The software you need to run partnerships at every stage of growth...

The technologies you will need to run partnerships-led growth?

Emphasis on “partnerships” because we are talking about companies that you have a growth relationship with. NOT people or companies you are paying to promote your product or service. Those are affiliates, and there is another category of technology associated with affiliate marketing.

Here are the main types of software you may need at various stages of partnerships-led growth:

1. Operations?
2. Sourcing
3. Directory
4. Co-Selling
5. TCMA (Through Channel Marketing Automation)

**Notice I did not mention an affiliate payout automation system. Affiliate tracking and automation is under the category of “Affiliate Marketing”. This is a tech category completely separate from partnerships. Affiliate marketing software is built to manage link-based commission payouts at scale. Sometimes, these are marketed towards B2B teams. But, the affiliate channel should be managed by marketing teams, not partnerships teams. This is because affiliate marketing is very analogous to PPC or performance digital in that you are simply spending money on a channel of people who are sharing your links (as opposed to a search engine or social network). The campaigns operate in the same way, and you sometimes have to pay upfront instead of after the click / conversion. So specific software for promotions and management of these affiliate campaigns is needed.?

Therefore, affiliate marketing technology is not in a partnerships teams stack.**?

Operations technology

Software used to maintain a program’s efficiency and day-to-day needs. Much of this is done in CRM for most companies. But, that changes depending on the organization's size (see the full article to learn about what changes as the organization grows).?

Impartner

Website: https://www.impartner.com

Impartner's PRM software provides a suite of tools for managing partner operations, including performance tracking, incentive management, and operational reporting.

Channeltivity

Website: https://www.channeltivity.com

Channeltivity specializes in partner operations management with features like deal registration, lead tracking, and comprehensive performance analytics.

Partnerhub?

Website:https://www.partnerhub.app/

You wouldn't buy a farm that didn't come with the dirt to farm... Why would you buy a PRM that didn't include partners? Partnerhub? is the place where digital agencies and tech solutions find one another, align, and grow together.

Issues with partner operations tech:?

• Just like CRM, the main issue with partner ops tech is the requirement for your employees to update the accounts daily.?

PRM (Partner Relationships Management)

PRM is your CRM for partner acquisition and reporting. Some PRM’s extend into “Affilitate” management and payouts. Others are pure partner tracking and enablement. Whether a company “needs” a PRM depends on size and other factors we will talk about below.?

PartnerStack

Website: https://partnerstack.com/

PartnerStack was the first to market PRM and partnerships marketplace with a focus on affiliates and commission payout management.?

Kiflo

Website: https://www.kiflo.com/

The Partner Management Platform specifically designed for today's Partnership Teams.Recruit, onboard, engage, track, and reward your partners using a single and easy-to-use platform.

Impartner

Website: https://www.impartner.com

Impartner offers an industry-leading PRM platform that helps organizations manage their partner relationships, streamline onboarding, and increase sales productivity.

Allbound

Website: https://www.allbound.com

Allbound offers a comprehensive PRM platform with tools for content sharing, training, and performance tracking, designed to improve collaboration with channel partners.

ChannelConnect (by Eloque)

Website: https://www.eloque.com

Eloque’s ChannelConnect provides a robust PRM platform, including partner enablement tools, lead registration, and performance reporting to enhance partner relationships.

Partnerize

Website: https://www.partnerize.com

Partnerize offers a partner management platform with integrated partner directory features, allowing businesses to connect and collaborate with the right partners.

Sourcing Partners

Sourcing partners is the #1 biggest challenge for partnerships teams according to every poll.? Teams typically source partners in one of 3 ways:?

1. Organically via a web page or over CS calls.?
2. Outbound via email or LinkedIn based on research.?
3. Looking into the CRM data to see if accounts are connected to third parties.?

But, there are some software purpose-built for sourcing partnerships. Here are a few:

Respona

Website: https://respona.com/partner-recruitment-platform/

Respona is the partner recruitment platform that helps you find top-performing affiliate partners, get their contact info, and outreach at scale.

