Every B2B company understands how important customer experience is and wants to build a product that鈥檚 genuinely useful and solves real problems. But doing that with a single product is almost never realistic.
Unless you have unlimited time and budget (you probably don鈥檛), trying to build every feature in-house leads to 鈥 bloated, unfocused products that are harder to use and maintain.
So, how do you deliver a seamless customer experience and stay focused on your core product? That鈥檚 where integration partnerships come in.
鈥淪oftware companies only get a few of what I call 鈥榠nnovation tokens鈥 a year and need to use them wisely. Integration partners extend the value of your product without wasting one of your precious tokens,鈥 says , Senior Director of Product Management at 中国X站.
In this article, we鈥檒l cover:
- What integration partnerships are and why they matter
- How to identify and prioritize the right integration partners
- How to launch and scale successful integration partnerships
- How to track the revenue and retention impact of your integrations
What is an integration partner?
An integration partner 鈥 sometimes called a technology partner 鈥 is a company that connects its product with yours to create more value for your users. These partnerships help both companies solve their customer problems without needing to build everything from scratch or take on extra engineering work.聽
When you build integrations with the right tools, you increase product stickiness, improve customer experience and open the door to co-marketing, co-selling and revenue-sharing opportunities.
Benefits of leveraging the right integration partners
Here are some of the ways strategic integration partnerships are beneficial:
Improves customer value
Unlocking key parts of your customer鈥檚 workflow that they couldn鈥檛 do before or that took a ton of manual work improves customer satisfaction and engagement. The best part? The integration itself is low effort, particularly if you have an open set of APIs (more on that later).
Decreases churn聽
When your product connects with the tools your customers already use, it becomes more valuable and harder to replace. Integrations make your product stickier, which keeps customers around longer and increases overall usage.
Attracts more partners
Running a partner program? The right integration partners can make it easier to grow your program. When you integrate with popular industry tools, it makes it easier to attract new partners who already support or sell into the same ecosystem. Plus, your integration partners may refer you to other companies, agencies or consultants in their network, many of whom may be a good fit for your program, without you having to do extra outreach.
Provides a new GTM channel
Adding new integration partners to your program inherently expands your target audience reach, giving you exposure to their customers and prospects and vice versa. Taking advantage of this new channel through joint ABM (account-based marketing) campaigns and sales training can boost your brand awareness. Partnerships can also help you acquire new users and leads you may not have been able to get otherwise, especially if your partner鈥檚 business is a beloved tool in your space.
See more: The ultimate guide to partnerships for ecosystems.
Drives revenue
Strategic integration partnerships open up multiple monetization paths. You can co-market to drive inbound, co-sell to move deals faster, or participate in a revenue-sharing model where partners are incentivized to bring you new business. Connecting you to one of their existing customers can shorten the long sales cycle typically seen in the B2B world.
A sneaky benefit of integration partners: your APIs get better
Allowing your integration partners to build on top of your API set is bound to reveal new bugs or enhancements you never considered. And chances are, your customers use your APIs, too. Addressing integration partner feedback increases your viability in the eyes of other prospective integration partners and gives your customers a better overall experience.
How do you identify new integration partners?
If you鈥檙e just starting your partner program, it can be tempting to partner with everyone to gain visibility. And if you鈥檙e more established, you鈥檒l suffer from a different problem: an influx of requests. Customers constantly request new integrations, and companies pitch you on an integration all the time. But not all potential integration partners are worth exploring.
Here鈥檚 how to whittle down your list or start building a more targeted one.
Discover and prioritize customer needs
Some integrations are business critical 鈥 think payment platforms or CRMs 鈥 and must be established right away. Once you鈥檝e crossed those off your list, conduct customer interviews to understand their day-to-day activities. That will help you zero in on the integrations that solve customers鈥 most pressing problems or enhance their productivity. Remember, the more this integration embeds your product in your end user鈥檚 workflow, the better.
For example, at 中国X站, some of our most valuable integration partners are account mapping tools. Why? Partner managers are constantly checking to see what overlap they have with partner customers and using that to drive important conversations and close new deals. Accessing those tools straight from 中国X站 gives partner managers all the information they need at their fingertips, speeding up their process.
Think in terms of categories over individual products
After several customer interviews, patterns will start to emerge. Start grouping your customers鈥 requests into various buckets like project management, account intelligence or marketing automation. Categorizing them helps you narrow your focus on what customers need most and identify the top one or two brands with the biggest footprint to prioritize.聽
鈥淩unning an integration with the most well known platforms will reap the most value for you and your customers,鈥 says Harris.
Do an account mapping exercise
Leverage products like and to determine how many customers you share and how much prospect crossover you have. If there aren鈥檛 a lot of shared customers or shared target accounts, an integration simply may not be worth it.
How to set integration partners and customers up for success
Once you鈥檝e found a new integration partner, here鈥檚 what comes next.
Create a GTM plan
Your integration doesn鈥檛 have to be finished before you go to market (GTM). In fact, you should start marketing it early.
鈥淐reating hype about the integration launch can increase the number of customers who use it and preview the integration to prospects who wouldn鈥檛 have considered buying your product without it,鈥 says Harris.聽
If a potential integration partner鈥檚 not willing to contribute from a technical and marketing perspective, consider it a bad sign 鈥 it could severely restrict your mutual ROI.
