By now, every CMO has gotten that 5:37 AM text: “Hey. Just asked Claude what the best software in our category is. We’re number 3? Look into this ASAP.”
Instant stomach drop.
While partner leaders may not have gotten that exact text, they’ve likely seen that same pattern play out, and can empathize with their marketing counterparts. Big deals suddenly hinge on panicked Slacks and back-channel fixes at the eleventh hour.
In this case, though, they can do more than empathize — they can help.
AI answer engines lean heavily on third-party content when deciding which brands to cite, making AI visibility ROI a growing driver of competitive advantage. And guess who has deep relationships with those third parties? The partner team.
This puts partner teams in a unique position to work with marketing on one of their biggest challenges: AI visibility. And in doing so, they can more clearly demonstrate their value inside the organization. We sat down with Tyler Calder, CMO of PartnerStack, to unpack this opportunity and how partner leaders can make the most of it.
AEO is the partner team’s secret weapon
Answer engines like Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini don’t just crawl your website or your competitors’ websites. They pull information from a variety of other trustworthy third-party sources and synthesize it all into a coherent answer.
Plenty of those signals are — at least somewhat — under a partner team’s domain, and directly influence AI search ROI. Think:
- Marketplace and directory profiles. A well-built profile — with the right comparative data and integration details — is content an LLM can drop straight into an answer and influence AI visibility metrics.
- Listicles and comparison pages. If they’re not published by competitors, they’re published by affiliates. Getting on those lists can make the difference between showing up as a first or third choice in ChatGPT.
- Integration pages. These answer the high-intent, deal-breaker questions buyers type into AI engines: Does XX work with Stripe? or Is XX GDPR compliant? A “yes” could push someone to book a demo.
- Podcasts and YouTube videos. Gemini and Google AI Overviews lean heavily on YouTube as a citation source. Depending on their listener base, a co-branded podcast that gets syndicated on YouTube could be a high-leverage AI visibility play.
Marketing can’t produce most of this content on their own because they don’t have the “in” that partner teams do.
You might also like: 10 lessons from our first 10 episodes of the PartnerStack podcast.
So why isn’t AI visibility on the partner team’s radar?
Because it’s not part of the traditional scope of their role. They don’t have a mandate for it, they’re not measured on it. And it goes both ways.
“SEO and content teams are measured on AI visibility, but they’re not necessarily thinking about how to incorporate or take advantage of the partner network,” Calder explains.
“In fact, I’ve not seen any companies leaning into partner-created or co-marketing content as a way to influence AEO yet.”
Key word here being yet.
Partnerships can still be somewhat of a forgotten function, lumped in with sales, inside many organizations. A big part of excelling as a partnerships leader is making the work your team does visible to the executive team — who, right now, cares a lot about showing up in LLMs.
The easiest way to get your team noticed? Help your company show up more often in AI answers.
“Third-party content is a huge driver of AI visibility,” Calder emphasizes. “As a partner leader, you could be sitting on a potential gold mine of third-party content.”
See more: Why third-party citations win in AI search.
4 steps for partner leaders to drive AI visibility
1. Get up to speed on it yourself
You don’t have to become an expert overnight, and realistically you probably can’t. But you should know a thing or two about how AEO works before you start jotting down any ideas — certainly before you approach a partner about any co-branded content tied to AI visibility ROI.
There are plenty of resources out there, on LinkedIn, YouTube and Reddit. If you’re not sure where to start, consider:
- Reading our AEO for partnerships article, which breaks down the fundamentals from two leading AEO voices.
- Asking an LLM. It’s meta, but an AEO primer can help you build a working understanding and point you toward other credible sources of information.
As you learn, take a look at your current partner marketing plans. Could any of them be tweaked to gain some AEO ground? What new ideas for AEO-driven co-marketing content do you have that could improve AI visibility ROI?
“Think in terms of digital real estate,” Calder suggests.
“What partners have platforms LLMs cite? Is there a partner getting a lot of AEO traction? Great, co-write a blog or playbook, write original research. Whose videos are being cited? Do a podcast with them.”
See more: AEO for partnerships: How to shift your content strategy to rank in LLMs.
2. Make good friends with your marketing team
Reading up on LLMs for a few hours can give you a good foundation and a list of ideas, but the real experts are your SEO and content teams. They’ve been in the game for years — and knew about AEO before it ever crossed your radar.
