How Searchspring doubled their partner-sourced revenue

Searchspring is a SaaS company on a mission to give e-commerce merchandisers superpowers — with ecommerce site search and personalization for online stores. Early on, Searchspring knew their partner channel would drive revenue, but it grew faster than expected. In early 2020, Partner Manager Nicole Kappner, supported by Partner Marketing Managers Thomas Turley and Briar Tedesco, began building what would become an industry-admired partner program.

“Leads were trickling in and, like many other partner teams, we were using a spreadsheet,” Nicole recalled. Because you can’t share a CRM with your partners, tracking leads quickly becomes a roadblock to growth — what we call the “Last Mile” problem.

On average, 58% of leads that request contact are never addressed by the sales team unless there’s a formalized system in place. The value of a partnership is often the intangibles — co-marketing, co-branding — but at the end of the day, leads equate to the most important benefit of a partnership: revenue.

Nicole evaluated partner management systems and chose PartnerPortal.io because it was easy to navigate and offered a native integration to HubSpot. Within a few weeks, her partners could register, submit new leads, and automatically queue opportunities directly into their HubSpot deal pipeline — so the “Last Mile” problem never became a reality at Searchspring.

As partner activity increased, Nicole took advantage of a dedicated Resource Center and the ability to issue commission payments when a lead reached Closed Won. Leveraging Categories and Groups saved hours of back-and-forth on partner questions.

Our partners love it. I show PartnerPortal.io to every new partner and it further solidifies our commitment to their experience — it lets them know we’re serious!

Since becoming a PartnerPortal.io customer, Searchspring has doubled its number of partners and its partner-sourced revenue, building a durable, revenue-generating channel for the business.