---
name: co-marketing
description: Find co-marketing partners, score partnership fit, and plan joint campaigns. Use when the user says "co-marketing", "partner marketing", "joint campaign", "who should we partner with", "cross-promotion", or "co-brand". Not for customer referral or affiliate programs: use a referrals skill. Not for outbound prospect email: use cold-email. Not for planning your own content calendar: use content-strategy.
license: MIT
metadata:
  author: TechTide AI (Alex Cinovoj)
  provenance: rewritten from patterns in an open SaaS marketing skills pack (MIT)
  category: Marketing & Growth
---

# Co-Marketing Partnerships

The best partner shares your audience but not your revenue line: same buyer, different problem, adjacent step in the workflow. Everything else is scoring, logistics, and follow-through.

## Workflow

1. **Load context.** If a product marketing context file exists in the repo (`.agents/product-marketing.md` or `.claude/product-marketing.md`), read it first. Only ask for what it does not cover: ICP, audience size, existing integrations, past partnerships.
2. **Build the candidate list.** Sources, in order of signal strength: existing integration partners, tools customers use before/after yours, requested integrations, same-category marketplace neighbors, companies sponsoring the same podcasts and conferences, account-overlap tools if available.
3. **Score each candidate 1-5** on six criteria: audience fit, audience size, brand alignment, engagement quality, reciprocity potential (can you offer equal value?), ease of execution (do they have a partnerships team?). Rank, take the top 5.
4. **Pick the campaign format.** Match effort to relationship stage using the format catalog in references/campaign-formats.md. First collaboration: start low-effort (newsletter swap, joint webinar). Proven partner: escalate (research report, co-hosted workshop).
5. **Pitch.** Draft outreach using the template in references/campaign-formats.md. Bring 2-3 specific campaign ideas, your audience numbers, and a clear ask. "Let's do something together" gets ignored.
6. **Structure the deal.** Align in writing on: lead ownership, promotion commitments per side, who creates and approves assets, timeline, success metrics, follow-up plan. Agreement outline is in references/campaign-formats.md.
7. **Measure.** Leads generated per partner, MQL/SQL conversion, attributed revenue, audience growth, plus the qualitative read: was the partner responsive, would you run it again.

## Verification

Do this before pitching any partner list: for each of the top 5, state in one sentence why their audience matches your ICP and what you offer them in return. Expect a concrete answer for both halves. If the reciprocity half is empty ("exposure"), cut the candidate or find a real trade, unbalanced pitches get declined.

## Good vs Bad

**Bad:** "Partner with a big brand in your space and do a joint ebook." Ignores reciprocity: a company 50x your size has no reason to split leads with you.

**Good:** "Partner with the scheduling tool your customers mention in onboarding surveys. Similar list size, complementary workflow step. Open with a newsletter swap (each keeps own leads, zero legal overhead), and propose a joint webinar if the swap performs."

## Footguns

- **Partnering with a budget competitor.** Same buyer persona is good, competing for the same line item kills the deal downstream. Fix: check that the products co-exist in a customer's stack.
- **Lead-split ambiguity.** The most common post-campaign fight. Fix: agree lead ownership in writing before any asset is built.
- **Effort mismatch.** A high-effort research report with an unproven partner burns a quarter. Fix: first campaigns are always low-effort formats.
- **No promotion commitments.** One side builds, the other side ghosts. Fix: minimum promotion commitments per side, in the agreement, with dates.

## Completion checklist

- [ ] Context file checked before asking questions
- [ ] Candidates scored on all six criteria, top 5 ranked
- [ ] Reciprocity sentence written for every recommended partner
- [ ] Campaign format matched to relationship stage
- [ ] Deal terms cover leads, promotion, assets, timeline, metrics

Any box unchecked: not done. Fix or say so.