Partner Management Software (also known as PRM, Partner Marketing Software, or Partnership Management Software) is a collection of features and tools to optimize your partnerships.

Partner management software can help companies manage and optimize their relationships with partners such as suppliers, vendors, and distributors. This type of software can provide a centralized platform for tracking and organizing information about partner relationships, as well as automating key tasks and processes.

10 Best Partner Management Software

#Partner Management SoftwareFeatures/Highlights
1.ScaleoReal-time tracking, anti-fraud AI, customizable white label UI, and advanced, deep analytics.
2.PartnerStackFocuses on building partnerships through referrals, resellers, and affiliate programs.
3.ImpactProvides automated partner discovery, recruitment, tracking, and optimized engagement.
4.Post Affiliate ProOffers customizable interface, advanced affiliate reporting, and fraud detection.
5.TUNETailored for building, managing, and growing partner programs with a focus on accuracy and reliability.
6.CJ Affiliate (Commission Junction)Known for its expansive affiliate network and robust data reporting.
7.Rakuten AdvertisingOffers unique insights and data-driven solutions for affiliate marketing strategies.
8.RefersionSpecializes in tracking, managing, and growing your affiliate network.
9.AwinGlobal affiliate network with a user-friendly platform and extensive publisher network.
10.ShareASaleFeatures a vast network of affiliates with a variety of tools for both merchants and affiliates.

With partner management software, companies can improve communication and collaboration with partners, streamline their operations, and gain valuable insights about their partner network. This can help companies increase revenue, reduce costs and improve overall performance.

Partnerships enable your company to achieve goals that it could not achieve on its own. However, it takes a lot of effort to ensure the success of a relationship.

Fortunately, PRM software exists to help you manage your partners.

What is partner management software?

Partner management software, also known as partner relationship management (PRM), provides companies with tools to track channel partners and affiliates and communicate with and receive support from the company. Each partner has their own private portal through which they can access documents, campaign materials, market development funds (MDF), opportunities, and deals.

Channel sales managers, in particular, use partner management software to maximize their connections with channel sales partners such as resellers and value-added resellers (VAR). PRM is used to equitably allocate opportunities and finances, familiarize partners with the brand they are selling, track promotions and successes, and assure partners that the company is not cannibalizing their leads.

Depending on the partnership, you may also need to keep track of additional data such as legal compliance, contract terms, or incentive and loyalty rewards. Any department of a company that does business with third-party vendors can benefit from partner management software (e.g., external warehouses or distribution centers, transportation companies, professional services firms, and consultants).

This solution should not be confused with other relationship management software packages, such as CRM (used exclusively for customers) or supplier relationship management (part of supply chain management). Partner management software achieves the best results when combined with other software solutions that track partner pipeline progress and portal participation.

What features should good Partner Management software provide?

  • Provide portals for a firm to communicate and exchange information and content with its partners and optionally with prospects or consumers.
  • Provide partner onboarding, training, and certification.
  • Control who has access to what information and which access rights are available to each person, group, role, and so on.
  • Workflows for significant business procedures involving the company and its partners, as well as notifications and alerts based on business rules, should be included.
  • Monitor and assess the efficacy of co-op and co-branded partner initiatives.

Is PRM a part of CRM?

PRMs can sometimes be connected to CRMs, although they are typically different software packages. CRM (customer relationship management) software allows organizations to keep track of their current and future customer conversations. All relevant customer data, including contact information, history, and transaction summaries, is saved as a live record in the CRM database.

CRM software should not be used to manage your partner network. PRM can be thought of as a subset of CRM that focuses on optimizing partner channel sales. The company’s relationships with its sales teams are managed via PRM software.

In short, PRM software is focused on getting a partner to sell on your behalf, whereas CRM software is focused on getting an end client to buy from you. You may want both tools if your business uses both direct and indirect sales channels as part of a hybrid selling program.

Do you need a PRM system?

You may be asking if a PRM is the best option for scaling your partnerships for modern partner activities. It depends, is the response? Your decision to allocate budget to a PRM solution is influenced by a variety of factors, including your strategy, where you see future partnering opportunities, if you already have a PRM solution in place, the type of partnering market you work in, and others.

It is difficult to track the speed of innovation in today’s ever-changing environment; hence, the rate and ways in which organizations interact with one another are always shifting. If you want to focus on co-selling with your ecosystem partners, then investing in an Ecosystem Business Management (EBM) platform is the way to go.

If, on the other hand, you currently have a PRM system in place and plan to maintain a strong partner reseller business, embedding or integrating EBM with your PRM may be the way to go.

Why choose Scaleo?

Scaleo is a Partner Marketing platform that helps you manage your partnerships, track all marketing channels, and boost your performance.

