Partner Programs

This is class on choosing a PRM solution is in our course on How To Build An Agency-Focused Partner Program. There is a video for this class you can find at learn.partnerprograms.io

Instructor: Sunir Shah, CEO of AppBind and President of the Cloud Software Association

Takeaways

What justifies using a PRM vs an Affiliate Tracking-Only vs CRM (UTM-based) solution
Issues and expenses around channel conflict and payouts
Who we suggest looking into for various budgets/needs
Pros and cons of each tool we reviewed

Greatest hits

Working with sales: Channel conflict with sales, CRM integration
Referral links, landing pages, lead registration portals, mobile referral link tracking
Multiple commission structures for multiple partner programs
Payouts
Globalization: language localization, payouts, taxes
Partner enablement
Email them
Integrate with your ESP
Collateral storage
Reselling
Billing
Provisioning
Account management
Account transfer
Access to partner network. Who are they? How big? What marketing opportunities?

Potential issues if you do not use a third party to track partners

IF YOU DO NOT INVEST ENOUGH CAUTION:

E.g. payouts = overpaying partners because of the lack of tracking

Highly-complex systems over multiple partner types
No central attribution system
Double commission
Excel user errors
Being pressured into compensating two partners for the same client
Pull a report > send to finance >> payouts. No checks/balances and a huge disconnect between

IF YOU OVER-INVEST

Anxiety of your bosses over finances…

Anxiety from your agencies over your team trying to force them into your expensive system…

Crawl, Walk Run Partner Management Stack

Use your CRM + Sheets + UTMs
Affiliate tracking – leaddyno, tapfiliate, ambassador
PRM with referral links, commissions, payouts – PartnerStack, PartnerPortal.io, Allbound, Impact.
Scaling to enterprise (adding brand/integration and co-selling partners) – Workspan, AppDirect, Crossbeam, Allbound…

** If you are not interested in cookie-based ‘affiliate’ tracking links in your program (there are good reasons why not to bother with these as Sunir mentions), and you are on a tight budget for this program, check out our Airtable PRM – it’s very simple, but has what you need to get the job done:
https://airtable.com/embed/shrW96BNcmE87rBBx?backgroundColor=purple
Password: partnerprograms

Questionnaire for your team while interviewing PRM

Do you handle referral links / affiliates?
Do you handle payouts?
Do you handle Global jurisdictions? If so, which do you NOT support?
Are there any localization options for partners in non-English countries?
Do you have a mobile app (ios and/or Android)?
Do you have a CMS – for partner pages and portal?
Do you provide affiliate landing pages over links?
Do you support tiered commissions?
Do you support multiple types of resellers (affiliates only vs resellers)?
Do you support recurring options for payouts (i.e. lifetime vs 1 year only)?
Do you have an anchor reseller community/network? If so, which?
Do you handle refunds to the partners and end customers? And, do you have some level of Affiliate Fraud?
Does your tool de-conflict ownership of the referral to prevent channel conflict?
Do you offer your partners visibility in the sales pipeline for their referrals in your UI?
Do you allow your customers to email their partners as a blast? If so, can you do individual or segmented blasts (i.e. can I email all of my partners in India but not those in the US)?
Do you support reselling (billing and provisioning, support ticketing)?
Do you integrate with any support or chat tools (i.e. Zendesk, Intercom…)?
Do you integrate with Excel, Sheets or Airtable?
Which CRMs do you integrate with?