37 Ways to Convince Sponsors to Pay You $10k for a Mention

In this article, you will learn the exact sponsorship playbook top software CEOs use to acquire new users and generate millions in revenue, complete with real-world examples. By observing how companies like Sprinto and Surfer SEO have engineered partnerships, you’ll see how to turn other brands’ audiences into your own stream of customers.

You’ll get the 4-step playbook to launch your own sponsorship strategy, in addition to dozens of case studies you can use as inspiration. These examples were collected directly from CEOs with combined revenues in the billions when they keynoted Founderpath events.

The 4-Step Playbook For Sponsorship Marketing

1. Identify Strategic Allies: The foundation of any successful sponsorship is finding the right partner. Focus on companies, platforms, or influencers who already serve your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) but are not direct competitors. The key is to find an audience overlap where a partnership provides mutual value. For example, James Isilay of Cognism built a powerful go-to-market motion by targeting audiences of adjacent tools, recognizing that customers using one type of sales intelligence are open to others that complement their stack.
2. Engineer a Win-Win Partnership: Your offer to a potential partner must be compelling and mutually beneficial. This doesn’t always mean direct payment. It could be a generous recurring affiliate commission, a valuable co-marketing opportunity, or a free tool that solves a problem for their customers. Sprinto’s CEO, Pritesh Vora, masterfully executed this by turning their “powered by” badge into an affiliate link, giving their users a direct financial incentive to keep the badge on their sites, which drove both brand exposure and new sign-ups.
3. Integrate and Co-Market for Seamless Promotion: The most effective sponsorships feel organic to the end-user. Instead of a disruptive ad, aim to embed your brand naturally into your partner’s ecosystem. This could manifest as a “powered by” link, a deep product integration that enhances both products, co-hosted content like webinars, or a sponsored mention in a trusted newsletter. Surfer SEO’s partnership with Jasper is a prime example, where they integrated their SEO guidelines directly into Jasper’s AI writing tool, creating a seamless experience that drove 20% of their total revenue.
4. Leverage Shared Authority for Exponential Growth: A successful sponsorship is more than just a transaction; it’s a transfer of trust. When a respected brand or influencer advocates for your product, their authority lends you credibility. This social proof accelerates adoption and drives high-quality leads far more effectively than traditional advertising. Expandi’s founder, Stefan Smulders, built relationships with micro-influencers who became genuine advocates, providing powerful video testimonials that established trust and drove significant growth.

