B2B partner guide: How to hack growth with brand collaborations

Joining up with a business-to-business (B2B) partner is a fast, cost-effective way to generate leads and credibility without increasing headcount.

Not all collaborations are smooth. For many SMBs, partnerships fail due to limited time, unclear ownership or uncertainty about what’s actually delivering value.

This guide explains how common B2B partner types suit different SMB objectives and walks you through the full partnership lifecycle, from finding and onboarding partners to collaborating day-to-day and measuring the outcomes.

Key takeaways on B2B partners

• B2B partnerships involve two or more companies working together to achieve goals sooner or more cost-effectively than each could individually.

• Common types of B2B partners include referral partners and affiliates, resellers, technical integration partners and co-marketers.

• Successful partnerships can quickly enhance a brand’s credibility, reach, audience engagement, operational efficiency or product value.

• Start a free 14-day trial of Pipedrive today to see how customer relationship management and project management software can organize, guide and measure your B2B partnerships.

What is a B2B partner?

A B2B partner is another B2B company you collaborate with to reach shared or complementary goals.

By combining strengths, two or more small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) can achieve results that would be harder, slower or more expensive to reach independently.

A mutually beneficial B2B partnership may involve generating leads together, expanding into new markets, strengthening credibility or improving product offerings.

For example, Pipedrive partners with customer relationship management (CRM) consultants to provide guided implementations and training, advanced customization and general sales software advice.

In practice, consulting partners such as Motii and Upsmart handle onboarding and implementation, while Pipedrive focuses on support and lead generation.

Here are some of the other tech companies in Pipedrive’s B2B partner program:

This setup provides consultants with a trusted platform they can confidently recommend to clients. They also get a steady flow of qualified opportunities and tools that help them deliver better results.

Meanwhile, Pipedrive helps users get more out of its product without requiring internal resources. Those stronger customer experiences help improve retention and profitability.

Other types of B2B partners include sponsors, co-marketers, resellers and distributors. Using a mix of relationships can help you achieve various objectives and different stages of growth.

The 4 main types of B2B partners (and when to work with each)

Understanding standard B2B partnership models will help you pick the right approach for your goals. It’ll save you from investing in relationships that don’t help your business’s bottom line.

Here are four popular B2B partnerships to consider and when they work best:

1. Referral and affiliate program partners

Referral and affiliate partners recommend your product or service to their audience in exchange for an agreed-upon incentive.

The two models rely on recommendations but work slightly differently:

Referral programs are relatively low-effort to set up and scale because they use relationships that you build naturally through sales and good service.

That head start makes them a solid starting point for startups and small businesses with limited resources.

Affiliate partnerships typically require more time to set up and maintain, making them better suited for businesses with established products and higher deal volumes.

Best for: lead generation, pipeline growth, low-effort partnerships

2. Co-marketing partners

Co-marketing partners create and promote content together to build on each other’s appeal and authority.

Popular forms of co-marketing content are:

• Co-hosted webinars

• Guides that borrow from both companies’ expertise

• Email marketing campaigns targeting combined audiences

• Product-focused case studies

Co-marketing suits brands that solve different problems for overlapping audiences. Partnering means they can pool resources to improve market reach and impact without doubling effort or spending.

Joint marketing strategies are most useful earlier in the sales funnel, where awareness and credibility matter more than immediate sales.

Best for: brand awareness, demand generation, audience growth

3. Integration and product partners

Integration and product partners work together to improve or extend the capabilities of each other’s solutions.

These partnerships can involve bundle deals, technical integrations or a collaborative solution to a specific problem.

Product-based partnerships are especially valuable to software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies looking to increase product value without investing heavily in product development.

Best for: product value, customer retention, brand credibility

4. Resellers

Resellers promote and sell products on a partner company’s behalf, either as a standalone solution or bundled with other services.

The resale model works well when a partner already has trusted relationships with an audience in a specific region or industry.

• Resellers earn a margin in return for handling sales and, in some cases, first-line support

• Original vendors expand their reach without hiring new salespeople or support agents

For example, digital transformation agencies often resell operating systems and cybersecurity software as part of their broader services.

