Acceleration Partners is a leading partnership marketing agency that is driven by our commitment to high-performing partnerships. We work hard to create and nurture partnerships that will drive exceptional outcomes for our clients. Our ability to help brands scale and accelerate their program performance is rooted in our unique approach to affiliate and partnership acquisition.
In my conversations with partners over the years, I’ve always been delighted when receiving positive feedback about our agency—whether it’s that Acceleration Partners (AP) is their favorite agency to work with, or that our teams are extremely responsive and are always open to connecting on a one-on-one basis.
How has AP maintained this reputation for leading with a partnerships-first mindset? Matching our clients with the right affiliates and strategic partners lays the foundation for all other brand-building efforts. If you have been searching for a partnership marketing agency that has a proven track record of success and can help you shatter growth barriers, AP is that agency.
Join us as we explore our process so that you can better understand how we deliver optimal value for our clients.
Finding the Best Partnership Opportunities
When approaching a partnership between an advertiser and an affiliate, it’s easy to cast a wide net to get as many partners into the program as quickly as possible. Many agencies will taut how many affiliate partners they have in their ecosystem, which can seem impressive on paper. But that does not mean they’ve formed high quality and individualized partnerships with these affiliates. It’s also important that agencies don’t make certain promises in order to sell a client, and then are unable to keep those promises once the client’s program kicks off. While casting a wide partner net may help achieve the goal of trying to make everyone money, it may not be aligned with the advertiser’s unique business goals or their target customers. AP’s approach to partnerships is always quality over quantity. Finding the right partners for our brands it at the core of what we do as a team. Communication is key in any relationship, but especially when approaching a new affiliate for a client. A true partnership takes all sides into consideration. One mistake I’ve seen in this space is when an agency fails to take an affiliate partner’s individual offering into consideration when making decisions about a brand’s affiliate program. When forming new partnerships, it’s important to first gain an in-depth understanding of the client’s business objectives. Some key questions we ask include:- What are the client’s KPIs?
- Who is their core audience?
- What drives them?
- What is the message they’re looking to get out there?
- What type of customer are they looking to reach?
- How do they measure success?
How AP Matches the Right Partners to Clients
Growing our clients’ programs is what drives us, and all of AP has the same focus: to help our clients be successful. Communication is key in determining a potential partnership, and our teams must align internally first before taking the next step. Below is an overview of the step-by-step process AP takes to match the right partners with brands:- Gain a full understanding of the client. First step should always be about getting to know a client, their business goals, and what they hope to achieve. We also take the time to learn what has been successful in the past for the brand, if there are similar affiliates to their existing partners that could produce high results, and what their current strategy looks like.
- Discern what challenges and pain points the brand wants to address. AP always wants to make sure we’re finding solutions to our clients’ challenges, which means first understanding what hasn’t been working in their program and why.
- Discuss openness to varying partnership opportunities. We also check in with our clients to figure out their comfort levels when it comes to testing out new partnerships and pursuing out-of-the-box opportunities.
- Connect with the partner on brand alignment. As previously mentioned, it’s imperative to find a partner that can meet an advertiser’s unique goals and KPIs. We ask in-depth questions to a brand’s potential partner, some of which include:
- Will this brand resonate with their audience?
- Are their users interested in this category?
- Does the partner’s audience demographic align with the brand’s?
- Establish clear, two-way communication. If the client initially says no, we make to share the WHY and be transparent with the partner. Everyone needs to have a full understanding of why a relationship won’t work or be mutually beneficial.
- Create a flexible, innovative environment. Affiliates are typically very flexible and open to finding a solution that works for everyone. In some cases, they may be open to trying a short-term test or willing to negotiate a commission or CPA rate that works for all budgets. If a brand is not willing to discuss mutually beneficial options, then they may not be the right fit for that particular partner.
- Dissolve outdated generalizations and perceptions. Sometimes brands can have a certain bias toward an affiliate type based on a bad past experience. While AP is always willing to work within a brand’s guidelines, we also strongly encourage brands to avoid taking a blanket approach. With guidance from AP partnership experts who can clearly communicate the benefits of each partner type, brands can unlock new levels of opportunity. Every partner is unique and can bring different value to a partnership; they are not one-size-fits-all.