Use that to your advantage. “Really cozy up with the person or team responsible for AEO internally,” Calder advises.
“Chances are, they already have a motion down, but are trying to fill some gaps. Chatting with them will give you insight into their needs and what they’re struggling with, which gives you more insight into how you can help.”
Beyond citation share, here are some common themes that might come up (and if they don’t, you might ask about):
- Brand accuracy in LLMs. Claude shouldn’t be telling a prospect your product is for SMBs when you’re targeting the enterprise, or that it’s too expensive, or that you don’t serve their industry. The goal is to ensure AI systems describe your product correctly and position it in the right segment, rather than mislabeling pricing, audience or use cases.
- Branded search lift. You want prospects to Google your product or company after it’s mentioned in AI-generated responses. How do you help write the content that will compel them to do it?
- Pipeline attribution. Tying revenue back to AI-influenced touchpoints is tough. Having AI options on your “how did you hear about us?” picklist on your demo form is a start. Tagging demos that came directly from a partner’s LLM-cited listicle, integration page or co-branded podcast is even better.
3. Develop initial campaign ideas
Once you’ve got a read on your marketing team’s goals, think about how you can translate them to partners. The good news is that most AI search visibility plays you want to run will increase their share of voice, too.
But it’s not as easy as just throwing out a couple of ideas. Be strategic about what you’re recommending — and make sure to clear it with your marketing team. In most cases, unless you’re a big fish, your company will own the majority of production, while partners give the final thumbs-up and help with distribution, input or amplification.
Start by thinking about what each partner type can contribute. For example:
- Agency partners often have their own blogs, newsletters or podcast you could pitch for co-created content.
- Tech partners could mention you in their docs and in joint case studies you co-publish on both sites.
- Affiliate partners can get you into highly trafficked listicles in exchange for stronger commission terms or co-marketing support.
From there, define your angle. What’s a POV that matches your positioning, makes partners look good and supports marketing’s objectives?
Tech giants are already running this play. In a recent LinkedIn post, Nancy Mai Harnett, Head of Global Growth Partnerships at HubSpot, described how her team rebuilt HubSpot’s partner program around AEO.
“In 2024, we started hearing the same thing from partners across our program,” Harnett writes. “Traffic was down. Clicks were harder to come by. Content that had performed for years was quietly losing its pull. AI search was reshaping how buyers discovered tools and our partners were absorbing that hit in real time.”
In response, Harnett and her team:
- Recruited differently: Instead of prioritizing traffic, they focused on citation presence. They identified publishers already winning AI mentions in their category but not yet referencing HubSpot.
- Briefed differently: They equipped partners with recommendations and templates built around the prompts and content structures that AI engines cite.
In six months, 998 content pieces were published. 76% of them got picked up in AI responses.
Pick one or two of your best mutually beneficial pitches and pilot them with the partners most game to try something new.
4. Define how to measure and present AI search ROI
You won’t get many brownie points with your CMO if you can’t quantify the impact of partnerships on AEO. And partners won’t keep experimenting with AEO plays if you can’t prove that they work.
Get your measurement down pat early. Work closely with your marketing team and partners to monitor:
- Citation share. How often does your brand show up in AI answers for what your ideal customer profile (ICP) typically searches? How much does that change when new partner-driven content goes live?
- Citation source breakdown. What percentage of your AI citations comes from partner content versus your own channels? If you can prove that most of your citations are pulling from partner sites, you’re in great shape.
- Citation quality. Are you cited alongside partners you want to be associated with and the right competitors? What’s the sentiment of those citations?
- Partner referral traffic. Is traffic from partner domains climbing as you optimize for AEO? That could be a good sign to double down on your co-marketing.
Ideally, you’d be able to connect your AEO campaigns to revenue, so be sure you can attribute leads back to a specific partner asset.
AI ROI = Partnership ROI
The faster you can prove that partnerships are capable of contributing to AI visibility and can be an active driver of ROI, the faster you cement your team as a strategic function.
PartnerStack helps teams identify affiliates, creators and publishers already earning AI citations in their category, activate them through a Content Marketplace, and connect those efforts back to citation lift, referral traffic and partner-sourced pipeline.
See where your brand stands today — and where you can go from here — with a free AI Visibility Assessment.