This arrangement means they can provide high-quality solutions without needing to develop or maintain their own products.

Best for: geographic reach, industry penetration, market expansion

How to choose the right B2B partners (with a free scorecard)

The first step in effective B2B collaboration is identifying the right partners.

More than just surface-level similarities, you need clear alignment on who owns what, how to share leads and how you’ll measure success – all from day one.

Here’s how to spot the right opportunities and forge fruitful, mutually beneficial relationships.

Step 1: Set your goals

Different partnership types suit different goals, so start by asking yourself, “What are we trying to achieve?”.

If your sales team performs well but the pipeline is typically quiet, focus on tactics that support lead generation, such as referral partners and affiliates. Their reach should give reps more to work with.

If you’re looking to enter a new market, get a head start by borrowing the trust of resellers or local service providers. With an easy way in, you can begin building momentum.

For example, a small SaaS firm targeting a new region could start by partnering with one local consultancy that already serves its ideal customers. It might test joint webinars and co-selling before expanding the model further.

Other reasons to find B2B partners include:

• Growing customer retention by extending product value

• Improving company resilience by filling skills gaps

• Increasing average deal size by bundling third-party solutions

• Speeding up time-to-market by sharing distribution or delivery

In addition to narrowing down the right partner types, clear goals will help you select the best-fit key performance indicators (KPIs). More to come on measuring success.

Step 2: Use a partner-fit scorecard

A simple scorecard helps you compare potential partners objectively, instead of chasing big names for the wrong reasons or defaulting to companies you already know.

Your scorecard doesn’t need to be complex. Just use the few criteria that directly affect partnership success.

Here’s a simple template with sample answers:

Scoring every potential partner by the same objective criteria reduces gut-feel decisions. It’ll help your internal team agree on which opportunities to pursue, so that everyone buys in.

Step 3: Identify red flags early

Ruling out bad-fit collaborators early helps you avoid chasing results that were never realistic to begin with – saving time and money.

Even if a potential partner aces your scorecard, treat the following signs as cues to keep looking:

• It’s unclear who at the partner’s business will manage the collaboration

• The primary contact communicates slowly or inconsistently

• The partner promises results without a clear plan or timeline

• The company has a pattern of negative reviews or unresolved complaints

These red flags signal gaps in ownership, expectations or execution. If a company can’t get its operations in order, it probably can’t support a structured, reliable partnership either.

Addressing those issues makes it easier to focus on partnerships that are worth investing time in and setting up properly.

Setting up and onboarding new partners

When you’ve chosen the right partner, focus on setting them up to work independently and effectively as quickly as possible.

Strong onboarding is all about getting the right assets, workflows and ownership in place from day one.

Here’s how to do that:

• Define the offer and operating model. Agree on what the partnership involves at a practical level: how you’ll share leads or opportunities, who owns responsibilities, what success looks like, etc. Clear expectations prevent confusion once real prospects enter the pipeline.

• Help partners understand your brand. Provide messaging guidance, key talking points and product walkthroughs to help new partners become fully immersed in your business.

• Set up joint technology workflows and visibility. Use sales and project management software to structure your work together. A CRM is ideal for tagging partner-sourced leads and automating follow-ups. Project management tools keep specific responsibilities clear. Integrating both parties’ tools keeps partnership data consistent.

For example, in Pipedrive’s CRM, you can create separate sales pipelines for all your B2B partnerships.

Here’s the sales pipeline view in action:

With activity and outcomes organized by partner, it’s easier to track new leads through the customer lifecycle and know which collaborations deliver real value. Once you know that, you can make better decisions about where to invest resources.

As Flowlio CEO Stephen Repton explains for the Association for Project Management (APM):

3 simple tips to optimize partnership benefits

All too often, B2B collaborations start with energy but fizz out and quietly stall.

Here’s how to protect productivity throughout your entire collaboration, ensuring both sides work in sync and the collaboration consistently contributes to company goals.

