As someone who has spent a lot of time working with partner teams, I often see the same disconnect: organizations invest a lot of time, budget, and brainpower into customer experience (CX), while partner experience (PX) is treated as an afterthought.
Nearly half (43%) of marketers point to the lack of partner-ready content and assets as a major challenge in supporting channel and partner sales, with an additional 29% claiming that partner engagement through partner portals, content, and resources is one of the biggest issues organizations have yet to fix in order to improve their partner programs.
In customer journeys, we obsess over friction. In partner journeys, they will push through friction if there is substantial value on the other side, but this friction doesn’t go unnoticed. Partners have endless vendor options, but ease will win every time.
For organizations betting on partners to drive growth, PX shouldn’t be a “nice to have,” it should be foundational because it drives revenue and directly fuels partner engagement, loyalty, and performance.
What is PX, and why does it matter for marketers today?
PX is the full journey a partner has with your company, from their first onboarding email to the moment they co-sell their first deal and beyond. It includes:
- How quickly partners can get started
- How confident they feel positioning your solution
- How accessible your content and communication are
- How easy it is to launch co-marketing motions
- How aligned sales teams are when it’s time to co-sell
Much like CX, PX is not a single touchpoint. It’s formed through countless small interactions that signal to partners: “Working with us is worth your time.” It’s the difference between a partner who just adds you to their line card and a partner who actively champions your organization and brand.
Partners don’t just “support” go-to-market strategy — they shape it by influencing deals, co-marketing, and co-selling. In its 2025 Partner Ecosystem Marketing Survey, Forrester found that two-thirds of B2B companies expect partner-influenced revenue to grow 30% or more compared to last year’s numbers. A partner is your organization’s advocate when you’re not around. The catch? They only do that when the experience of working with you feels purposeful and efficient — and when the benefits are mutual.
The partners that stay engaged, bring revenue, grow pipeline, and invest in the partnership are the ones who feel seen, supported, and valued. They don’t wrestle with portals or chase down program information. A strong PX doesn’t guarantee partner success, but a weak PX will almost always lead to partner disengagement.
Where partner marketing fits into the PX conversation
Truthfully, partner marketing teams often end up owning the messiest parts of the partner journey, like enablement, distribution of materials, communications, event coordination, co-marketing requests, campaign execution, and market development funds (MDF). Partners are immediately impacted when these program components lack clarity or structure.
Partner marketing can’t just operate as a campaign and execution engine. Instead, it needs to act as a steward of PX.
For companies looking to deliver value to partners, that means:
- Thinking about onboarding like a customer onboarding flow
- Treating partner communications like lifecycle marketing
- Designing co-marketing like a shared brand experience
- Creating repeatable processes that remove ambiguity (e.g., navigating systems)
- Advocating internally for resources and alignment
4 practical tips for improving PX
In my previous role as a partner marketer at a global IT infrastructure provider and an enterprise data and analytics platform, I became well-versed in the gaps and pain points our partners experienced.
Below are four practical starting points for prioritizing your organization’s PX:
- Map the partner journey: Not the one you think is happening, the real one. Identify friction points and confusing hand-offs by tracking completion rates for onboarding and training, or trends in partner-sourced pipeline. Conducting an annual survey can help to identify partner pain points and highlight opportunities for PX improvements.
- Sharpen your partner value proposition: Partners prioritize vendors who prioritize them. Be upfront and offer defined margins, quarterly sales performance incentive funds (SPIFFs) or accelerators, campaigns-in-a-box, or a dedicated partner marketing manager. Be clear about the support and opportunities you offer during the partner recruitment process to underscore that your organization is worth the effort.
- Invest in partner operations: PX falls apart without operational support: systems, workflows, and governance matter. Keep processes, like MDF requests or attribution, simple and make it easy for partners to conduct business with your organization. Operational excellence is the true backbone of PX.
- Measure effort — not just outcomes: Don’t wait for revenue to drop to identify a problem. Monitor indicators like the partner’s net promoter score (NPS), retention rate, and partner portal usage to help gauge the health of partnerships. By measuring effort alongside outcomes, you are proactively supporting your partners and identifying areas of improvement.
Go-to-market is changing and PX matters as much as customer experience — probably more. Partners shape pipeline, trust, and brand perception in ways your sales team can’t.
At Merritt Group, we help B2B companies find the right partners, get them up to speed, and run programs that drive real results.
Learn how a better partner experience can cut friction, sharpen value, and grow your business.