  • Take control of your business growth: Acquire and manage affiliates, influencers, referral partners, and strategic partners quickly. Consolidate your partnership and performance channels to better understand each traffic source’s true value, control your attribution, and optimize toward your best performers. Get the attribution and analytics you need to boost your revenue.
  • Dedicated partner portals increase your reseller partner’s productivity and ensure your partner program’s success. These dashboards and portals allow you to build and administer personalized experiences (such as distinct incentive systems, partner onboarding, and so on) for your reseller partners, depending on the type of partner program.
  • Streamline distribution and orders.
  • Metrics in strategy development: By monitoring your reseller partners’ behaviors and the partner programs’ return on investment, you may use data to plan your next move. You can assess your partners’ performance and pick where to place your money to make the greatest money. You can also increase your revenue by experimenting with different reselling partner techniques using data-backed dashboards.
  • Give partners access to a user-friendly unified administration platform.
  • Distribute instructional and sales-related materials: A PRM solution’s asset distribution capability allows your partner program team to transmit program marketing materials and associated paperwork to partners through a single point of contact. You can give self-paced training materials to your partner teams using a PRM solution. This provides a consistent partner experience for your ecosystem partners while saving your team time on duplicating training and resource-sharing chores.
  • Streamline the lead and deal logging processes: By streamlining lead management procedures and decreasing lead duplication, Partner relationship management platforms can save you time and effort.
  • Shorten sales cycles: PRM solutions can manage deal advancement and streamline entire partner programs, allowing you to conclude deals more quickly. As a result, your sales cycles are greatly reduced. You may spend more time on activities that enhance the growth of your organization by reducing needless meetings, obligations, and documents.
  • Allow for timely affiliate commission payments and automatic billing.
  • Monitor partner programs and select the most productive partners: A PRM solution enables firms to manage and track all reseller programs from a single point. Professionals who manage multiple partner programs and regularly lose track of partner activities may find this useful.
  • Avoid assigning leads to more than one partner to avoid channel and sales friction.

How can it benefit your business?

  • Tracking: Scaleo’s tracking begins when people arrive at your website, allowing you to simplify your performance data for affiliates, influencers, referrals, and media buys. Having all of this data in one place makes it simple to assess and comprehend the value of each traffic source.
  • Attribute infinite events: Scaleo allows you to track every engagement that adds value to your campaigns in addition to the sale or lead. Begin compensating your partners based on CRM funnel stages, authorized leads, subscription renewals, and upsells. Analyze engagement around email signups, price page visits, and community activities to better understand your traffic.
  • Expand your collaborations: With better data and attribution, you can align your rewards with the partners that drive your top consumers, driving them to increase their promotions. In a few clicks, onboard your own partners, offer them the resources they need to succeed and keep growing by identifying new relevant partners in Scaleo’s marketplace.
  • Full toolkit: Scaleo gives organizations the tools they need to fully automate partner recruitment, which is a critical component of a successful partner program. Scaleo allows you to recruit channel partners into your program while automatically compensating them for conversions. In this manner, both you and your partners will benefit from increased revenue. The process works in the opposite direction, and everyone benefits from it. Furthermore, this function aids in the development of a scalable strategy for engaging with your partners.
  • Custom Onboarding for Every Partner: How many times have you forgotten to send important notifications to your partners? It has happened much too frequently. But don’t worry; this will not happen with Scaleo. Scaleo allows you to create personalized onboarding for each of your partners, allowing you to set everyone up for success in the relationship.
  • Payout Schedules: Another amazing feature of Scaleo is the ability to automate your partner’s reward based on their success. There’s no need to recall dates and times; simply delegate all of the jobs to Scaleo. There’s nothing to be concerned about! Whether you wish to give your partner a bonus or simply want them to receive the intended revenue, partner stack will handle everything for you. Scaleo produces and distributes your partner’s shares automatically and on schedule.

Conclusion

When choosing the best PRM software to help you track and manage your partners, make sure it is suitable for all types of partnerships you want to develop and manage.

Partnering has evolved significantly over the past decade. The changes are even more intense with the huge shift to the cloud, digital transformation, and the ease of connecting applications via APIs. Finding partners to resell your solutions is no longer the only way to work with other companies. Companies are now working with their ecosystem partners to co-innovate, co-market, co-invest and ultimately co-sell to offer complete solution packages to their customers.

Looking for PRM software to manage your business? Start a free trial or schedule a demo with one of our representatives.

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Last Updated on January 2, 2024

Author

Elizabeth is a Senior Content Manager at Scaleo. Currently enjoying the life in Prague and sharing professional affiliate marketing tips. She's been in the online marketing business since 2006 and gladly shares all her insights and ideas on this blog.