What Is Partner Marketing?

Partner Marketing can be simply defined as a method of marketing where two brands collaborate with each other & one brand drives traffic for the other brand in return for some kind of compensation. The partner marketing model is primarily focused on a Cost per acquisition(CPA) or a Cost per sale(CPS) model wherein the publisher is paid by the advertiser or the brand only when a customer is acquired or a sale is made.

There are multiple ways in which companies can partner with one another depending on the kind of partnership they want to pursue. The partner companies can either be referrals, distributors, brand ambassadors, affiliates, resellers or alliance partners. Brands & partners can collaborate with one another in different ways such as loyalty program publishers, cashback publishers, voucher publishers & more.

To broaden their market reach, many advertisers & brands collaborate with large publishers & communities whose primary business is a partnership. To drive large amounts of sales & customer acquisition, B2B partnerships have been highly popular & beneficial for small & medium-size businesses.

Why is it important to have a Partner Marketing Program?

For companies to grow in the market, it is necessary for them to build partnerships with other brands & publishers. It is very important for brands & advertisers to partner with strong communities of their brand's advocates, Influencers, Aggregators to help them access a wider range of loyal audience which they haven’t touched till now & also expand their presence to different geographies & demographics where they may not have a strong presence. Partnering with more established & reputed publishers also helps brands to gain more credibility with their audience.

What do brand partners get?

For promoting brands via their traffic sources, publishers & brand partners are rewarded by the brands in the form of commission which is set up by the brands. Primarily the brands set up a commission model based on which the partners are paid. This commission can depend on the key performance indicators set up by the brand while creating the commission model. To set up a successful partnership it is important for them to provide all the necessary information to their partners so that they are able to market brands in the best possible way.