signed agreement. Not JUST a “good relationship.” Not JUST a couple mutual customers. Not JUST a logo swap on a slide deck. Not JUST a press release. Not JUST a one-off webinar. Not JUST a referral here and there. Not JUST some overlapping ICP. Not JUST a Slack channel between partner managers. A truly successful partnership means both companies are actively generating revenue together…whether that’s through co-selling, product integrations, or joint customer acquisition. So how do you actually make this happen? Here’s what I’ve seen work time and time again: 1️⃣ Deep Business Alignment: Make sure your goals actually align. A partner that drives meaningful impact is one that fits into your customers’ existing workflows, pain points, or decision-making processes. 2️⃣ Embedded Sales & Marketing Plays: If your sellers aren’t actively working with partners, the partnership isn’t real. Equip your sales team with clear, repeatable motions: 3️⃣ Clear Revenue Attribution: If you can’t measure it, you can’t prove it. Define what counts as sourced vs. influenced pipeline and make sure there’s clear tracking in your CRM. Otherwise, partnerships will always feel like an afterthought instead of a strategy. 4️⃣ Mutual Investment & Skin in the Game: The best partnerships aren’t transactional. They evolve over time, with both sides actively investing, whether that’s through product roadmaps, dedicated teams, or joint market expansion. If one side is doing all the heavy lifting, it’s not a partnership. 5️⃣ Consistent, Executive-Level Buy-in: Partnerships die in silos. The most successful ones have top-down commitment, with CROs, CMOs, and even CEOs recognizing that partnerships are core to revenue growth, not just a side of the desk project. If you can embed partnerships this deeply, you’re not just “working with partners.” You’re creating a competitive advantage in your market. Tell me: what does a successful partnership look like in your world?

Yesterday the Head of Partnerships at a $200M health-tech company asked me how to take their partner program from being a C-suite afterthought to a mission-critical GTM strategy. My answer was simple... Data. Let me explain. Partnerships are fluffy. At least that’s what most Boards, C-suites, and Executives think. Why? Because most partner teams struggle with data. Due to unrealistic revenue targets, timelines and limited resources, partnership leaders are often scrambling from day 1. To catch up, they often skip the most important step: Setting up solid processes, KPIs and the mechanisms to track them. So when an important stakeholder asks them for a QUANTITATIVE justification for their activities they either stare back blankly or slap together some unconvincing back-of-the-napkin math. And forget about realistically forecasting more than a quarter out. This is virtually impossible for most partner teams. How can you become a mission-critical GTM strategy if your leadership can’t clearly understand what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and what value it’s going to drive for the business. This is not the way. Partnership leaders need to start being meticulous about data. We need to take the time to set up good processes and tracking mechanisms. You must measure and track everything! - Partner lifecycle - Sourced deal funnels - Influenced deal funnels - Partner marketing outcomes - Integration adoption - Partner ROI - Revenue by partner - Revenue by partner manager - And a dozen other things The value of this should not be underestimated. Only by measuring and tracking will you be able to understand what’s working and what’s not. When you take the time to do this right, you’ll be able to prove to your C-suite the impact your partnerships strategy has driven for the business and what impact it *will* drive looking forward. You’ll be able to show the leaders of Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success how you’ve made them and their teams more successful. You’ll be able to forecast, budget, and scale a predictable partner program. As partnerships leaders we understand the value of partnerships in our blood. But up until now, we’ve lacked the operational rigor to prove it out. Let’s become data-driven operators and make partnerships an undeniable, mission-critical GTM strategy. Not just an afterthought.