To support revenue and growth goals, vendors need to track the right key performance indicators (KPIs) and data to optimize their partner marketing strategies. This list of the top 9 metrics that matter most to effective channel marketing will help you make data-driven decisions that accelerate revenue and increase ROI.
1. Time to Onboard a Partner
Effective and efficient channel partner onboarding can improve partner engagement, increase revenue, and decrease attrition. It can also help you optimize your resources at every stage of the partner journey.
Time to onboard a channel partner is the time it takes a partner to go from first joining your program to becoming fully proficient and mostly self-sufficient. This differs by vendor and depends on product complexity and program elements, but typically takes between one year and 18 months.
For tracking purposes, break your program into phases, starting with the first 90 days — which are the most important to onboarding success — followed by 6 months, 1 year, and 18 months. Then set enablement engagement expectations to track for each period. For the first 90 days, for example, you might track:
By tracking these milestones, you can determine which partners need extra enablement support, which are strong partners from the start, and which lack self-directed engagement.
2. Time to Partner Revenue
After you connect with partners, whether you’ve met them during a channel event, or they’ve visited your partner program landing page through an email or social media campaign — how long is it before they deliver incoming revenue streams?
Think of this metric as an extension of time to partner onboarding and the value source of your partner programs. For simple, fast spin-up partner programs you want to see shorter turnarounds for this metric. Partners bringing more complex technologies and solutions to market may have a longer runway — but that’s to be expected.
3. Partner Attrition Rates
Tracking partner attrition rates (PARs) is essential to determining the level of partner churn or turnover. How many partners are shifting from engaged to disengaged in a year? This is considered ‘passive attrition.’ How many leave your program altogether, or cancel a service or subscription? This is called ‘active attrition.’
Clarity on this KPI can help you spot challenges in your overall partner program or specific areas. Seeing attrition rates rise is a clear indicator you need to reassess your program and its key features. Perhaps your technical training processes need to be easier to access or offer options for varied learning styles. Possibly your pre-built marketing materials need a refresh. Maybe your rebates aren’t competitive enough in the current marketplace.
4. Partner Lifetime Value
Partner lifetime value (PLV) is a measurement of the value one channel partner brings across the lifetime of your business relationship. PLV measures the success of channel partnerships by evaluating these 4 areas:
1. Engagement and collaboration 2. Commitment and loyalty 3. Training and education 4. Velocity and resource expansionAn accurate PLV depends on track three other metrics:
With this metric, you’ll be able to determine the optimal balance of cost and effort put towards recruiting new channel partners versus improving engagement and outcomes with the ones you already have in your program. It can also areas to improve engagement and revenue for low-scoring partners and maintain consistent returns from high-scoring ones. For instance, you may uncover key improvements, such as:
5. Partner Asset and Program Engagement
Tracking channel partners’ training engagement, utilization of pre-built campaign assets, and participation in other program activities pinpoints which dedicated partners are taking the time to understand and promote your brand.
Here are a few metrics to keep an eye on that’ll ultimately help you measure unique channel partner activity:
As with partner attrition rates, this metric will also spotlight areas to boost the value of your program portal, incentives, and enablement and campaign content.
6. Sales Acceptance Leads
Sales acceptance leads (SALs) are marketing qualified leads (MQLs) that have been formally accepted by your sales team — and they’re a metric too often overlooked by channel leaders in the lead management process.
SALs are ‘warm’ leads typically qualified based on criteria such as job function, company size, industry classification, and the presence/accuracy of information about the lead. Nurture activities are especially impactful with SALs, so you should establish plans to jumpstart outreach when SALs come through and minimize lost leads. Here are helpful actions to take:
7. Funnel Advancement and Partner Pipeline Growth
Funnel advancement tracks user actions throughout the funnel and tells you how many visitors make it through each step of the funnel, highlighting problems or areas for improvement in the customer journey with the goal of increasing conversion rates and revenue.
Partner pipeline growth provides insights into the sales stage of prospects and the number of deals likely to close.
In combination, these insights empower you to forecast revenue with greater accuracy and provides actionable data on prospect behavior at each pipeline stage. This can reveal how all partners contribute to meeting targets, where partners are skipping pipeline stages, and other actionable data to improve your partner sales pipelines.
8. MDF Capacity Utilization Rate
Marketing development funds (MDF) are resources vendors offer channel partners to support sales and marketing programs. They’re an integral part of any channel marketing strategy and vendor partner program success. You can calculate your MDF Capacity Utilization Rate across your entire program, and by partner. Either way, the calculation looks like this:
Total MDF Utilized divided by Total MDF Allocated multiplied by 100, or: (MDF Utilized / Total MDF Allocated) x 100.
Consider a partner that had $10,000 in allocated MDF and only used $7,500 within the agreed timeline. Their utilization rate would be $7,500 divided by $10,000, which comes to .75. Multiply that by 100 and you determine the partner had a 75% MDF utilization rate.
Ideally, you want partners using most or all their MDF, so long as they are using the funds effectively and the utilization yields measurable returns.
9. MDF Return on Investment (ROI)
This KPI can guide decisions about which campaigns to replicate and which aren’t working, as well as which partners are effectively using MDF, and which are not. To calculate MDF ROI, you need to track MDF expenditures (which includes MDF allocated to partners, MDF program staff and administrative costs) and the total revenue generated through your MDF program.
The MDF ROI calculation looks like this:
MDF Revenue Generated minus MDF Expenditures divided by MDF Expenditures multiplied by 100, or: ((MDF Revenue Generated – MDF Expenditures) / MDF Expenditures) x 100.
Consider another partner who spent $10,000 in MDF on campaigns that generated $15,000 in net revenue. Calculate their MDF ROI by subtracting $10,000 from $15,000 which equals $5,000. Then divide that $5,000 by $10,000, which comes to 0.5. Multiply .5 by 100 to determine a 50% MDF ROI for this partner.
Even the best partner programs should always be works in progress. As technologies and markets evolve and shift, your partner program should change to meet new partner needs and adapt for continued success. Engage these 9 metrics to track any gaps in your program and spot opportunities to optimize outcomes.
For support tracking partner program metrics and optimizing results, connect with The Channel Company Agency and our team of partner program enablement and marketing experts.
