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Channel management isn’t about working harder — it’s about managing smarter. Whether you're scaling across indirect sales channels, empowering your channel partners, or optimizing your partner network, the right strategy makes all the difference.

A strong channel management strategy helps you align your business objectives with the partners that can move your product, expand your reach, and grow your bottom line. But without clarity and consistency, you’ll run into channel conflict, poor visibility, and disengaged partners — all of which stall growth.

This guide outlines 10 proven best practices to help you elevate your channel management efforts, improve partner performance, and build a more efficient, scalable revenue engine.

From setting clear goals and automating workflows to improving communication and analyzing channel performance, these strategies are designed for channel managers ready to win in today’s complex, multi-partner landscape.

What is Channel Management?

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Before you can optimize your partner strategy, you need a clear understanding of what channel management really means — and why it’s essential for sustainable business growth.

Most companies rely on a mix of direct sales and indirect sales channels to reach their target customers. But as your business scales, juggling multiple sales channels without a clear system creates confusion, misalignment, and missed revenue.

That’s where effective channel management comes in — the foundation for building, maintaining, and scaling strong partner relationships.

Let’s break it down.

A channel is more than just a system — it’s your gateway to delivering products and services to the end customer.

Going through direct channels means your sales team handles every touchpoint: prospecting, selling, servicing, and supporting. It’s personal — but hard to scale.

By contrast, channel partners — like resellers, distributors, affiliates, and even e-commerce platforms — extend your reach through distribution channels you couldn’t access alone.

Think of it like this: Instead of selling toothpaste tube by tube, you sell an entire pallet to a retailer who handles the rest. In the SaaS world, channel partners introduce your product into networks and customer segments you haven’t penetrated yet.

Channel management refers to the systems and processes you use for managing relationships with the partners who sell, support, or promote your offering to the market.

A solid channel management strategy ensures these relationships are aligned with your business goals, supported with the right tools and training, and optimized for long-term performance. In short: it’s the blueprint for scalable, profitable growth through partners.

Common Challenges in Channel Management

Even the most promising channel strategy can fall short without a solid foundation. Many companies enter partnerships with the best intentions, only to find themselves facing roadblocks that stall channel performance and hurt business growth.

Whether you're just starting out or managing a mature partner network, it’s critical to understand the most common friction points and how they impact your results.

Here are four challenges that often derail effective channel management:

1. Lack of Alignment

A SaaS company partners with resellers but doesn’t align on sales targets or target customer profiles. The result? Conflicting priorities, overlapping efforts, and missed revenue opportunities.

2. Inconsistent Communication

A SaaS provider launches a major product update but only notifies a few partners. Others remain in the dark, unable to update marketing materials or support end customers, causing confusion and delays.

3. Poor Feedback Loop

New features are rolled out, but partner feedback is never collected. Valuable frontline insights are lost, resulting in lower adoption and features that don’t resonate with users.

4. Inadequate Training

Partners are onboarded quickly but without proper enablement. Without a clear understanding of the product, value props, and sales tools, they struggle to convert leads and support customers.

Each of these issues stems from one core problem: poor relationship management. And the impact is real — misalignment, inefficiencies, and channel conflict that erodes trust and slows momentum.

The good news? Every one of these challenges is fixable.

The right channel management tools can eliminate inefficiencies, increase partner performance, and ensure your channel management efforts are aligned with your most important business objectives.

Tools like Introw give you full visibility into your partner ecosystem — from onboarding to enablement to deal tracking. By reducing knowledge gaps and increasing accountability, you empower partners to succeed and scale faster.

So how do you move from reactive to strategic?

You start by optimizing every stage of the channel management process — from recruitment to retention.

In the next section, we’ll break down the 10 best practices that define a high-performance channel management strategy.

Optimize Every Stage of Channel Management with Modern PRM Tools

Mastering channel management means taking a lifecycle approach to your partner program — from recruitment and onboarding to co-selling and expansion. Each phase plays a critical role in achieving alignment, improving partner performance, and scaling revenue.

Modern channel management software like Introw enables this end-to-end orchestration. With seamless CRM integration, real-time deal tracking, and partner-friendly collaboration tools, you can support your entire partner network without friction.

Unlike outdated tools or spreadsheets, Introw aligns your channel managers, direct sales team, and indirect sales channels under one unified platform — so you can analyze channel performance, manage distribution partners, and grow revenue faster.

