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What KPIs should a partner marketer be goaled on?

3 Answers
Alexandra Sasha Blumenfeld
Alexandra Sasha Blumenfeld
Sentry Product Marketing Lead, EnterpriseMarch 25

I typically see the partner marketing team tracked on pipeline numbers and opportunities.

That said, I think it depends on your partner marketing strategy and your marketing/BD team goals as well.

Ideally, we try to balance activities that will influence in-quarter impact where we will see an immediate impact on pipeline (eg digital events, gated content) with activities that are more strategic/longer-term that will see an outsized impact a few quarters (or years) out. eg working with larger partners where you have to establish the foundation, build relationships, build strategic product capabilities/integrations etc.

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Priya Ramamurthi
Priya Ramamurthi
Okta Head of Product Marketing, PlatformNovember 10

Generally speaking, partner marketing influences sales pipeline and revenue. Not different from product marketing in this aspect.

With each partner, there should be specific quarterly and annual goals to influence this. Details related to conversion rate based on campaigns planned make these goals operational.

There can often be additional goals based on MDF funds given out for specific launches.

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Harsha Kalapala
Harsha Kalapala
AlertMedia Vice President Product MarketingDecember 14

There are typically strategic outcomes and tactical outcomes to partnerships. Partnership GTM leaders should be goaled on the tactical outcomes, but also incentivized to drive strategic outcomes that may be harder to predict and measure. These are some of the KPIs I've worked with – 

Tactical KPIs:

  • Pipeline driven - Number of inquiries, New opportunities created, Expansion opportunities created, In count and in dollars driven
  • Revenue impact - Closed won opportunities - new business or expansion (this may be long-term, depending on the length of the sales cycle)
  • Adoption of integration - You launched the partnership. Great! Are users adopting it? KPIs on this can be nested - i.e. installation, configuration, preparation, deployment (this comes in many forms). How can you team up with your partners to drive adoption as quickly as possible? 
  • Customer retention impact - Adoption drives retention. Is the integration showing correlation or causation for customers to renew? This is typically a long-term KPI, and a critical one to track. 
  • Business velocity metrics - Increase in ACV (avg contract value) aka deal size, Close rate
  • Partner KPIs - Is your GTM driving business impact for your partner as well? This may or may not be part of agreed KPIs, but always puts you in a good position if they see your partnership as a revenue driver.

Strategic KPIs:

  • Launch timing - Were you able to launch before competitors go to market? The best launches are decoupled from a product release – did you coordinate timing with the product and customer-facing teams effectively? It is important to have a less than ideal launch when the window of opportunity with your audience is open vs. doing a perfect launch when you missed the window. 
  • Market gravity - Did your launch activity trigger other vendors to reach out to partner from the splash you made? Are there new press opportunities and content contribution plays? 
  • Integration partner preference and satisfaction - Your partner can always partner with your competitor, and they probably are. What can you do to become a preferred partner? This may be an unofficial sentiment - that they "like" working with you more than the others and give you more attention and opportunities. 
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