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The Partnership Channel: A Scalable Alternative to Subsidize Primary Sales Channels

Jan 25, 2023

Katie Spurkeland

Director of Product Marketing

Today’s customer-controlled purchase journey requires brands to be ever-present in order to achieve results–a burden exasperated by the surging ad costs across key channels Facebook, Google and Amazon. As the cost to provide a cohesive experience continues to grow, as does the number of consumers that transact online. During 2021, digital sales represented 19.2% of retail revenue totaling $871B. Seeking cost-controlled customer acquisition, marketers are leaning into the partnership channel as a scalable alternative to subsidize their primary sales and marketing channels–a solution that creates the operating leverage necessary to drive profitable growth. Of surveyed B2C worldwide marketing executives, 65% reported planning to increase spending in the channel, demonstrating trust in the partnership channel for its ability to meet the demands of today’s savvy consumers, provide accessible, actionable data and eliminate wasted ad spend. In addition to the ability to control the cost of new customers, marketers are realizing that the partnership channel fuels another key business goal: incrementality.

While the affiliate channel historically grappled with reputational challenges such as increasing costs for transactions that would have occurred despite the presence of a partner touchpoint, this label was fabricated purely from a lack of transparency. Marketers that continue to subscribe to this falsehood are victims of the status quo, viewing channel data in a silo, rewarding partners with uniform commission and forgoing innovation that enables them to scale. With innovative software, marketers pull back the curtain on what was once a data black box to gain visibility into the incremental value partnership channel conversions deliver to broader business goals–insight critical to strategy development and execution.

Want to learn more about the channel marketers are leaning into as a scalable alternative to subsidize their primary sales and marketing channels? Download our eBook and learn the steps needed to:

Curate a diversified partner mix
Leverage transformational partnerships
Properly measure reporting

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The Partnership Channel: A Scalable Alternative to Subsidize Primary Sales Channels

Katie Spurkeland

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