Let’s walk through the 10 key practices that define a high-performing channel management strategy, and how tools like Introw help you implement them across multiple sales channels:

1. Define Clear Channel Goals

If you want your channel programs to thrive, clarity is non-negotiable. Your channel partners need to understand exactly what you aim to achieve from the collaboration — and you should be clear on the value you’re delivering in return.

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To execute a successful channel, start with measurable objectives tied to your business goals — such as growing a specific customer segment, launching in a new market, or improving customer satisfaction.

That’s where PRM platforms like Introw come in.

Introw transforms SMART goals into trackable metrics — like referral rates, sales process efficiency, and campaign impact — and visualizes them in real-time dashboards. This makes it easy for channel managers to track progress and optimize faster.

With automated KPIs and clear visibility, your channel strategy stays aligned across teams and partners.

2. Choose the Right Partners

When it comes to building a high-performance partner network, quality always beats quantity.

Too many companies take a "more is better" approach, signing dozens of channel partners without clear alignment. The result? Mixed priorities, missed revenue, and constant channel conflict.

Instead, focus your channel management efforts on a select group of high-impact partners:

• Partners who align with your business objectives and target customers
• Organizations that bring complementary reach, technology, or expertise
• Teams that can scale alongside your growth in multiple channels

Introw helps channel managers identify these high-potential fits through partner profiling, CRM overlap analysis, and visibility into historical engagement.

Pro tip: Use Introw’s native Crossbeam integration to discover partner overlaps, shared accounts, and warm intro paths — so you invest in partners that can actually move the needle.

And don’t forget to evaluate:

• Willingness to Invest: Are they engaged in joint planning, marketing strategy, or co-selling?
• Ability to Scale: Can they grow with you across new markets and distribution channels?
• Complementary Strengths: Do they unlock access to underserved customer segments or fill a technical gap?

A partner with a proven track record, strong internal enablement, and enthusiasm for collaboration is more valuable than ten who just want portal access.

3. Invest in Partner Onboarding

Initial onboarding isn’t just a checklist — it’s the foundation for long-term partner relationships and sales growth.

When channel management involves proper onboarding, partners:

• Understand your product positioning
• Get trained on your sales tools and ICP
• Learn how to represent your brand effectively in-market

Introw’s partner onboarding tools eliminate manual overhead with:

• Streamlined approval flows and digital agreements
• Auto-triggered welcome sequences and training checklists
• CRM-integrated training progress tracking

Your channel management software should reduce time-to-productivity and drive early wins.

With Introw, you can:

• Deliver custom content per partner tier or type

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• Issue certifications for completed courses

• Track onboarding completion right from your CRM system

Because effective channel management ensures every partner gets the support they need — without overloading your internal teams.

4. Master Channel Management with a PRM Tool

Once your onboarding foundation is in place, the next step is to unify your ecosystem. That’s where a purpose-built PRM tool becomes essential to every aspect of your channel management strategy.

While traditional systems struggle to connect your sales channels, partner relationships, and real-time metrics, a modern solution like Introw brings them all together in one interface.

With Introw, you:

• Eliminate data silos across CRM systems, spreadsheets, and email threads
• Track deals, accounts, and partner activity in one place
• Enable cross-functional visibility between your direct sales channels and indirect sales teams

Introw’s CRM-native approach means you don’t have to switch tabs or train partners on new software. Instead, you get a lightweight experience that works through tools your teams already use — like Slack, Gmail, Salesforce, and HubSpot.

This integration enables:

• Real-time alerts when a deal is touched
• Shared dashboards to monitor channel performance
• Actionable insights for analyzing channel performance and resolving gaps

By giving both internal teams and channel partners access to centralized, real-time data, you reduce friction, improve accountability, and enable a more consistent customer experience.

Introw isn’t just the right tool — it’s the right channel management software for modern B2B teams who want faster execution, smarter collaboration, and measurable sales growth.

Let’s now explore how automation helps scale those results even further — while eliminating one of the biggest pain points: channel conflict.

5. Automate Manual Processes to Prevent Channel Conflict

Even the most aligned partner ecosystems face operational friction. Manual processes — like deal registration, email follow-ups, or lead assignment — often lead to miscommunication, duplication, and channel conflict.

Without automation, channel managers waste hours chasing updates or resolving disputes between distribution partners. And worse — deals fall through the cracks.

Introw automates the complexity so your team can stay focused on driving results. Here’s how:

• Deal Registration Automation: Prevent duplicate entries by flagging overlaps in real time across your CRM systems.
• Auto-Synced Workflows: Trigger follow-ups, assign tasks, or escalate conflicts automatically — no manual coordination required.
• Real-Time Notifications: Notify sales reps or channel partners immediately when a deal progresses or a task is completed.