PartnerOptimizer

Website: https://partneroptimizer.com/

Stop wasting time and money on partners that don’t deliver. Find and scale the partners that fuel your growth with PartnerOptimizer.

PartnerStack

Website: https://partnerstack.com/

PartnerStack was the first to market PRM and partnerships marketplace with a focus on affiliates and commission payout management.?

Partnerhub?

Website:https://www.partnerhub.app/

You wouldn't buy a farm that didn't come with the dirt to farm... Why would you buy a PRM that didn't include partners? Partnerhub? is the place where digital agencies and tech solutions find one another, align, and grow together.

Issues with tools that help source partners:?

• These tools do not help you win the trust of partners. That’s still on you.?
• Most of these solutions, with the exception of of Partnerhub?, are simply providing you data - not the actual connection to another opted-in partner.

Partner directory

Directories showcase who you partner with and provide a way for your customers to connect with them. There are product integrations directories, which can be in an application and work to facilitate the integration setup. And, some directories simply showcase who you are partners with, and provide some options to get in touch.?

Zift Solutions (Partner Portal)

Website: https://www.ziftsolutions.com

Zift’s Partner Portal includes a partner directory, enabling businesses to showcase their partner ecosystem, and provide searchability and access to key partner information.

Partnerpage

Website: https://www.partnerpage.io/

Everything you need to launch a partner directory with minimal support from your own development/engineering team.

Partnerhub?

Website:https://www.partnerhub.app/

Partnerhub? has a built-in Directory for all users, free of charge. The Pro version supports customization.

Issues with partner directories:?

• Most are yet another technology teams have to pay for, support.
• It’s another portal you will need to require your partners to log into.

Co-selling tools

Tools to sell with partners are historically “account mapping” based tools. Meaning, they work by allowing two businesses to show overlapping customers in their respective CRMs. These tools allow permissions to be set so your partners only see what you allow them to see.?

Key players:?

Crossbeam

Website: https://www.crossbeam.com

Crossbeam helps companies identify and collaborate with the right partners by securely sharing data to map accounts, find overlap, and co-sell on shared opportunities. It enables teams to work together by leveraging partner ecosystems to drive mutual success.

Reveal

Website: https://www.reveal.co

Reveal provides account mapping and co-selling tools by helping sales teams discover overlapping accounts between their partners and themselves, allowing for targeted collaboration and deal sharing.

PartnerTap

Website: https://www.partnertap.com

PartnerTap is a co-selling and account mapping platform that enables companies to collaborate on sales opportunities with their partners by aligning account data, identifying overlapping opportunities, and accelerating joint sales efforts.

Issues with co-selling tools:?

• Buy-in from compliance or leadership - the idea of “mapping accounts” with other companies is a bit scary for obvious customer privacy reasons.?
• Costs for these tools can be high.?
• Depending on whether you’re a service provider or not, mapping accounts can be a one-way street.

Through-Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) Software

Through-Channel Marketing Automation software is a type of content marketing software that enables partner teams to enable and track co-marketing at scale. This software is typically only used by very large partner programs where thousands of partners rely on the marketing collateral around new product launches they can service and support for their income. We call these “Power Partners.” It means they make most of their revenue (if not all) from one of their ecosystem partnerships (i.e. Microsoft, Salesforce, Netsuite… Sometimes HubSpot or Shopify). ?

Zift Solutions

Website: https://www.ziftsolutions.com

Zift provides an integrated TCMA platform with advanced features for automating and scaling partner marketing campaigns.

Impartner

Website: https://www.impartner.com

Impartner offers a powerful suite of tools for through-channel marketing automation, helping vendors empower their partners with marketing resources.

Channel Marketer

Website: https://www.channelmarketer.com

Channel Marketer provides a comprehensive solution for running co-branded marketing campaigns through partners, focusing on content syndication and lead generation.

Issues with TCMA tools:?

• They are expensive. And cumbersome.
• The technology is not nearly as advanced as marketing automation tech like HubSpot, ActiveCampaign which can be used for the same purposes.?

