B2B partnerships are mutually beneficial business-to-business (B2B) relationships. These relationships leverage co-branding between your brand and others in similar or complementary industries in order to increase sales, customer engagement, and mindshare for all brands involved.
When you enter a B2B partnership, you partner with other brands whose products or audiences complement your own. These partnerships require strategy, and although they take effort to start, they can provide you with significant opportunities for revenue growth and co-branded loyalty.
Example of a B2B partnership: You are a brand that offers commercial accounting services. You partner with another brand that sells tax preparation software. The tax-prep brand promotes your financial services to its customers, and you promote their tax filing software to your customers. Your mutual teams also come up with co-branded marketing strategies to build trust between the loyal customers who already trust the offerings of each brand.
Generate leads and increase sales by incentivizing other companies with placement fees, sales commissions, revenue, or lead share to deliver new value and sales opportunities.
Promote brand trust through associations with other trusted brands.
Expand your reach in new markets by introducing new customers to your brand via other brands.
Discover B2B partnerships via impact.com
This feature is only accessible to specific impact.com editions or add-ons. Contact us to upgrade your account and get access!From the left navigation bar, select
Discover.From the top filter menu, select All Partners.
Select the B2B category from the Category filter.
Refer to Look for Specific Types of Partners to refine your search.
When you see a brand you are interested in partnering with, select their icon to view more info or message them to discuss terms.
Like many partner programs, B2B partnerships are often built on CPA (Cost Per Action) / Online Sale or CPL (Cost Per Lead) payout models. The events that result in a conversion would depend on the vertical or industry that participating brands are a part of as well as what you are trying to promote for your brand. While the list below is not exhaustive, it contains a handful of common B2B conversion events.
Lead generation or referrals
Purchases of products or services
Software or app installs Free or paid trial signups
Subscriptions
Subscriptions to recurring product purchases or services
Subscriptions to newsletters, eBooks, or webinars
B2B partnerships are often built on CPA/Online Sale or CPL payout models.
You can set up payout models tailored for B2B partners by modifying your template terms on impact.com. You can also set up a combination of models to build the payout structure that will best suit the partnership and your program goals.
Payout model | Description and example scenario |
|---|---|
Fixed payouts | A fixed payout model means that your partners are paid a preset amount of money for every action or lead. For example, say that you agreed to a $100 CPL relationship with the tax-prep company. The tax-prep company promotes your service bundle to its customers, bringing you qualified leads to send down your sales pipeline. You pay out $100 for each qualified lead they send you. |
Commissions or Revenue Share | Commission or revenue share models are percentage-based. For example, you and the tax-prep brand agree upon a set percentage or commission for each action or lead sent. For promoting their $100 self-serve tax filing feature, you get a 10% commission per purchase. For each customer that signs up as a result of your promotions, you are paid $10. In return, they promote your monthly accounting services on a rev-share model. You pay them 10% of the total annual revenue that a customer signs for. If a customer signs up for your $100 in monthly services on a 12-month contract, you pay out a 10% share of the total $1200 in signed annual revenue, or $120. |
One-time payout | Using Partner Funds Transfers (PFT) in impact.com, you can manually payout your partners in a way similar to that of a paid placement. This could be used in scenarios where the partnership or specific promotion is a one-time deal and not ongoing. For example, tax season is coming up and you know there will be plenty of customers looking for help with their taxes. You negotiate a promotion where you mention the tax-prep brand in all your customer-facing emails during March and early April. The tax prep company sends you a PFT through impact.com for $5000 in exchange for your email promotions. |
When choosing a B2B partner, consider the following:
Target audience segments you hope to reach through your partnership.
Verticals, products, and services that complement yours.
Other products and services customers will need to buy before or after they've purchased your product or service.
Category experts (professionals, hobbyists, etc.) that provide credible recommendations for your products or services.
Other types of products and services your target audiences tend to consume, and brands providing those products and services.
Businesses in your competitors' markets that could be strategic to partner with to gain market share.
Financing options for your product to customers who prefer this option.
Consider monthly payments, peer-to-peer lending services, cryptocurrencies, etc., and brands supplying those enabling technologies.