The UK Microsoft partner marketing health check: six areas to score yourself against

It's not very often that the UK&I partner ecosystem gets its own benchmark. Data is usually folded into an EMEA figure, or partners end up measuring themselves against American numbers that don't always travel. That's a big part of why we commissioned our UK report, and it's also why we think the most useful thing a marketer can do with it is hold it up against their own business.

So, we've pulled the findings into six areas you can score yourself against. Think of it as a health check rather than an exam, because the point isn't to get top marks, it's to spot the one or two gaps worth fixing first.

For each of the six areas below, read the UK benchmark, answer the questions honestly for your own business, and give yourself a simple score: behind the market, in line with it, or ahead of it. If you can, get your MD to fill it in separately too, because comparing the two sets of answers is often more revealing than the scores themselves.

Most UK partners sit in the middle, with 62% investing 3-5% of revenue, but a quarter are down at 1-2% and only 12.4% get above 6%. Ask yourself what percentage you invest, whether that number was a deliberate decision, and whether your board would give the same answer as you.

This is where the UK has the most room to grow. Fewer than half of partners run basic reporting, and almost half either can't connect marketing to revenue or aren't sure whether they can. Can you say where last year's new business came from? Could you show which activity influenced a specific deal?

Three quarters of UK partners have a documented marketing plan, but only 45.6% say it's pointed at what the business is actually trying to achieve. Is your plan written down, and does it start from the business's growth targets rather than a list of campaigns?

The most common way marketing is delivered in a UK partner isn't a marketing team at all; it's a director or owner covering it alongside another role, chosen by 38.8%. Competing internal priorities was the single biggest limit on partner marketing (30.8%), with headcount and in-house skills close behind (27.2%). Who owns marketing in your business, in one name, and how many hours a week does it genuinely get?

Building brand awareness in a crowded market was the top UK priority (27.2%), and 27.6% say difficulty standing out is holding them back. A quarter (25.2%) also named over-reliance on vendor-supplied material. Could a competing partner put the headline on your homepage onto their own site tomorrow without lying? If they could, it's a category description rather than a proposition.

46% of UK partners ticked the Co-op box when we asked how marketing is funded, 44.4% said distributor-funded activity and 41.2% said MDF, while only 37.2% said their own P&L. Among partners funded by Co-op or MDF, 60.6% said their marketing would stop or reduce if Microsoft funding were withdrawn. What share of your marketing is genuinely yours, and what would stop tomorrow if the vendor money went away?

Very few partners will be ahead in all six, and that's absolutely fine. What you're looking for is the area where being behind costs you most. For most partners we speak to, that's measurement, because without it every other conversation - about investment, resourcing or funding - is built on guesswork.

Once you know your weakest area, you've got the start of a far stronger business case than "we need more budget". You can show the board where you sit against 250 partners like you, what that gap is costing, and exactly what you'd do to close it.

Every figure here comes from Microsoft Partner Marketing, Measured - The UK Edition 2026, where you'll also find the full question wording and data tables. And if you'd like to talk through your scores with somebody who works with Microsoft partners every day, we'd be glad to have that conversation, with no obligation at all.