34 Tactics CEO's Used to Get Their Partners to Send Massive Leads

Unlock Growth: The Partner Co-Marketing Playbook from Top SaaS CEOs

In this article, you will learn how the world’s top SaaS CEOs are using Partner Co-Marketing to acquire new users and drive millions in revenue, supported by real-world examples. This isn’t just theory; it’s a practical guide based on proven tactics from founders who have successfully scaled their software companies. For instance, by strategically partnering with established platforms like HubSpot and Pipedrive, GetAccept’s CEO grew annual revenue from $500,000 to over $1.7 million.

You’ll get the 4-part playbook to launch your own Partner Co-Marketing engine, in addition to over 40 case studies you can use as inspiration. These examples are from top Founders like Samir Allioui at GetAccept, Omar Zenhom at WebinarNinja, and Robert Warner at PPC Ad Lab, collected directly from keynotes at Founderpath events.

The 4-Part Playbook For Partner Co-Marketing

This section provides a step-by-step playbook that you can share with your team to implement a successful partner co-marketing strategy at your own company. Each step is accompanied by a real-world example of a CEO who has used the tactic to achieve significant growth.

1. Step 1: Identify Strategic Partners with a Shared Audience. The foundation of any successful co-marketing campaign is finding the right partner. Look for non-competing companies that serve a similar ideal customer profile (ICP). This allows both partners to leverage each other’s audiences for mutual benefit without cannibalizing sales. For example, GetAccept’s CEO, Samir Allioui, explained that partnering with CRMs like HubSpot and Pipedrive was a natural fit because they sell to the same customer base, allowing them to collaborate on lead generation and increase the stickiness of their respective products.
2. Step 2: Create a Joint Offer of Value. Once you’ve identified a partner, you need to collaborate on a co-branded offer that provides tangible value to both of your audiences. This could be a detailed industry report, an integrated feature, a joint webinar, or a co-branded tool. For example, Robert Warner of PPC Ad Lab detailed how he uses joint venture webinars with partners to deliver immense value. By offering exclusive insights and better pricing during these live events, he creates a compelling reason for the partner’s audience to attend and convert.
3. Step 3: Launch Co-Branded Campaigns to Both Audiences. With a joint offer in place, the next step is to promote it. This involves coordinated campaigns across multiple channels, including email marketing, social media, and content marketing, targeting both partners’ audiences. Omar Zenhom of WebinarNinja shared how they team up with companies that have similar audiences, like AWeber, to do cross-promotions, driving significant growth and brand authority.
4. Step 4: Establish a Clear System for Tracking and Sharing Success. To ensure a sustainable partnership, you must have a system to track the results of your co-marketing efforts and share the success. This can range from formal revenue-sharing agreements to softer metrics like lead generation and brand reach. The CEO of PPC Ad Lab highlighted their aggressive affiliate strategy, paying partners 100% of the first month’s revenue. This generous commission structure motivates partners to promote their offer heavily, resulting in acquiring hundreds of new users in a single week.

40+ Examples of Partner Co-Marketing in Action

Here are over 40 examples from SaaS CEOs who have successfully used partner co-marketing, broken down by the strategic steps outlined in the playbook above.