40+ Examples of Sponsorship in Action

• Pritesh Vora from Sprinto turned their “powered by” badge into an affiliate link, offering users a commission for sign-ups generated through the badge. This incentive led to an 80-90% retention rate on the badge, dramatically increasing their brand exposure and user acquisition.
• Lucjan Suski, CEO of Surfer SEO, revealed that a single deep integration partnership with the AI writing tool Jasper now accounts for 20% of their revenue, showcasing the power of embedding a product into a complementary workflow. They pay a 30% lifetime commission.
• The team at ShopperApproved executed a brilliant “powered by” strategy by partnering with the direct competitors of companies acquired by their rival, Yotpo. They co-branded the partners’ software, effectively using their rivals’ M&A strategy to fuel their own growth and generate new revenue.
• Stefan Smulders of Expandi shared how he built relationships with micro-influencers who became powerful brand advocates, providing video testimonials and promoting the tool to their communities, which was key to scaling past a $7M run rate.
• Sri Swaminathan of Factors.ai detailed how he secured strategic partnerships with major platforms like G2 and LinkedIn. These long-term efforts, which took over 1.5 years to cultivate, now provide sponsored event opportunities and access to a massive, targeted customer base, helping them reach a $2M run rate.
• ConvertKit founder Nathan Barry explained his early growth strategy of sponsoring niche newsletters. This allowed him to get directly in front of his ideal customers—creators and bloggers—in a trusted environment, building brand awareness that fueled his climb to over $2M in monthly revenue.
• Kyle Poyar at OpenView highlighted Webflow’s community strategy, where they created a showcase for designers to feature their work. This user-generated content not only fostered a loyal community but also generated powerful, long-tail SEO that continuously attracts new users.
• Michał Suski from Surfer SEO emphasized the impact of their affiliate program, which offers a 30% recurring commission. This competitive offer attracted over 3,000 affiliate marketers who created a massive volume of positive reviews and tutorials, dominating search results and driving over $1.5M in revenue in 2022.
• Max Rofagha, CEO of Finimize, uses sponsorships in his newsletter to monetize his audience of over 1 million members. This advertising model provides a significant revenue stream while offering financial institutions a direct channel to a highly relevant audience.
• Mark Abbott of 90.io explained that 40% of their clients come through business coaches who act as affiliates. By building software for an existing movement (EOS), they tapped into a network of trusted advisors who naturally promote their tool.
• Sophie Buonassisi from GTMfund described how Pocus built a powerful growth flywheel by creating media and community around their product from an early stage, establishing themselves as thought leaders and attracting their ideal customers organically.
• Eric Siu of Single Grain revealed that building attention and community first is the key to monetization. He built a podcast audience of 2 million monthly downloads before leveraging it, illustrating that an engaged community is a powerful asset for future sponsorship and product opportunities.
• Cognism’s CEO, James Isilay, highlighted the value of having industry experts on his board, like the former head of corporate development at ZoomInfo. This strategic relationship provided invaluable expertise and connections that helped guide his company’s growth and M&A strategy.
• Ze, the CEO of High Conversion, detailed a partnership model where they work with major e-commerce platforms like Magento to co-develop best practices. This strategy positions them as trusted experts and gives them direct access to a large pool of qualified merchants.
• Victor from Crazy Lister mentioned that he unsuccessfully tried to sponsor eBay radio. While this specific attempt failed, it shows an experimental approach to finding niche sponsorship channels that reach a target audience.
• The founder of Shopper Approved explained how they built a network of ambassadors with top LinkedIn influencers. These influencers promote a free “data diagnostic” tool, which serves as a lead magnet and funnels new customers into their ecosystem, proving that value-first partnerships can be highly effective.
• Bridget Harris of YouCanBook.me explained their growth is driven by a powerful viral loop. The tool’s freemium model and “powered by” link on booking pages mean that millions of people are exposed to the brand organically every year, creating a self-sustaining acquisition channel.
• The CEO of ConvertKit, Nathan Barry, detailed his strategy of sponsoring niche newsletters to gain traction. This approach allowed him to tap into existing, trusted communities of his ideal users (creators), which was instrumental in growing the company to over $1.5 million in monthly revenue.
• Garrett from Directli leverages review sites by essentially paying to be ranked number one in his category. This ensures high visibility and captures high-intent buyers who are actively comparing solutions, turning partner platforms into a predictable lead source.
• AJ Eckstein, founder of Creator Match, explained how his platform connects brands like HubSpot with LinkedIn creators for sponsored posts. This model humanizes the brand and leverages the trusted voice of influencers to reach niche B2B audiences authentically.
• Mergify’s founder, Julien Danjou, got his first customers by leveraging his activity in open-source communities. By providing value and building a reputation, word-of-mouth spread, and developers who used his tool on pet projects brought it into their full-time jobs.