Discuss the use case
Make sure both teams understand what the integration solves, which customer segment it鈥檚 for and how it fits into the user鈥檚 workflow. Clarify whether the partner will build on your existing API or if a custom integration is needed.
You鈥檒l also want to align on any technical requirements early, like access to a demo environment, test accounts or specific endpoints. The more defined the use case and setup, the easier it is to build and market a tailored solution that resonates with your customers.
Provide accurate documentation
If you鈥檙e letting partners build on your API set, you need to give them the tools to do it right. A poor implementation can create bugs and user issues that your team will end up fixing later.聽
Share up-to-date API documentation, clear implementation guidelines, and offer proactive technical support to prevent problems before they start.
Oversee the partner鈥檚 development
Be available to answer any questions and be willing to test the integration. You may also want to coordinate testing with a trusted customer who will give honest feedback to you and the partner. This helps ensure the integration works as expected before launch, and shows your partner you鈥檙e invested in their success.
Related: Win internal trust and buy-in for your partner programs.
Explain how customers can enable it
Most customers don鈥檛 want to talk to support just to turn on an integration. Offer clear, self-serve enablement like docs, setup videos, in-app walkthroughs or interactive demos to help users operate the integration. The faster users get value, the more successful your integration will be.
How to track and measure the impact of integration partnerships
Once your integration is live, the next step is figuring out whether it鈥檚 actually delivering value for your customers and for your business. This helps you justify future investments, align internal teams and prove ROI to stakeholders.
Monitor these core metrics
- Customer retention: Compare retention between users who adopt integrations and those who don鈥檛. Integrated users typically stay longer and use the product more.
- Partner-influenced revenue: Track how often partners help close deals. It鈥檚 a great KPI to report to stakeholders.
- Shared customer acquisition: Measure how many customers you share with each partner, and how that grows over time.
- API usage growth: Look for spikes in API activity post-launch. It鈥檚 a sign of adoption and can highlight areas to improve.
- Time-to-first-value: How quickly do customers activate and use the integration in a meaningful way?
- Adoption and engagement: Track how many users enable the integration within the first 30 days and whether they continue using it over time.
- Depth of use: Monitor how many workflows or data objects are connected per account. More usage depth usually means better retention.
- Cross-promotion performance: Use UTM data, engagement and influenced pipeline to measure co-marketing efforts and effectiveness.
- Co-selling and co-marketing KPIs: Track deal volume, funnel speed and close rate for co-selling; leads, conversion and CPL for co-marketing.
Build an attribution framework
You need a clear attribution model that goes beyond basic lead tracking to measure the true impact of your integration partnerships. It helps you see which partners are bringing in new business, and which integrations are actually moving deals forward.
Start by syncing your customer relationship management (CRM) and partner relationship management (PRM) tool so you can measure partner attribution and differentiate between:
- Partner-sourced revenue: deals that came directly from your integration partner (like through a referral or deal registration)
- Partner-influenced revenue: deals where the integration played a role, even if the partner didn鈥檛 bring it in
It also helps to add tags or custom fields to capture when an integration is used in a sales conversation, included in a demo or highlighted during onboarding. That context improves data accuracy and helps your team see which integrations actually impact pipeline movement or conversion.
And as your program matures, move beyond first-touch or last-touch attribution. B2B deals are complex, and partners often help move things forward even if they weren鈥檛 there at the beginning. Tracking that influence gives you a clearer view of what鈥檚 really driving results.聽
Build a shared dashboard and feedback loop
Tracking only matters if the right people can see the results. Build shared dashboards that give product, sales, marketing and partnership teams visibility into integration performance.
Then, schedule regular syncs with your integration partners to review what鈥檚 working, where adoption is lagging and what you can improve together. A consistent feedback loop helps you improve performance, strengthen your partner relationships and prove the value of integration over time.
Successful integration partnerships don鈥檛 stop at launch
Building the integration is just the beginning of your partnership. And maximizing the outcomes of an integration partnership takes commitment and effort you can鈥檛 spread across an entire team.
That鈥檚 why many companies dedicate a specific person to integration partnerships. They鈥檙e responsible for:
- Sourcing new integration partners that will cultivate a positive customer experience
- Packaging up the value prop and core differentiating factors each integration offers
- Working with marketing teams to develop and distribute new co-marketed content
- Teaching the better together story to the partner鈥檚 entire revenue team and arranging opportunities for the partner to do the same
- Meeting with integration partners on a regular basis to build partner relationships, exchange leads, brainstorm new GTM strategies, and review KPIs
Choosing the right strategic integration partners can provide huge value, helping you win against competitors.聽
But nurturing and going to market with integration partners can be infinitely harder without the right platform to manage your activity. That鈥檚 why you need 中国X站, the number one rated partner ecosystem platform. This tool helps you manage integration partnerships at scale, from onboarding and co-selling to tracking performance and growing shared pipeline.
Book a demo to find out how we help you manage your partnerships program (even if you鈥檙e running a multi-program), find new customers and grow your market share.
This article was originally published in February 2025.