By streamlining these core workflows, you reduce errors, improve sales performance, and maintain trust across your partner network.

6. Enhance Partner Communication

Strong partner relationships are built on clear, consistent communication. But too often, partner comms are scattered across emails, Slack messages, and outdated dashboards.

A unified system — like Introw — brings it all together.

With Introw, you can:

• Sync messaging across your CRM system, Slack, and email
• Share updates on campaigns, product changes, or marketing materials in real time
• Create account-specific channels for seamless collaboration between internal and external teams

This centralized visibility keeps your sales channels aligned and your channel strategy moving forward.

Plus, with integrated customer data and deal timelines, your channel partners never miss a beat — and your end customers get a smoother, more informed buying experience.

7. Create Regular Training Programs

Great partners aren’t found — they’re developed. Ongoing enablement is a critical pillar of effective channel management.

Whether you’re onboarding new MSPs, resellers, or VARs, your training should cover:

• Product updates and positioning
• Competitive landscape and market trends
• Use cases by customer segment and industry
• Sales tactics, pricing strategies, and objection handling

With Introw:

• Launch and manage certification programs by partner tier
• Track completion through embedded quizzes and progress dashboards
• Deliver content in multiple formats — PDFs, videos, Google Docs — all within one branded partner portal

This keeps your channel programs scalable and your partner performance consistent across various sales channels.

8. Incentivize and Reward High Performance

Nothing accelerates channel sales like the right incentives. And nothing derails it faster than unclear or delayed payouts.

High-performing channel partners want transparency and trust — and channel managers need a scalable system to track it all.

With Introw:

• Set up tiered commission structures or SPIFs
• Track revenue attribution by partner, territory, or campaign
• Automate payout reporting and eligibility reminders

You can even integrate partner performance data with your CRM system or finance tool to eliminate manual calculations and ensure every reward is backed by real-time numbers.

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This keeps motivation high, reduces disputes, and turns your partner program into a powerful sales engine.

9. Monitor Performance and Deliver Feedback

To continuously improve your channel management strategy, you need visibility. Not just into revenue — but into deal velocity, campaign engagement, and partner health.

Introw’s reporting engine makes it easy to:

• Set key performance indicators (KPIs) by partner type
• Analyze contribution to pipeline and close rate
• Identify underperforming regions or partners at risk

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More importantly, it enables ongoing support — through automated feedback loops, QBRs, and personalized coaching plans.

Because channel management involves more than just metrics — it’s about managing relationships that fuel long-term business growth.

10. Amplify Success Through Channel Marketing and Co-Marketing

Finally, even the best partnerships can stall without marketing support. Your partners need assets, guidance, and budget to drive demand — and you need visibility into what’s working.

A modern channel campaign management approach includes:

• Co-branded email and ad templates
• Social content tailored to customer preferences
• Campaign tracking tied to lead generation or revenue

With Introw:

• Share approved messaging and assets in your partner portal
• Track campaign adoption and outcomes by region or partner
• Collect insights that help you optimize your marketing strategy across the ecosystem

Co-marketing isn’t a nice-to-have — it’s a growth multiplier. With Introw, you can turn co-marketing from ad hoc to always-on.

Conclusion

Without effective channel management, even the best partner programs stall. If your strategy isn’t aligned, automated, and data-driven — you’re leaving revenue on the table.

A modern channel management strategy requires clear goals, the right partners, a frictionless onboarding experience, and consistent training and communication. But most importantly, it needs a system that scales.

That’s where Introw comes in.

With Introw, channel managers can:

• Eliminate manual workflows and reduce channel conflict
• Improve visibility across multiple sales channels and partner types
• Automate onboarding, training, deal tracking, and performance reporting
• Support better partner relationships with real-time CRM insights
• Track and analyze channel performance and drive revenue growth

Whether you’re running a mature channel sales strategy or just starting to scale with indirect sales channels, Introw gives you the right channel management software to move faster, stay aligned, and grow with confidence.

Ready to turn your partner ecosystem into a high-performing revenue machine?

Book your Introw demo today.

The world of partnerships is evolving—and for the better! Data has become the cornerstone of modern partnership management, transforming how partner managers make decisions, build relationships, and drive growth. Today’s partner managers don’t just maintain connections—they leverage data to uncover insights, optimise processes, and unlock new opportunities. When I started, I was navigating spreadsheets and tracking relationships through CRMs like Pipedrive and HubSpot. Today, the focus is on integrating those systems into a single source of truth, creating transparent, frictionless experiences for partners that foster long-term success.