Step 1: Identifying Strategic Partners

• The CEO of EasyReder explained that establishing strong relationships with key players like HubSpot and NS1 has been crucial. These partners consistently refer high-quality customers because they trust the value EasyReder provides.
• Medici’s founder, Diaz Ben, is targeting growth by partnering with complementary ecosystems that require a distributed productivity tool, planning to offer a white-label solution to reach new markets.
• The CEO of Postalytics shared that the vast majority of their 450+ customers came from the HubSpot ecosystem, a success driven by a deep, strategic investment in the HubSpot Connect Partner Program.
• Will Shaw of Marketing Connected grew his insurtech company by forming strategic alliances with four major players in the affiliate space who provided access to large, targeted groups of insurance agents.
• AgoraPulse’s CEO, Emeric Ernoult, strategically partnered with influencers and other tools in the social media space, creating a powerful referral engine that helped them scale to a $5 million run rate.
• Percolate CEO Randy Wootton explained that their enterprise sales motion relies on strong partnerships, including a debt line with Comerica that was facilitated through their relationships with top VCs like Sequoia and Lightspeed.
• Mark Michael of DevHub emphasized that their white-label solution enables them to partner with agencies and brands, who in turn use the platform to serve thousands of their own clients, creating a scalable, partner-driven growth model.
• The CEO of Easygenerator highlighted their strategy of forming deep partnerships with other companies, which has been a key driver in scaling their e-learning authoring tool to over $7 million in ARR.
• Manny Medina of Outreach explained that a key part of their growth to over $10 million per quarter was building a robust partner ecosystem, allowing them to integrate with and sell alongside other major players in the sales tech stack.
• Jebbit’s CEO, Jonathan Lacoste, shared that key partnerships with platforms like Snapchat and Twitter have been instrumental in their growth, giving them access to a massive user base and driving enterprise deals.
• Armando Biondi, founder of Breadcrumbs, explained how he leveraged partnerships to get his previous company, AdEspresso, acquired by Hootsuite, demonstrating the power of strategic alliances for achieving a major exit.

Step 2: Creating a Joint Offer of Value

• PPC Ad Lab’s CEO, Robert Warner, detailed their “one-week promotion” strategy where they partner with an affiliate for a high-intensity, value-packed webinar series. A single promotion can sign up over 30 new paid users.
• Omar Zenhom of WebinarNinja partners with companies like Heroic Public Speaking to be their official webinar platform. This provides Heroic Public Speaking’s audience with a trusted tool and drives high-quality customers to WebinarNinja.
• High Conversion’s CEO, Zee Aganovic, described their partnership model where they co-develop best practices for e-commerce optimization with major platforms like Magento, offering a free, value-driven program that converts merchants into long-term customers.
• Dave Lee from PlusThis explained they offer a free version of their software to thousands of marketing consultants. These consultants then use the toolkit with their clients, creating a powerful referral channel that drives their growth to over $175k MRR.
• Vladimir Blagojevic of Fullfunnel.io shared their strategy of co-hosting partner webinars with other martech companies that serve the same audience. These joint events generated over 2,000 signups and led to several closed deals.
• The team at Showpad co-creates high-value content with partners, such as breakfast meetings and roundtables with analysts and prospects. These events provide deep insights for attendees and generate highly qualified enterprise leads.
• Ashish Agarwal of Appbroda explained their partnership with Google. By helping developers better monetize their apps, Google’s ecosystem becomes stronger, and Appbroda gains credibility and access to a massive developer community, helping them reach a $2M run rate.
• AJ Eckstein from Creator Match detailed their co-marketing strategy where they partner with creators to produce authentic sponsored content. This approach provides brands with trusted endorsements and helps creators monetize their influence.
• Kirsty Finlayson of Chameleon runs co-marketing experiments like offering interactive demos on high-traffic partner blogs. This tactic increased their conversion rate from 1% to 3% for engaged visitors.
• Sri Swaminathan of Factors.ai described how they built a free “LinkedIn Adsor” tool as a lead magnet. This co-branded tool, promoted with partners, generates over 200 signups from companies wanting to analyze competitor ads.
• Alina Vandenberghe of Chili Piper shared how they created an event with partners and influencers called “The Pre-Demi.” This joint event elevated their brand and drove significant pipeline by providing immense value to the marketing community.

