Chances are your boss isn’t expecting you to be able to measure the performance of market development funds (MDF), co-op funds, and other incentive dollars. Historically, capturing this kind of data has been more or less impossible. But what if you were able to take data to your boss that proved the moves you were making were actually driving results? Wouldn’t that make it easier to get a bigger budget, justify your company’s investments, measure your success, and know with certainty which partners are the best? By investing in powerful channel technology, it is possible for channel marketers to close the loop on ROI, and get the data they need to make their case effectively when it comes to increasing budgets, asking for raises, and strengthening relationships with top-performing partners. 
Do you remember trade shows?
Here’s a common scenario that played out before the pandemic and, we suspect, will play out once again when life more or less returns to “normal” in the future. Imagine a partner wants to go to a trade show. They reach out to you asking for $20,000 in exchange for a promise to promote your products there. Your company agrees, and your finance team wires over the $20,000. Inside Salesforce, you create a campaign object, fill out the campaign details, and describe what the money is being used for and who is receiving it. But that is exactly where the data ends, and there is no way for a vendor to know what ultimately happened to their investment. In other words, vendors have traditionally been unable to determine which leads are generated from which trade show. They also struggle with figuring out which deals have been submitted, too, because there is no closed loop. Fingers crossed that $20,000 actually delivered results, but you have no way of actually knowing whether that investment was worthwhile or not.How Vartopia can improve your marketing channel strategy.
The good news is that Vartopia can help solve this problem entirely. Vartopia gives you granular insight into how all of your MDF, co-op funds, and incentive dollars are being spent and by whom. Armed with that information, you will be able to easily determine whether partner investments are worthwhile—or if it is time to move in a different direction. Let’s continue the example described in the last section, with one significant change: The channel team uses Vartopia. Now, imagine that you’ve spent that same $20,000. Because you have Vartopia, you are able to determine that the partner submitted three deals from this event, netting you three new leads. Let’s say that one of those leads ends up converting by signing on to a $60,000 deal. Voila: You can quickly determine that your investment tripled. Now, you know that the event is filled with your kinds of customers, and that your partner actually lived up to their end of the bargain and brought you new business. Historically, vendors could only send money to partners and hope for the best—they couldn’t use a closed-loop feedback mechanism to track and measure partner performance. Vartopia closes the loop completely. With Vartopia, partners can easily let you know which events they got deals from, so channel teams can determine which partners and events are most deserving of their marketing dollars.Ready to invest in your marketing channel strategy?
By making smart investments in channel technology, you can transform your program into a data-driven operation that you continually tune and optimize over time. It is the easiest way for channel marketers to justify their decisions to management—and for your channel to deliver enjoyable experiences to your partners every time. For more information on how to improve your channel strategy, check this out.