Insights from Catalyst Europe: how to future proof your partner marketing

We recently hosted an expert panel at Partnership Leaders’ Catalyst Europe event where hundreds of Partnership Professionals came together for a day of learning and networking. Partner Marketing Leaders from RedHat, Paessler GmbH & MariaDB joined us to reflect on where Partner Marketing is in 2025 and what the future holds.

Partnerships have never had more attention as companies realise that partners are the pathway to growth and additional revenue. So with all eyes on Partner Marketing and AI offering the biggest gains in this space we structured the session around four key pillars for success:

1. Internal alignment

2. Partner enablement

3. Joint go-to-market (GTM)

4. AI and innovation

Here are the key takeaways from our session:

Internal Alignment: Speak the language of revenue

Partner Marketing is often treated as a separate entity and this siloed approach can hinder success.

Question: How do you work with other departments, such as sales, marketing, product and what have you seen being effective to work better together?

Tatianna Ruggiero, an international channel marketing leader at Paessler, shared that success comes from “talking the language of revenue.” Partner Marketers need to position themselves as a revenue-generating function, not a cost centre. That means translating partner activity into commercial impact such as pipeline growth, influenced revenue and deal acceleration.

Ashleigh Auld, who leads the Partner Marketing team at MariaDB described Partner Marketing as a conduit between product, sales and marketing: “Too often Partner Marketing gets looped in at the last minute when something is already in motion. Being proactive and embedding yourself into product roadmaps and sales plans 6–12 months ahead is what allows you to create true go-to-market alignment.”

She also emphasised setting shared OKRs between Partner Marketing, Sales, and Product so the whole organisation works toward the same commercial outcomes.

James Stacey, who focuses on partner strategy in the global partner marketing team at Red Hat, reinforced that once this alignment exists, timing and execution become critical: “Imagine if on the same day you launch a sales play, a marketing campaign, and partner enablement content. That’s when internal alignment really shows up in market.”

He also highlighted the importance of looking “outside-in” — aligning around customer challenges first, not internal silos.

Partner Enablement: Keep It simple and empower partners

Catalyst attendees were asked to share their biggest challenges ahead of the event and Partner motivation and enablement was one of the top challenges.

Question: What makes the difference between partner marketing enablement that’s used by your partners vs. that gets ignored?

All three panellists agreed that the biggest barrier to partner enablement isn’t lack of content, it’s the overload and overwhelm. Partners are drowning in portals and playbooks, so simplicity is key.

🔹 Ashleigh follows the KISS rule — Keep It Simple, Stupid.

“Partners don’t have time to dig through endless PDFs. They want a simple, intuitive content hub with a smart search function. The easier it is to find and apply, the more likely it will actually be used.” She also suggested that vendors should “partnerise” internal enablement material and have bi-directional communication channels such as Slack to keep the dialogue open and easy for partners.

🔹 James encouraged Partner Marketers to think about enablement by partner type and maturity. Tailoring materials by geography, vertical or capability helps partners feel seen and supported. Once partners are enabled, co-create campaigns and keep the feedback loop open.

🔹 Tatianna reminded everyone that “less is more.”

Focus on timely, actionable enablement rather than flooding partners with resources. And crucially, make sure your own internal teams use and promote the same assets — consistency matters.

Tatianna mentioned that she sees marketing ‘s role in empowering partners rather than purely enabling – translating the sales message into usable assets.

Joint Go-To-Market: Alignment beats activity

Now that internal and external alignment was addressed, we wanted to delve into joint GTM, the pitfalls and best practice that the panellists have witnessed in the industry.

Question: What’s the biggest mistake you have seen vendors make in GTM? Do you have a tactic or strategy that the audience can activate in next quarter to optimise pipeline/ ROI?

When it comes to GTM, all three panellists were clear: the biggest mistake vendors make is confusing activity with alignment.

🔹 Tatianna said too many campaigns are built around vendor goals, not joint customer value – “When GTM feels one-sided, engagement drops and ROI suffers.”

Her practical advice: run a ‘1-few’ GTM sprint — pick a small group of partners with similar customer profiles or industries and co-create a joint campaign around a specific customer challenge. Align sales and BDRs early, measure conversions together, and scale what works.

🔹 Ashleigh added that one of the biggest pitfalls she sees is vendors moving too fast without involving Partner Marketing in the strategy. “Sales often jumps straight to tactics — let’s do a webinar, let’s run an event — but without a clear Partner GTM framework, it just becomes noise.”

Her quick win: partnerise existing corporate campaigns. Adapt them with partner-specific messaging and lead follow-up motions. At Pleo, she ran a partnerised integrated campaign with one of their partners that generated record pipeline in just four weeks — showing that speed and strategy can co-exist if aligned properly. (Note: Aega Partner Marketing created and executed this campaign for Pleo)

🔹 James shared how Red Hat aligns partners and sellers across the customer journey — from top-of-funnel campaigns to joint demos and coordinated deal closing.

Sharing high quality lead data and pipeline metrics transparently is key and incentivise joint sellers with clear goals such as pipeline created or actual revenue and spotlight the wins to reinforce momentum.

AI in Action: Practical Examples

I heard someone describe AI recently as ‘the electricity that runs through everything’ — and I think that’s spot on. It’s not a separate pillar; it’s powering everything we do, from content and enablement to co-marketing campaigns and analytics. I wanted to understand how Partner Marketers are actually using it in a way that makes life easier.:

Question: What AI tools are you using (or exploring) that make a tangible impact in partner marketing?

🔹 James broke down AI use cases into two categories:

1. Operational automation – using GenAI to draft content, improve MDF compliance and reduce admin tasks.

2. Strategic engineering – using AI to integrate data and serve personalised experiences at scale, for example via chatbots or predictive insights.

🔹 Tatianna has used AI to profile partners, identifying what differentiates top performers from the rest and used AI tools to help co-create joint value propositions with partners.

🔹 Ashleigh shared how her team uses Synthesia for video localisation/avatar creation and lip sync dubbing – you can upload videos to automatically dub them in all languages. Link Here: https://bit.ly/synthesia1

The second option she mentioned is the Zift PRM tool for partner portal marketing module. It offers AI and LLM-powered search across the entire content repository and includes a dynamic co-marketing portal that lets partners embed and share video content within their webinars.

Final Thoughts

Partner Marketing is evolving fast and the message from our panel was clear:

• Speak the language of revenue

• Simplify & tailor partner enablement

• Align before you activate

• Use AI to scale, not just save time

Partnerships are no longer the side show to direct marketing, they’re the main growth channel. And the future belongs to Partner Marketers who can empower their partners and create true allies, align internally and use intelligent automation.

At Aega Partner Marketing we help tech vendors and their partners do exactly that, from turnkey co-marketing campaigns to partner enablement and AI-powered content programs. Interested in learning more? Get in touch enquiries@aegamarketing.com