This shift is a game-changer for managing and scaling partnerships. I’m Eva Fayemi, Co-Founder & CEO of Bond Agency, and I’m excited to share how data is reshaping partnership management.

1. Companies start with CRM Data

For most companies, CRM systems are the starting point for managing partnerships. These systems provide key data on sales interactions and performance, but integrating partner-sourced data can be a challenge. While it's better than nothing, simply tracking data isn't enough—it's crucial to define a partnership strategy first.

At Bond Agency, we help clients identify their partnership goals and align them with broader business objectives before optimising their CRM or introducing tools like Introw. A common challenge we see is companies not tracking which partnerships contribute most to the bottom line. We guide them in mapping partner journeys, attributing engagement, and tracking conversions in the CRM. This clarity leads to improved decision-making, better tracking, and growth.

Protip: Ensure your sales team is aligned on reporting partner-sourced leads. Create internal documentation and calls to keep everyone on the same page for seamless reporting across teams.

2. Increasing Revenue and Engagement

Growing revenue and boosting partner engagement are top priorities, but these goals can be time-consuming and difficult to track. Modern partner managers balance engagement and tracking more efficiently through technology, automating key processes and logging communication touchpoints with partners.

For example, one of our clients used to spend hours tracking partner engagement manually. After integrating their CRM with automation tools, they gained a dynamic, real-time view of partner contributions. Automated alerts and insights allowed their team to respond quickly, increasing partner engagement and revenue from key accounts.

Protip: Track whether partners open onboarding materials like sales brochures or marketing resources. This helps identify where additional support is needed for smoother, more effective onboarding.

3. More Transparency Through Data Means Better Collaboration

A common issue partners face is a lack of transparency. Without it, trust erodes, and partnerships can’t thrive. Tools like Introw are changing this dynamic by providing greater transparency. It connects CRM data with partnership management, offering a platform that tracks key metrics, aligns partners on pipeline progress, provides content, and monitors engagement.

This transparency empowers partner managers to track the entire partnership ecosystem while giving partners visibility into their performance. When everyone is aligned with clear data, collaboration becomes more efficient and impactful.

The future of partnership management is data-driven. With tools like Introw, partner managers can unlock new insights, improve collaboration, and drive faster, more efficient growth. Companies that embrace this will lead the next era of partnership management.

About Bond Agency: Since 2020, Bond Agency has been helping B2B tech and SaaS startups accelerate growth through strategic partnerships. We specialise in strategy development, execution, and providing fractional partner teams, focusing on scaling businesses in the EMEA and USA. With a diverse network of affiliates, tech integrations, and B2B influencers, we’ve delivered impactful results across industries including hospitality tech (e.g., Unicorn Mews), MarTech (e.g., Hotjar), and SaaS (e.g., Revenue Hero).

Join the conversation in our Slack community, The Nearbound Club, where tech founders and partnership leaders drive innovation in the partnerships space.

Visit: www.bond-agency.io

We’ve seen that there are 3 potential ways to manage your partners within HubSpot: custom properties, company association & custom object association. Before implementing a partner portal like Introw we advise to map your partners in your HubSpot. 

In this blogpost we’re going to focus on revenue attribution so we’re looking at the object “Deal” in HubSpot. If you also want to attribute contacts, leads, companies,… to partners, you can use the same approach.

Custom properties

How does it work?

1. Create a custom deal property
   • Step 1: Go to settings —> data management —> properties
   • Step 2: Create property:
     • Object type: Deal
     • Group: Deal information
     • Label: This is up to you to decide, we've gone for "Partner". Click "Next"
     • Field type: If you’re sometimes working with multiple partners on a deal, we advise going for “Multiple checkboxes.” If there is always a maximum of one partner per deal, go for “Dropdown select.”
2. Add your custom property to your view or your teams view (this will allow you to easily select the right partners from the left side panel)
3. Attribute the right partner(s) to the right deals

‍What are the pros?

✅ Easy and fast set-up

✅ Possible with all HubSpot plans

✅ Easy to create revenue reports

What are the cons?

❌ Every sales person should have this custom property in their view

❌ Not possible to navigate directly to the partner company

Company association (with association label)

How does it work?