Smaller organizations

For small organizations (between 1-50 employees), the tech stack needs to be lean, inexpensive, and provide immediate ROI. When these needs are applied to partnerships tech, teams need to look outside of tech built exclusively for partnerships in order to find the stack they should be using.

The important thing to know about this stage is that you DO NOT NEED A PRM. PRM’s are only needed when you have partners needing “management” - reporting, tracking, attribution, payouts…?

I wrote an article on our blog recently highlighting 10 inexpensive (and some are free) tools to run partnerships operations. Here are those tools:?

Featured in that article:

1. Common Room
2. La Growth Machine
3. Telescope
4. Instantly.ai
5. Clay
6. Smartlead
7. GodmodeHQ.com
8. Guru
9. Snitcher
10. Partnerhub?

Read the full article for links and more information about each tool.?

Mid-sized organizations

For organizations between 50 and 500 employees, the needs and therefore tech stack changes dramatically. SDR’s come into the fold, who need a flow of leads. And co-selling becomes more realistic. The website is generating traffic and leads. And, importantly, partnerships are beginning to form every month organically, which also means these orgs are less reliant on sourcing partners than smaller organizations.?

Mid-sized organizations will start trying to solve for new partnerships' pain points like:?

• Attribution?
• Channel conflict
• Co-selling support
• Co-marketing campaign management
• Reporting
• Automating workflows and syncing to CRM

Reveal

Reveal provides account mapping and co-selling tools by helping sales teams discover overlapping accounts between their partners and themselves, allowing for targeted collaboration and deal sharing.

Partnerhub?

Partnerhub? has a built-in Directory for all users, free of charge. The Pro version supports customization.

Allbound

Allbound offers a comprehensive PRM platform with tools for content sharing, training, and performance tracking, designed to improve collaboration with channel partners.

PartnerStack

PartnerStack was the first to market PRM and partnerships marketplace with a focus on affiliates and commissions payout management.?

Larger organizations

For larger organizations, the tech stack for partnerships is dramatically different. In these companies, the CRO will oversee the partnerships teams, which creates an entirely different set of requirements than a startup wherein the CEO or designated team members are leading partnerships by themselves.?

The reasons teams in larger organizations require a different technological approach to partnerships are as follows:

• Compliance and security - GDPR compliance is now a necessity. Cyber security and data protection are paramount.?
• Reliance on CRM - Now more than ever, CRM is the source of truth. Editing and syncing to CRM are only done by select admins. And partnerships tech need to be updated by the CRM in order for them to be used by larger orgs.?
• Budget - Considering software budgets go up as the org grows, the costs of the tech are less of a concern. This is also why many larger organizations build their own solutions for managing partnerships.?
• Integrations -?
• Reporting - The ability to show ROI through reports generated by this technology stack is critical when partnerships teams are within a larger organization and under a CRO.

Key players:?

Salesforce PRM

Onboard Partners Faster — Enable everyone from resellers, brokers, and beyond with Salesforce Partner Management. Close deals faster with guided selling and AI-powered deal insights from Sales Cloud.

Workspan

WorkSpan connects your sales process with cloud and ecosystem partners and powers your marketplace and co-sell partner motion to achieve partner-led growth.

Impartner PRM

Impartner is a leading provider of award-winning partner relationship management (PRM) and through-channel marketing automation (TCMA) solutions.

ZINFI Unified Partner Management (UPM)

ZINFI Unified Partner Management is a platform designed to manage partner relationships, streamline processes, and provide insights into partner performance.

Crossbeam

Crossbeam watches your partner ecosystem and securely surfaces the data, people, and companies in your network that will accelerate and close your next deal.

PartnerTap

PartnerTap is a data-driven discovery platform for partner revenue. PartnerTap gives partner, channel, and sales teams everything they need to automate account mapping, share partner pipeline in real-time, identify new whitespace sales opps, and start co-selling with partners.?

ChannelConnect (by Eloque)

Eloque’s ChannelConnect provides a robust PRM platform, including partner enablement tools, lead registration, and performance reporting to enhance partner relationships.

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I hope you found this useful!

In partnership,?

Alex