• The CEO of QA Symphony explained that a close partnership with Atlassian was paramount to their growth. By building a unique and differentiated integration with Jira, they became an essential part of the ecosystem for large enterprises, driving adoption and sales.
• Samir, the founder of GetAccept, drives significant lead flow through partnerships with CRMs like HubSpot and Pipedrive. They engage in co-marketing activities like joint newsletters and webinars, leveraging the partner’s established audience to acquire new customers.
• CJ Gustafson of Mostly Metrics landed his first major sponsor, Brex, by building an authentic operator-led newsletter for CFOs. This demonstrates that creating high-value, niche content can attract powerful brand sponsors looking to reach a targeted audience.
• Sean Ellis, who coined “growth hacking,” explained that Eventbrite’s growth was fueled by a natural viral loop where event attendees are exposed to the platform and become potential future organizers. This inherent product-led sponsorship is a powerful, low-cost acquisition model.
• Will Shaw of Marketing Connected launched his company by lining up affiliate marketing partnerships from day one. He offered a 20% commission for the first 12 months, which incentivized partners to promote his tool and drove his first 10 customers within a week.
• Paul Lynch, CEO of Assembla, mentioned that his company sponsors and attends targeted conferences like GDC (Game Developers Conference). This allows them to “press the flesh” and connect directly with their ideal customer profile in a focused environment.
• Ashish Agarwal from AppBroda fosters partnerships with major ad networks like Google. Since his tool helps developers optimize ad revenue, the networks are interested in partnering because his success directly contributes to their bottom line.
• Growth Marketing Conference CEO Vasil Azarov shared that the majority of his 7,500+ event registrations come from partnerships with speakers and media partners like GrowthHackers and SEMrush. This co-promotion strategy is a cornerstone of his event’s success.
• Oskar, the CEO of Force Manager, discussed using sponsorships to build brand awareness. While not a direct lead generation tool for them, being present at key industry events helps establish credibility and supports their outbound sales efforts.
• John Fields of Grow Your Base has a unique sponsorship model where brands like the Joe Rogan Experience podcast sponsor “assignments” for users to complete in exchange for crypto tokens. This incentivizes engagement and grows the brand’s audience.
• The CEO of Hubb, Ali Magyar, got her start by managing large technology conferences for Microsoft. This deep partnership and understanding of the enterprise event space allowed her to build and validate her product before spinning it out into its own successful company.
• Shai, the founder of Fleek, utilized a lifetime deal promotion on AppSumo to gain initial traction. This strategy gave them exposure to 500 companies, seeded their user base, and helped kickstart their “powered by” viral loop.
• Aspire Ship’s founder, Corey Kossack, partners with organizations like The Teacher Career Coach. His partner promotes Aspire Ship as a pathway for teachers transitioning into tech sales, creating a steady stream of qualified candidates for his talent marketplace.
• Todd Olson from Pendo shared how his company acquired a mobile analytics company to expand their product offering. This strategic acquisition allowed them to create a more comprehensive platform and immediately upsell their existing enterprise customer base on the new capabilities.
• Alison Murdock of Trusted CMO explained how early-stage marketing can create a market by partnering with beta customers. By talking to these early adopters, you can validate product-market fit and co-create a solution that they will champion and refer to others.
• Josh Newman of Clatter plans to use agency partnerships as a key growth channel. By offering a white-label version of his product, other marketing agencies can resell his tool to their clients, creating a scalable and capital-efficient distribution network.
• Spencer Coon from Beamer explained that their “powered by Beamer” watermark, which appears on their in-app widget, is a major source of referrals. As they land high-profile customers like Intercom and Hotjar, their brand is exposed to millions of users who become potential new customers.
• The CEO of Chatdesk, Aneto Okonkwo, gets a foot in the door with major brands by offering a low-cost social media moderation service. Once they prove value, they leverage the relationship and the data they’ve gathered to upsell clients on higher-value services like 24/7 email and SMS support.
• Yuryi Ferber of BRITech Global uses a “partner now, buy later” strategy to expand his product portfolio. He partners with adjacent products, validates the market fit with his customer base via a revenue-share agreement, and then has the option to acquire the partner if the collaboration is successful, mitigating M&A risk.
• Dave Lee from PlusThis gets a significant portion of new customers through marketing automation consultants who act as resellers. These partners recommend and implement PlusThis for their clients, creating a valuable and scalable sales channel.

Conclusion

You just learned how over 40 top SaaS founders use sponsorships to add millions in revenue. From embedding “powered by” affiliate links to forging deep strategic alliances, the common thread is leveraging the audience and authority of others. This playbook isn’t about massive budgets; it’s about creatively engineering win-win scenarios that drive sustainable, capital-efficient growth. To get capital to fuel your own growth playbooks, consider using Founderpath to get funding in days without giving up equity.

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