A technology partner is another software vendor who your product integrates with. Technology partners can make fantastic co-marketing partners. Technology partners are other software companies that your product is built to integrate with, or who build integrations for your product themselves — a reason they’re often referred to as integration partners.

A technology partnership is when companies develop integration capabilities for each other’s product which is why it is sometimes referred to as an integration partnerships. This partnerships involves exchanging and enriching data to ultimately offer more value to the customer and end-user. Technology partners assist in generating quality leads, driving referral revenue, diversifying revenue streams, attracting new product integrations and helping close important deals.

Read more: Why you should start a technology partner program.

Through-channel marketing is a tactic to increase SaaS sales by leveraging a partner network. It's essentially like teaming up with your tech-savvy buddy to help you sell your product. A SaaS company partners with other businesses, often resellers and distributors, to tap into their existing customer networks. The benefit of leveraging this sales tactic is that instead of reinventing the wheel, you hitch a ride on their marketing and sales efforts to reach a wider audience and boost your software's visibility and adoption rate.

Also referred to as reward tiers. Tiers are essentially different compensation structures partners can be part of. Usually, each tier or level has it’s on requirements that partners need to meet in order to gain access to that reward structure. It is a great way to motivate your partners by offering them a way to graduate towards better compensation as they drive move value through your program.

A measure of the time it takes for new partners to close their first sale after they've been recruited into their program. The faster you can help partners make their first sale, the more likely they are to stick around and drive long-term revenue. This metric is great for illustrating the scalability of a program to the executive leadership team.

A training partner refers to a collaborative relationship between a SaaS provider and its business clients aimed at educating and empowering users to effectively utilize the software platform. This partnership involves the delivery of comprehensive training programs, resources, and support to enable clients to maximize the benefits of the SaaS solution within their specific business context.

The goal is to foster a strong, mutually beneficial alliance where the SaaS provider actively engages with clients to ensure optimal product understanding, usage, and overall satisfaction.

Triggers are "if-this-then-that" style workflows that help automate your partner program and works similarly to many marketing automation platforms you might have used already. There are 3 main components to build a trigger.

1. Event: what sets off the trigger. For example, a new customer or transaction being created.

2. Rules: the set specific criteria for the trigger, like which partner groups it applies to, or if it applies to only specific types of transactions, etc.

3. Action: the result of the trigger. For example, generate an additional $10 reward for a partner.

When an event occurs that meets the rules, the action happens.