When you think of PartnerStack, you might first think of affiliate partnerships. Or maybe you think of partner ops, partner training, payouts and reporting. Basically, you might think of the platform powering the back end of your partnership engine. A modern PRM.
PartnerStack is also the world’s largest B2B partnerships network. Accessing the PartnerStack Network gives vendors an opportunity to connect with partners as intent on growing their revenue as you are — PartnerStack’s Network delivers more than $45M in annual commissions paid to partners.
Now that’s what we call business.
Below, we’re exploring why the PartnerStack Network continues to be such a boon for enterprise SaaS companies with help from PartnerStack’s Senior Biz Ops Manager, Arnaud Van Branteghem. But first, a quick primer on the PartnerStack Network’s scope and purpose.
What’s the PartnerStack Network?
The Partnerstack Network is a curated collection of over 80,000 active partners and over 300 SaaS companies. The seeds of the Network started as PartnerStack itself began to scale.
As PartnerStack onboarded more B2B SaaS companies, it became clear there was a need for greater control over partner operations. Vendors needed a simple way to recruit more top-of-the-line partners to their programs.
So an idea was sparked. Why not connect partners and vendors directly to one another ?
And a marketplace was born. Not only would this Network improve the quality of partners PartnerStack customers were recruiting, it would also boost their brand awareness, help them better organize and segment their partner program and save them ample time on research and outreach.
As Van Branteghem puts it, “In an ocean full of fish, it’s about catching the right ones and that’s what the PartnerStack Network is all about. When you join, you instantly gain access to a wide catalog of highly qualified partners that you can seek out based on geography, commission structure, industry or virtually any other company attribute.”
5 ways the PartnerStack Network levels up enterprise SaaS partner programs
1. Availability of high-quality partners
True measures of success aren’t related to how many partners you enroll, they’re related to how revenue your partners generate. And that output relies heavily on the quality of partners that you source.
Onboard hundreds of uncommitted partners, you’ve got yourself a vanity metric. Onboard tens of partners that fit your ideal profile, are big names in your industry and have sway with your customer audience? Now you’ve got real KPIs.
The PartnerStack Network is 80,000 partners deep, but as you can probably guess, that’s not the only thing that makes it so valuable. These 80,000 partners also:
- Vary in size
- Bring value to their industry
- Are highly committed to doing business with other organizations
- Have run successful programs and campaigns before
- Drive real revenue for other partners and vendors in the Network
Bringing in the best of B2B SaaS was no accident. The Network is strategically optimized for variety and quality to make it broad enough and strong enough to power enterprise SaaS revenue — no matter the market or industry. And the team continues to accept partners manually.
Van Branteghem explains, “Not every vendor is accepted to our Network, and that’s on purpose.”
He continues, “We review every application to ensure new joiners already have a solid partner program, have the headcount to continue managing it, and match the characteristics other organizations in the Network are looking for. This offers both parties a quality experience.”
Related: How to effectively use PartnerStack’s partner discovery tool.
2. Efficiency and time savings in partner recruiting
Google, competitor research and LinkedIn only get you so far when you’re prospecting partners. Even if you get a few bites from hundreds of cold messages, you won’t know for sure that a partner fits your ideal profile until you meet with them. Repeating this joint outreach and qualification exercise over and over eats up valuable time that you could be spending going to market with strategic partners.
The Network, on the other hand, serves up the right partners for you. No more hours wasted trying to figure out where your preferred partners gather, what kind of commission structure they have and how much ARR they pull in. The data is at your fingertips. With the PartnerStack Network’s free partner discovery tool, you can see:
- Industry
- Sales channels
- Distributor network
- Average campaign impressions, clicks and qualified leads
- Audience size
- Preferred commission structure
- Headquarters location
- Performance ratings within PartnerStack
This level of transparency ultimately accelerates partner time to value. Van Branteghem elaborates, “The Network helps our customers qualify, contact, and convert new partners faster, preparing them for the personalized onboarding and activation strategies our customers have configured in other PartnerStack modules.”
3. Exposure to hundreds of vetted publishing partners
We’ve already flashed this number a few times, but we’ll flash it again for emphasis. Where else can you get 80,000 eyeballs worth of exposure?
For partners, The PartnerStack Network instantly puts you in front of the companies you’ve always wanted to partner with like monday.com, Freshworks, Apollo.io and more .
And vendors can increase that visibility even more with the Partner Up campaign, which proactively broadcasts your organization in the Network — particularly in verticals you’re especially interested in. If you’re already a PartnerStack vendor, contact your CSM about activating this feature.
4. Expert support
The PartnerStack team is full of B2B SaaS partnership veterans who can offer insight into building the best partnership program for your organization.
First and foremost, the PartnerStack team will provide support to empower you to make the most of the platform and Network. With the resources and feedback provided, vendors within the Network can manage their programs by:
- Tweaking program settings
- Adding training and educational materials
- Adjusting commission structures
- Refining partner agreements
- Accessing reports and dashboards
Once all technical puzzle pieces are in place, CSMs serve as excellent advisors for vendors as they do the work and optimize their use of the Network. Per Van Branteghem: “They know what your ideal partners are looking for, so they are the perfect person to help you craft your organization’s profile in a way that convinces other partners, vendors, and publishers to join your program.”
CSMs also know many other high-profile PartnerStack customers in the Network, which means they can facilitate intros to other B2B SaaS companies like Webflow or Gorgias or to well-known publishers like Forbes. Plus, they have the experience to know what to say in your follow-up outreach to make your company stand out in the partner recruiting process.
5. Proven ROI
As a scaling B2B SaaS company, you can’t afford to waste your time joining a network that doesn’t produce results. You want to know going in that you’re going to get ROI.
The quality of the PartnerStack Network shows in the numbers.
For the past few years, the Network was treated as a marketplace, measuring the total volume of activity happening on the platform in the form of GMV (growth merchandise value). It’s grown exponentially — despite churn and fluctuation in the SaaS market.
In 2023, PartnerStack’s Network surpassed $1B in GMV, with an average annual growth of over 110%. PartnerStack customers continue to share positive feedback about the impact of the PartnerStack Network. For example, PandaDoc utilized the Network to recruit 80 to 85 per cent of their high-quality active partners.
Bernardo Castaneda, former Senior Manager of affiliates and Partnerships at PandaDoc, said, “80 per cent of the partners that are actually successful in both of the programs that I’ve been in were recruited through PartnerStack recruitment efforts, not ours.”
Read PandaDoc’s full customer case study here.
Maximize your partner-sourced revenue potential
The Network already generates millions of dollars in revenue for thousands of B2B SaaS companies like ZoomInfo, Apollo, and Monday.com, and it’s just getting started.
Van Branteghem shares, “I’m looking at Network data all day. Month over month, I see commissions consistently tick up. I see hundreds more vendors and partners joining the platform. And I see more and more features designed for our Network users to extract value and speed up their partner recruitment process.”
So, if you’re looking to boost brand awareness, scale partner revenue, and expand market share — all while streamlining your program’s efficiency — PartnerStack is a no-brainer.
Learn more about the Marketplace and sign up for a demo to envision what’s possible with PartnerStack’s Network.