1. Co-market regularly and keep it simple

Plan regular co-marketing activities to keep both brands visible and provide partners with a reason to stay engaged.

Small, frequent promotional activities can work just as well as big-budget campaigns, as long as you’re consistent.

Low-to-mid-effort activities that are easy to collaborate on include:

• Quarterly webinars or workshops. Shape the chat like an interview with a subject matter expert from your partner company, then invite audience questions at the end.

• Shared blog content or guest posts. Repurpose existing assets from both sides by adding each other’s perspectives. Search engines reward content that demonstrates expertise and authority by making it more visible in results pages.

• Joint case studies (if you’ve helped customers together). Focus on one clear win and keep the format light. A straightforward challenge-solution-results narrative is impactful. You can also tell the story through a written-up Q&A session with a customer.

Schedule all marketing activities in a project management tool to keep responsibilities clear.

Relevant team members from both sides should be able to see the next actions and deadlines for every task.

2. Share performance insights with all stakeholders

Share performance insights regularly so both sides understand what’s working and what needs further attention.

Transparency keeps partnerships aligned. It stops frustration from building up over time.

A brief weekly check-in that highlights a few key performance indicators will help keep stakeholders engaged.

Use yours to focus on these important KPIs:

• The number of new leads generated – focus on qualified leads for the clearest view of effectiveness

• Engagement with co-marketing efforts – is your message making it to the right audience?

• Common objections from shared prospects – where are your sales funnel’s most significant friction points?

You’ll find key performance data in your CRM and project management tools. It’ll save time and manual data wrangling if you can automate periodic reports showing your partnership’s KPIs.

Here’s what a sales performance report looks like in Pipedrive, which allows you to filter sales data for the most helpful view:

Knowing which metrics to track and where – and having the right tools to collate them – is critical to ensuring collaborative work translates to revenue.

More to come on which metrics matter to B2B partnerships, including a simple reference guide.

3. Continually review and streamline the partnership

Schedule regular reviews to assess goals, roles and expectations as shared and individual priorities change.

Poor results don’t automatically mean a partnership isn’t worthwhile.

When the issue is down to tactics rather than structure, small changes based on performance data can quickly restore mutual benefits, just as they would in your own sales and marketing work.

Use monthly or quarterly reviews (depending on the collaboration’s scope and length) to:

• Double down on activities that give you both a competitive advantage

• Pause tactics that aren’t delivering the desired results

• Decide whether the partnership should grow, narrow or wind down

For example, if co-marketing webinars attract lots of attendees but few qualified leads, the problem might be audience targeting or the call-to-action rather than the partnership itself.

Likewise, if referrals from a partner convert well, it often makes sense to invest more in enablement or joint promotion to increase volume.

Regular reviews help you spot these patterns early, adjust direction and protect momentum.

Key metrics for measuring partnership success

B2B partnership strategies help sales and marketing goals at different points in the funnel, from early visibility to closed revenue. It means the signals that matter most vary by partnership type.

The table below outlines the most useful B2B partnership metrics and where to find them in your tools.

Use it as a reference when building dashboards and reports for your partnership program.

For example, if Pipedrive’s email analytics show strong engagement from a partner’s joint marketing activity but low conversions, the issue is likely tactical. You might reassess audience targeting or test a more direct CTA with your partner.

You can generate performance and conversion reports for specific email campaigns (e.g., a B2B partnership campaign) in Campaigns’ email insights tool. The setup looks like this:

On the other hand, if Pipedrive’s pipeline and conversion reports show that partner-sourced deals close at higher rates than other deals, it’s a strong signal to invest more in joint promotion or co-selling.

B2B partner FAQs

Final thoughts

All of the most effective B2B partnerships share clear goals, simple processes and visibility into what actually generates revenue.

Once you establish those foundations, partnerships will stop feeling like side projects and start becoming crucial to your business growth strategy.

CRM software helps bring that structure together by keeping partner activity visible and measurable alongside your existing sales work. See the partnership benefits of a sales CRM for yourself with a free 14-day trial of Pipedrive.