Why your board won't fund partner marketing

I bet your partner marketing revenue targets are higher for FY 26 than they were this year. I also bet you know you could drive this number if you could get more investment to help.

And I bet your board says no anyway.

I've been doing some research about why this is – and it has nothing to do with whether partner marketing works.

The 'Orphan' budget problem

Partner marketing lives in no-man's-land.

Your CMO owns the marketing budget. And their priorities are brand awareness, demand gen, events, website, product marketing. They're interested in MQLs, pipeline, and customer acquisition. BUT - Partners don't fit into any of those boxes. 9in fact, it's notoriously hard to measure ROI from partner campaigns in those metrics.)

Your VP of Partnerships owns the partner relationships. Their priorities are things like partner recruitment, enablement, deal registration, channel management. They're measured on partner count, partner satisfaction, and partner-sourced revenue. But - they don't control the marketing budget.

So, when you pitch partner marketing investment, you're probably asking one of these roles to help and they can't. One doesn't have the budget and one doesn't have the understanding of channel and the huge lever it can be for your revenue numbers.

The actual problem: You're not speaking the board's language.

When you pitch partner marketing, your board hears: 'We want £75k for partner campaigns.' But what they're thinking is: 'We just told Marketing their budget is flat. Why should we give more money to partner marketing?'

You're framing it as a marketing expense. The board are evaluating it as an efficiency question. As the macro-economic climate gets tougher, your board only cares about something called capital efficiency.

Your investors – whether that's VCs, PE firms, or your board – are measuring against very specific metrics. These are:

1. CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) How much does it cost to acquire each customer? Is that going up or down?

2. Burn Multiple How many pounds are you burning for every pound of new ARR? (Anything above 2.5x is a red flag)

3. Magic Number (GTM Efficiency) How much new ARR are you generating per pound of sales and marketing spend?

They want to know if you can get to more profitable growth without raising another round? Also, sad times, but notice what's NOT on that list? Partner marketing. BUT it should be!

And here's why...Partners reduce CAC by 40-60% according to industry benchmarks. You know they shorten sales cycles. You know they provide a more capital-efficient path to growth. But you, and your agency, are not saying it in those terms.

You're saying: 'We need better partner enablement and co-marketing campaigns.'

Your board is hearing: 'We want to spend more money on marketing.'

They're not connecting partner marketing investment to better capital efficiency metrics and that's and that's why your requests for funding are falling on deaf ears.

VCs aren't just looking for growth anymore. They're looking for efficient growth. According to Wellington Management's 2025 VC Outlook: 'In 2025, growth is still important but no one looks at growth in a vacuum anymore. SaaS startups are being judged less on their ability to raise capital and more on their ability to use it wisely.'

In the channel, we know that partner-led growth IS efficient growth.

1. This is a stalemate that I keep seeing.

2. You know that partners could drive more revenue

3. You ask the CMO for budget to do partner marketing

4. The CMO says 'prove it will work and I'll consider it'

5. You can't prove it without spending money

6. Stalemate...

Every quarter you can't prove it, you're leaving millions in more efficient revenue on the table which could actually deliver the growth your board is looking for.

How about this. Instead of asking 'Can we afford to invest in partner marketing?' ask 'Can we afford NOT to invest in partner-led growth when our VCs are demanding better capital efficiency?'

When you can show your board that investing in partner-led growth will improve the exact metrics your VCs are tracking, the conversation changes completely.

So, the bottom line is - your board isn't saying no to partners. They're saying no to:

· Unproven marketing spend, long-term plans without quick ROI and investments that don't clearly improve their key metric

They're saying yes to:

· Capital-efficient growth, better unit economics, strategies that improve the metrics VCs care about.

Partner-led growth delivers all of that. But you need to prove it in the language they understand. So instead of asking for partner marketing budget, why don't you invest in something that gives you:

1. External validation – An independent analysis showing the opportunity

2. VC metrics – Proof that partner investment improves CAC, Burn Multiple, Magic Number

3. Quick wins – A 90-day plan with measurable ROI, not an 18-month transformation

4. Clear ROI – Show exactly how £75k investment generates £500k ARR

5. Competitive context – Here's what market leaders are doing with partners.

If you need help building this partner-led growth business case - let's talk.

At Archer Agency, we help VC-backed SaaS companies build the business case that unlocks partner marketing investment. The kind that improves your capital efficiency metrics and gets board approval.