Katana – Building a partner management system in HubSpot
Building a fully custom solution, via HubSpot, to collect and report data they can trust to drive their strategic decisions.*
Disclaimer:
- This is an Advance B2B customer story.
- Advance B2B teams are now fully part of Valve.
What did we do?
HubSpot consultation
A unique reporting challenge
Despite having a talented RevOps team and an A-grade understanding of marketing, Katana struggled to track and optimize the performance of their partner network, which accounts for a significant portion of their revenue.
This gap made it difficult for them to identify which partners were driving the most leads and revenue and, therefore, where they should focus their efforts and investments.
In other words, they needed a way to collect, report on, and leverage partner-related data.
And that's where we came in.
Designing custom HubSpot processes to provide a clear data flow
The raison d’être of this project was to collect accurate data regarding the number of leads, pipeline, and revenue attributed to each partner company, and automate the entire reporting process to increase efficiency (and minimize caveats coming from manual inputs).
But we ended up doing much more than just building an analytics center.
- We mapped every single lead source, from which new partners sign up.
- We designed custom HubSpot processes to define what happens to newly created leads coming from Katana’s partners and implemented it. For instance, we:
- Made sure relevant people and teams get notified,
- Clearly defined how leads will be qualified,
- Defined & set up a custom object in HubSpot for partners
- Documented how we track the journey of a partner from “mildly interested” to “active partner”.
- We designed a fully custom tracking and analytics system within HubSpot to help Katana track and measure what matters.
All in all, if HubSpot offers great out-of-the-box tracking solutions, none of this work was ‘standard’ in HubSpot. 100% of the solution we came up with had to be custom-built to meet Katana’s requirements.
Creating a seamless automation for partner data
A key aspect of this project was automation. We relied on advanced integrations to automate the whole partner management tracking and reporting.
For context, Katana uses PartnerStack for partner management. This is one of the main channels where new partners can sign up and submit leads. We used Zapier to connect Partnerstack to HubSpot so that all the leads and new partners reach their ‘designated place’ in HubSpot.
Additionally, we created more automation within HubSpot:
- Attribution: we created a process to assign the right owner to the new leads and partners.
- Segmentation: we set up smart solutions to mark who is a partner and who is a lead or customer. We also set up segmentation among the partners - so that we can track which types of partners are delivering better leads or revenue. This simple segmentation helps marketing nurture everyone with the right content to move them further in the funnel.
- Pipeline: we automated the movement in the channel partner pipeline. When a cold partner becomes interested, HubSpot automatically moves the partner to the next stage.
What’s more, we had to create custom objects.
By default, HubSpot has ready-to-use common properties, such as contact or company lifecycle and company name or phone number (classic stuff). If your business operates differently, you must create and maintain custom properties.
And so we created a new object in HubSpot: Partners.
We set up the data model, the overall logic for how this object is supposed to behave, and how it should function alongside existing default and custom HubSpot objects such as companies, deals, contacts, etc.
The result? “We can now make strategic decisions with numbers we can trust”
Previously, Katana’s partner network relied on a cumbersome system and Excel sheets that required frequent ad-hoc efforts and provided limited visibility into revenue generation and conversion metrics.
With our custom solution, everything became more clear and measurable:
- Lead Tracking: The system now tracks leads generated by each partner, offering clear insights into which partners contribute the most.
- New Partner Funnel: We also developed a funnel to assist in onboarding and managing new partners, enhancing their ability to expand their network effectively (and enroll new partners to bring in more leads).
- Clear attribution: Katana can now measure conversions, pipeline, and revenue attributed to each partner. This allows them to make more informed strategic decisions and targeted investments. For instance, they can now produce and promote targeted campaigns towards the partner segments with the highest potential to bring in more leads and revenue.
- Increase in revenue generation: Due to the ability to track the abovementioned, Katana and Henri were able to optimize their efforts and significantly increase the revenue generated by their partner network.
To make a long story short, with this custom HubSpot tracking setup, Katana can now identify which partners to focus on, allowing them to invest in relationships that drive the most business.
Customer quote
"The data we now get from our partner management program is highly used by the teams. It tells us what areas we should focus on. As a result, we can now make strategic decisions with numbers we can trust. For instance, we have been able to identify segments that are working better and have started more focused marketing towards them.”
Henri Viirok
Revenue Operations Lead, Katana
