As we continue to expand our partner community and drive shared value to thousands of merchants globally, it is our top priority to continuously improve the way we work together.
Against the backdrop of the thriving commerce industry, Yotpo has seen exponential growth alongside our incredible partner ecosystem. In the last year alone, we engaged in over 3,300 collaborations with hundreds of partners hailing from over 30 different countries. This has resulted in a rapid 60% year-over-year growth of the entire Yotpo partnership channel, including leading system integrators, marketing agencies, loyalty consultants, tech partnerships, and all flavors of expert eCommerce service providers.
Our product portfolio has evolved too and, with it, our company mission to provide the leading eCommerce marketing platform. Our latest addition of SMS marketing in early 2020 represents the fastest-growing segment of our business and one that has the biggest impact on merchants, with Yotpo customers seeing 20% of their eCommerce revenue coming from the channel.
Why We Redesigned Our Partner Program
Given Yotpo’s rapid growth and that of our partner community, it was imperative that our Partner Program reflect the diverse types of service and agency partners across various business segments and geographies. This evolution needed to support where we are now, in addition to providing advanced benefits and support to our ever-diversifying partners, helping them scale their businesses and deliver value to brands.
Following our most recent funding round of $230 million, our largest investment round to date, we pledged to invest in enriching our program and deepening our alliances with current and future partners.
“Our partners are critical to our business and have been a driving force in helping push us forward to where we are today,” said Tomer Tagrin, Co-Founder and CEO of Yotpo. “We’re thrilled to roll out our new and improved Partner Program and deliver on our promise of investing in our partner ecosystem. Together, we will continue to drive growth and success for eCommerce merchants.”
We strive to be in constant communication with our community and consistently collect their feedback on how we’re doing and where we can improve. Our partners spoke their minds, and we listened.
With additional resources on hand and our partners’ priorities in mind, we set out to build a program that:
- Recognizes and rewards our most active and loyal partners for their achievements and dedication
- Provides more access to Yotpo-supported marketing opportunities and additional enablement resources
- Provides distinct and accelerated support options for our partners’ clients and brands
- Ensures a best-in-class partner experience, with local support and global consistency
- Allows partners various avenues to grow with Yotpo based on their business needs
How Does the New Program Work?
The Yotpo Partner Program is designed to power merchant success by providing our agency and service partners the value and support needed to build amazing eCommerce experiences.
For the first time ever, official eCommerce service partners will be recognized by one of three partnership tiers:
- Yotpo Partner: New partners who have clients using or considering to use one of Yotpo’s products will go through a simplified online application process and, once accepted, instantly gain benefits by joining our community and begin their Yotpo journey.
- Yotpo Select Partner: With considerable expertise and proven shared success, qualified partners will receive additional benefits as a Select Partner. This achievement is expected to represent roughly 15-20% of our partner community.
- Yotpo Premier Partner: Representing less than 5% of our overall partner community, the Premier status is reserved for those partners who have gone above and beyond with Yotpo and our clients, qualifying them for unique and exclusive benefits across the Yotpo organization.
The new model is designed to deepen our relationships within our partner community, propel partners forward, and encourage partners to climb up the tiers to unlock more advanced benefits for their business and their clients. The program was designed with flexibility in mind and we are relentlessly focused on providing the resources and support to reach the higher tiers of the program as partners grow their eCommerce marketing expertise.
How Did We Come up With the Criteria?
Determining the requirements for each tier was a complex undertaking. To begin, we spent six months speaking with our community, conducting in-depth one-on-one interviews and community surveys to collect their feedback. Through this process, we identified the core attributes that define a successful partnership and explored what our partners deem as most valuable to achieve that success. The result was a mixture of business contribution and company engagement. We then evaluated past business performance within our ecosystem and reviewed best-in-class programs, taking into account joint business along with expected future opportunities. We complimented pure financial requirements with expected marketing and product knowledge to reward partners with proven success and commitment to Yotpo. After all, we are a loyalty company!
Our priority is to keep access to the higher tiers open to as many partners as we can, and the combination of performance and opportunity enables a wider set of partners to achieve success in the program. We will be reviewing partners for eligibility within the tiers every six months, based on the previous twelve months, with the goal of empowering our partners to advance through the program.
Enhanced Benefits for All Partners
With our tier criteria in place, we worked on building out key benefits for all partners, regardless of their partnership status, with accelerated benefits available to those on higher tiers. These include:
Referral Fees: We looked at the core level of commercial arrangements around our referral fee structure and retooled the scheme to ensure the eligibility of all of our products, whether subscription-based or usage-based. We also added the option for increased revenue share as standard for our Select and Premier partners.
Marketing & Branding: We’re providing access to Yotpo’s industry-leading marketing muscle through co-marketing initiatives as well as opportunities to take part in our signature digital programs and events, such as Amazing Women in eCommerce, Destination Online, Yotpo Masterclass, and more. Our priority is to provide as many opportunities as we can for our partners to get in front of our audience of clients and prospects.
Education & Training: With Yotpo’s growing list of product lines, we wanted to ensure all of our partners have the ability to gain the knowledge necessary to position and implement Yotpo innovations that benefit their clients. We are adding enhanced education and training opportunities for all tiers to learn together and better serve eCommerce brands. Moving forward, we’ll be rolling out product-level certifications to help ensure promoters along with practitioners are equipped to ensure clients get the best return on the Yotpo investment.
Partnership Support: Our Partner Managers are second to none and are the cornerstone of our program. That personalized touch and service will remain a key to our success, as we continue to add more PMs on the ground to support partners wherever they are located. To enhance the partner experience further, we are adding more tools for success, including a new online partner experience portal — more details on that coming soon!
Product & Implementation Support: We’ll be working even more closely with the delivery side of our partners’ organizations to ensure client success with Yotpo products. We’re also adding enhanced and streamlined benefits by providing priority support and ticket escalation for our partners’ clients, as well as product and services personnel aligned with our channel organization.
Yotpo Engagement: We’re driving more ways to engage leading partners within the Yotpo organization and adding more formalized access to leadership, as well as an advisory board to collaborate on driving the industry forward. And with our product leadership, we will be providing more visibility to our top-tier partners around the product roadmap and future innovation direction of our eCommerce marketing platform.
Our Vision
The new and improved program is just the beginning. We’re going to keep refining and perfecting the program as we go along to ensure we deliver the superior experience our partners expect, along with benefits that make an impact on their businesses. And to all of our technology and managed serviced partners: stay tuned! We have big plans in the works for enhanced programs to support both our integration capabilities as well as building additional service revenue streams through the management and support of our platform.
Our partners are core to our vision, culture, and strategy, and represent a true extension of our team. We’re looking forward to continuing to scale alongside one another and deliver shared value to eCommerce merchants. After all, together is better.
For more information about Yotpo’s Partner Program and to apply to become a partner.
