Measuring your channel partners' and program's performance is challenging without the right metrics and tools. Many companies find themselves in a data predicament: either lacking essential information or struggling to extract meaningful insights from an overwhelming amount of data.
To optimize your channel partner program and drive revenue growth, identify and track key performance indicators (KPIs). They can provide a clear picture of partner effectiveness and program health.
Move beyond guesswork and toward data-driven decision-making in your channel partnerships by exploring the most important metrics to monitor.
What partner program metrics make sense for you and your partners?
Select KPIs or metrics in many categories to get a good picture of what’s going on with partners. This can change based on:
- Program sophistication level
- How long your network has been in place
- Data collection capabilities
- Analysts you may (or may not) have on your team
- Systems you may (or may not) have in place to capture details
Let’s look at some performance metrics that can be measured, monitored and optimized to help you achieve your core business goals. I share thoughts about how to visually represent your data at the end, too.
Note: There are no right or wrong answers. It all depends on your unique program and partners.
Partner enablement metrics
These help you understand if your program elements are being used and bringing value, and general engagement with your program materials and systems.
- Targeted/enrolled ratio
- Portal logins (by whatever cadence is appropriate, usually monthly)
- Events attended (virtual/in-person)
- Sales/marketing collateral materials sent/used/downloaded (this may make more sense for certain role types over others)
- Training engagement/certifications attained
- To-partner communication measures (sends, opens, clicks, etc.)
- Core brand training pieces (think pieces you want everyone to know about)
- Use of market development funds (MDF)/other marketing efforts
Sales and earnings metrics
Sales analytics improve performance by revealing the strengths and weaknesses of your channel network. They also help channel account managers have stronger conversations and forecast better. These analytics track progress toward goals, prepare for future growth, adjust sales compensation, award incentives and bonuses, and identify any strategic issues. Below are some of the most important metrics you could monitor.
- Partner profitability
- Average deal size
- Product/solution breakdown (portfolio adoption measure)
- Competitor affinity (usually a third-party data point)
- Velocity
- Participation in promotions/contests/sweeps
- Redemption of earned points/payouts
- Goal attainment
- Retention
Pipeline activity metrics
Gauge the health of your pipeline activity by understanding what’s working and what’s not in your sales process. Measure the following metrics by a specific time, such as a month or quarter, as well as by team and by individual.
- Pipeline value (within certain times, usually measured by deal registration, applications, requests for quote, etc.)
- Opportunities per partner
- Number of partners with active pipeline
- Support requests (SME, engineer, technician, underwriting, etc.)
- Lead generation (not a great measure, but it’s sometimes all you have for early measures)
Customer success metrics
As the complexity of purchasing, deploying and servicing products rises, ensure your partner network is fully trained on your products and/or services. The quality of engagement between your channel partners and their end-users drives customer satisfaction. Measuring end-user satisfaction on a regular basis is critical to understanding where you need to invest to overcome partner skills gaps and grow your channel’s strengths. Here are other metrics to consider.
- Customer satisfaction
- Implementation satisfaction
- Velocity of onboarding/service/usage metrics
- Channel churn
- Consumption
- Portfolio adoption (cross-sell, upsell)
Related: Learn how ITA Group helped our client meet their customer experience KPIs.
Partner metrics
These are the performance measures of partners and their experience with your channel program. The partner experience is quickly becoming a differentiation point for channel programs and has a heavy impact on being the vendor of choice. These performance metrics can help you gauge your partner coverage.
- Active/inactive partners
- Capability (specialization, certifications, etc.)
- Ideal profile characteristics (what you find is a compelling characteristic to identify ideal partners by segment like marketing role, customer success role, admin, ecommerce, certain hours, response times, live chat, etc.)
- Book of business/annual revenue capability (depicts customer share and opportunity)
- Survey responses (openness to working with you, feedback on program elements, estimated spend, etc.)
- Required task completion
Other considerations: Slicing, dicing and uniform scoring
You’ll likely have other questions after seeing these KPIs. I recommend having a set of profile data points so you can slice and dice appropriately. You could also combine like-type partners or peer sets, so you have a better gauge on what “good” is. You can’t compare the best to the worst or the middle to the rising star, so it becomes important to create uniform scoring or segments. Here are a few ways to slice and dice your metrics.
- Peer sets
- Geographies
- Solution/product segments
- Tenure with brand
- Partner size (staff, annual revenue, sales with you)
- Partner types
- Field Manager/CAM/CSM/PSM/RSM (whatever you call it, you may want to see if their appointed relationship manager is influencing performance)
Visualize your channel KPIs with dashboards and data aggregation
If you have data and can’t get accurate, accessible-at-any-moment reporting on your performance metrics, it’s a sign you may need dashboards.
If you have dashboards and are still struggling, then it’s time to re-evaluate what’s on them and rework the way data is shown or measured.
Related: Check out these suggestions for types of data visualization.
Here are some suggestions to begin using dashboards.
1. Know where your data is coming from and how often
- Do you need data from different sources?
- Do you have access to all sources?
2. Know what audiences need to have eyes on data
- What questions does each group usually have?
- Are dashboards personalized and relevant to the user? All the people listed below have different needs. A one-and-done dashboard won’t cut it.
- Executives
- Channel Leaders
- Program Admins
- Channel Marketers
- Channel Account Managers
- Large Partners/Distributors/Aggregators
- Partner Owners
- Partner Reps
3. Update data as frequently as is reasonable (real-time updates are ideal)
4. Add third-party data when you can (think profile elements)
5. Change dashboards or update to match corporate goals
6. Add insights or suggested actions
7. Train people to use them (even if the dashboards seem straightforward)
8. Remind and incent people to use them
Sharing personalized KPIs improves channel partner performance
There is real power behind putting personalized metrics and goals in a visual format for your various audiences. We’ve personally seen how it leads to performance improvement and helps brands exceed their corporate goals. Read how role-relevant goals and data visualization helped sales professionals monitor their progress and achieve their yearly benchmark.