The partner marketing scaling challenges channel teams face (and what the data says about them)

Co-op is moving to reward growth rather than retention, so channel teams inside Microsoft partners are being asked a harder question than usual. The question used to be "what are you doing?" Now it's "what did it deliver, and can you do more of it?" That's why we wanted to look closely at the partner marketing scaling challenges channel teams actually face, rather than the ones everyone assumes they face.

So we asked 250 partners in the UK and 251 in the USA exactly the same questions over the same two weeks. We covered what they spend, who does the work, where the money comes from and whether any of it can be proved. The answers were revealing, and very few of them came down to a lack of budget.

Now let's get into it.

We listed twenty marketing activities, from SEO to ABM, and asked partners which ones they run. The average UK partner runs 9 and the average US partner runs 10. Both plan to add another 8 over the next 12 months. If those plans land, the average partner will be running 18 of 20 activities in the UK and almost 19 of 20 in the USA by the end of 2027.

It's completely understandable. When the feedback loop is slow, covering every base feels safer than choosing. But as the old saying goes, busy isn't the same as well directed.

Most channel teams will know this week well. "We need a one-pager for this. Can you do a 'quick post' about that? We need more leads in this new area." Each request makes sense on its own. Together they spread a small team across twenty jobs, and none of them gets done properly. Doing a bit of everything won't move the needle, and it's far more likely to cause burnout and disappointment.

This was one of the findings we found most interesting. When we asked what limits marketing today, budget came eighth out of ten in both markets (19.2% in the UK and 16.7% in the USA).

The real blockers were the complexity of funding rules and competing internal priorities. In the UK, funding rules edged ahead (31.2%) of competing priorities (30.8%). In the USA, competing priorities led comfortably (35.1%) ahead of funding rules (27.5%).

Spend is also remarkably similar across the Atlantic, with 62% of UK and 62.9% of US partners investing 3-5% of revenue in marketing. So if you're hoping a bigger budget will fix your scaling problem, the data suggests the money matters far less than what it's pointed at.

This is where the transatlantic differences really start to show. In the UK, the most common setup is a director or owner doing marketing alongside another role (38.8%). In the USA, it's a generalist agency (38.2%).

UK partners are more likely to have a dedicated in-house team (32.4% against 23.5%). Headcount and skills is also a top-three blocker for 27.2% of UK partners, compared with just 19.9% in the USA.

The setups might be different, but they share the same vulnerability, which is that marketing has no protected time. A proposal's due by close of play on Friday, so the campaign slips two weeks. If that happens four times a year, you've lost a quarter.

"From experience, the partners who scale well aren't necessarily the ones with the biggest teams. They're the ones with someone internal who owns the thinking, whether the doing sits in-house or with an agency. Hiring for all the multi-disciplined skills you need comes at a premium, and it's very rarely something one person can do alone." - Nathan Selby, Resultful

Almost two-thirds of partners in both markets don't count their own money as a source of marketing funding. That's something you'd rarely see in any other industry. In the UK, 46% ticked the Microsoft Co-op box, rising to 51.4% in the USA.

Don't get me wrong, it's a genuinely privileged position to be in. But we also asked funded partners what would happen if Microsoft funding were withdrawn entirely. 74.6% of US partners said they'd stop or reduce their marketing, against 60.6% in the UK.

You can't scale something that falls over the moment a programme changes. Microsoft funding should make good marketing bigger, not make marketing possible.

When we asked partners whether they can measure marketing's contribution to pipeline and revenue, 48.8% of UK partners and 43.1% of US partners said no or didn't know. And if you're not sure, you can't.

There's a planning gap too. Around three quarters of UK partners and 78.1% of US partners have a documented marketing plan, yet only 45.6% and 53.8% say it's aligned to business goals. So how is a channel team supposed to scale if the plan isn't pointed at what the business is trying to achieve?

The good news is that it can be done. US partners are 5.5x more likely to generate 40% of their pipeline from marketing, and the partners who get there don't do it by accident. They pick a few channels, stick with them for longer than feels comfortable, and resist chasing every new tactic.

None of these need extra budget or senior buy-in, so there's no real excuse not to do them:

This blog only scratches the surface. The UK & Ireland report lands on 28 September, the USA report follows in early October, and the comparison docs arrive mid-to-late October. Register for early access to Microsoft Partner Marketing, Measured and you'll get the reports the day they go live.

And if you'd rather chat through your own scaling challenges with other partner marketers, come along to our Microsoft Partner Marketing Meet-Up on Thursday 1 October, 2-3pm (UK). There's no hard sell, just practical sessions and honest conversation with other partner marketers.