Step 3: Launching Co-Branded Campaigns

• GetAccept’s CEO grew ARR to $1.7 million by running co-marketing campaigns with partners like HubSpot, which included joint webinars and co-branded newsletters sent to their combined audiences.
• Martin from Fincom described their co-branded webinar strategy with larger, more established companies. These webinars give them access to a wider audience and have become a key lead generation channel.
• Mogens Møller, CEO of Sleeknote, uses content marketing as a primary channel, creating valuable blog posts and case studies with partners to drive traffic and new customers, helping them reach $120k MRR.
• Sean Leonard of ActiveDEMAND shared that partner webinars have been a highly effective channel for them. By collaborating with vendors that focus on agencies, they tap into a targeted audience and generate high-quality leads.
• The CEO of EasyReder mentioned their co-branded guest post with NS1, which served as a thought leadership piece and drove significant referral traffic.
• Postalytics’ CEO described their deep co-marketing and co-selling relationship with HubSpot. This partnership has been their primary growth driver, helping them scale to $135k MRR in just over a year.
• Will Shaw, founder of Marketing Connected, launched his company by lining up affiliate partnerships in advance. This allowed him to secure his first 10 users within the first week of launching.
• Emeric Ernoult, CEO of AgoraPulse, explained that running webinars with partners is a key growth lever for them, allowing them to tap into new audiences and build relationships with other players in their industry.
• The team at Engagio executes multi-channel “plays” with partners to reach target accounts. A simple example is a co-branded email from their CEO to a partner’s CEO, which is far more effective than a standard marketing email.
• Dave Currie of Winmo made a strategic shift from paid search to content marketing, collaborating with partners to create high-value content that drives inbound leads and positions them as industry experts.

Step 4: Tracking and Sharing Success

• Surfer SEO’s CEO, Michał Suski, explained that their affiliate program, which pays a 30% recurring commission, was a key factor in scaling to over $10M. This incentivized thousands of marketers to review and promote their product.
• Yuryi Ferber from BRITech Global detailed their “partner now, buy later” model, where they establish a revenue-sharing agreement with a partner. This allows them to test product-market fit before committing to an acquisition, with the partnership driving two-thirds of their growth in 2021.
• Zach Hedges, CEO of AIMI, used a two-tier affiliate program that paid 30% on the first tier and 10% on the second. This model helped them acquire their first 250 customers and generate over $20,000 in MRR right out of the gate.
• Bryn Jones of GrowSumo built a marketplace for influencer programs. Their model involves charging an annual platform fee plus a 10% take rate on all payouts made to influencers, creating a revenue model that scales with their customers’ success.
• The founder of Fullfunnel.io explained how they partner with martech companies on a non-transactional basis initially, co-creating content and building relationships. This strategy builds trust and eventually leads to valuable, revenue-generating partnerships.
• Ari Salafia from TaxTaker uses affiliate agreements where she pays partners 10-20% of the first-year deal value. This incentivizes them to refer clients and has been a key to their capital-efficient growth.
• The CEO of Chatdesk, Aneto Okonkwo, utilizes a usage-based pricing model. This means that as their partners’ businesses grow and ticket volumes increase, Chatdesk’s revenue grows as well, aligning their success with their customers’.
• Alison Murdock from Trusted CMO advises that all marketing team members should be on a commission structure tied to the profitability and growth of the business, ensuring everyone is aligned and accountable for revenue-generating outcomes.
• The CEO of CrazyLister uses a multi-tiered affiliate program to incentivize partners. Their top partners, who drive the most business, receive the highest commission rates, creating a performance-based system that rewards success.
• Martin, the founder of fincom.co, uses co-branded webinars with partners who have a larger audience. This strategy helps them attract leads and build credibility, with a simple tracking system to measure the success of each joint event.
• Max, the CEO of Orgos, leverages comparator sites as affiliates, paying them 15% of the first-year ACV on a monthly basis. This ensures that partners are rewarded for driving customers who stick around.

Conclusion

You’ve just learned how to leverage Partner Co-Marketing to generate millions in revenue, with actionable strategies from over 40 top SaaS founders. By identifying strategic partners, creating joint value, launching coordinated campaigns, and sharing success, you can build a powerful, capital-efficient growth engine. To get started with your own growth initiatives or to secure non-dilutive funding to scale your marketing efforts, explore the resources available at Founderpath.

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