In most channel deals, there are usually multiple partners involved. For example, in one channel deal, there might be a referring partner, a service partner, an implementation partner, an ongoing support partner—you get the gist. Let’s say you have a deal that involves three partners. Are you able to determine that partner A drove 65 percent of the deal, partner B was responsible for 16 percent, and partner C deserves credit for 19 percent? If not, there is no way you can say you have an optimized and efficient channel. In order to build the most effective channel program possible, you need to be able to precisely measure partner influence in order to determine what is working and what isn’t. Let’s take a look at why that is. 
It’s All About Attribution
In the world of marketing, it is all about attribution. Imagine a lead clicks on a paid search ad in Google. Later, they go to LinkedIn and see a sponsored post. After that, they end up reading a blog post from your company. Seeking to continue their learning, they sign up for a webinar once they’re done. After this experience, they’ve decided to become a paying customer. That is great news. But which part of the journey influenced the deal, and by how much? This is precisely why organizations develop attribution models. They don’t just throw marketing dollars into the ether and hope for the best. Instead, they use data to determine exactly which behaviors are driving sales. Armed with that information, they can then figure out where to invest more money to continuously improve results. If your goal is taking your channel to the next level, you need to take this same approach and apply it directly to your partner ecosystem. In doing so, you will understand which partner has the most influence over each deal. With this information, you can figure out which partners are the best to invest in (e.g., with market development funds) and which go-to-market channels are best for revenue. Add it all up, and being able to attribute precise partner influence on each deal gives you the foundation you need to build a more effective channel strategy.Measuring Partner Influence with Vartopia
Vartopia is the most powerful platform available on the market for easily measuring influence in multi-partner deals. In fact, we’ve won deals and had upsells just because we can help our customers answer their most important question: Which partners are influencing these deals and by how much? Unlike some of our larger competitors that don’t let you have more than one partner associated with an opportunity or have multiple deal registrations associated with a single opportunity, Vartopia lets you add as many as you want. If, for example, you have five partners involved in a deal, Vartopia allows you to determine how each of them influenced the deal. No other solutions on the market provide this functionality. This feature is more than just a nice-to-have. If your entire marketing strategy is informed by attribution, why shouldn’t you bring the same level of commitment to your channel? When you understand attribution and the partners that influenced the deal, it becomes much easier to repeat your success while simultaneously determining which strategies—and potentially even partners—should be abandoned altogether.Data, Data, Data
In the digital age, organizations simply can’t afford to make decisions based on gut instinct. In order to reach your full potential, you need to transform into a data-driven operation that leaves no major decisions to chance. By investing in Vartopia, you can more easily measure all influencing partners—and figure out who is not helping as much as you would like. With that knowledge, you can optimize your channel further, creating an increasingly well-oiled machine as you grow your channel program. For more information on how easy Vartopia makes it to measure partner influence, request a demo today.