1. Create a custom association label between deal and company
   • Step 1: Go to settings —> data management —> objects —> deals —> associations
   • Step 2: Create association label:
     • Objects you’re associating: Deals-to-companies
     • How many labels do you need? A single label
     • Create one called: partner sourced (for deals that partners have sourced)
     • 💡 Optional: You can create another label called: partner influenced (for deals that partners have influenced)
2. Associate the partner company to a deal and select the label “partner sourced” (or partner influenced)
3. You can do this by associating an (additional) company to the deal; add company

What are the pros?

✅ Easy and fast set-up

✅ Scalable

What are the cons?

❌ Not possible with all HubSpot plans

❌ Not easy to report on in HubSpot

Custom object association

How does it work?

1. Create a custom object
   • Step 1: Go to settings —> data management —> objects —> custom objects
   • Step 2: Create custom object:
     • Object name - singular: “Partner”
     • Object name - plural: “Partner”
     • Primary display property: “Partner Name”
     • Property type: Single-line text
2. Associate the right company object to the partner object in order to have all the right data connected
3. Associate the partner object to a deal

💡 Optional: Create association labels on this custom object to differentiate between for example partner influenced and partner sourced

What are the pros?

✅ Good for organisations with larger amounts of partners

✅ Scalable

What are the cons?

❌ Not possible with all HubSpot plans

❌ Not so easy

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Conclusion

To wrap up, there are 3 ways to manage your partners in HubSpot: via custom properties, via company association and via a custom object. 

Introw supports all methods :).

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What is Introw?

Working with resellers, referral partners, distributors,...? Keep on reading! Introw is a partner relationship management (PRM) platform allowing you to collaborate with your B2B partners in shared spaces integrated with HubSpot. 

One space to be aligned on pipeline, enable partners with content and track engagement.

Partnership data lives in the CRM, so we’re leveraging that to the fullest with our native and 1-click HubSpot and Salesforce integration.

With that, we’re not only elevating your B2B partnership experience, we’re elevating the experience of your entire partnership team.

Request a demo now.

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Install the HubSpot connection here.

Introw conducted a research on 2024 comparing the partner-attributed deals with non partner attributed deals.

In today's hyper-competitive business landscape, partnerships are becoming increasingly vital for driving revenue growth and scaling operations. Recent research on 2024 deals reveals compelling insights into the impact of partner-attributed deals compared to non-partner deals, shedding light on why partnerships are more crucial than ever.

Key Findings from Our Research

Introw detected that partner-attributed deals significantly outperform direct sales (non-partner) deals in two critical areas:

1. Higher Deal Size: Partner-attributed deals boast an average deal size that is 32% higher compared to non-partner deals.
2. Higher Win Rate: The win rate for partner-attributed deals is 2.8 times higher than for non-partner deals.

Interestingly, our research showed no significant difference in the sales cycle length between partner and non-partner deals.

What These Numbers Mean for Your Business

These findings underline a fundamental truth: partner ecosystems are revenue multipliers. Here's why:

• Increased Credibility: Partners bring an added layer of trust and credibility to the sales process, which can be crucial in closing larger deals. Customers are more likely to trust recommendations from partners they already have a relationship with.
• Access to New Markets: Partners can open doors to new opportunities and markets that may have been difficult to penetrate independently.
• Improved Win Rates: With a win rate that is nearly three times higher for partner-attributed deals, it's clear that partnerships are a critical factor in improving sales outcomes.

How to Leverage Partners for Maximum Impact

Based on our findings, here are three actionable steps your business can take to maximize the impact of partner-attributed deals:

1. Invest in Partner Enablement: Equip your partners with the right tools and resources to succeed. This includes training, co-marketing initiatives, and providing them with access to your sales collateral.
2. Leverage Partner Relationship Management (PRM) Software: Platforms like Introw can help streamline partner collaboration, track deal attribution, and measure partner performance.
3. Align Incentives: Ensure your partners are motivated to bring deals to the table by offering competitive incentives and fostering a mutually beneficial relationship.

Conclusion

The numbers don’t lie: Partner-attributed deals are larger, more successful, and just as fast to close. Companies that prioritize building and nurturing their partner ecosystems stand to gain a significant competitive advantage.

If you want to see similar results in 2025, now is the time to invest in your partner strategy. Platforms like Introw can help you get there by simplifying the way you collaborate with partners and driving better outcomes. Schedule a demo here or get started for free. 

What is Introw?

Introw unlocks partner revenue by eliminating the friction of partner collaboration. Companies working with resellers, referral partners, distributors, or implementation partners use Introw to seamlessly share sales materials, collaborate on customer data, and drive partner engagement—all integrated with their CRM.