Case study · Strategy & vision
Scaling Partner Acquisition Through Inbound
I created a multi-year B2B strategy that made inbound acquisition a strategic growth theme and established a path from 100 to 300 activated partners per month.
The context
Our growth flywheel focused almost entirely on consumers. Partners on the supply side were acquired primarily through cold calling, bringing in around 100 new partners per month. This approach did not scale with our ambitions.
The challenge
My goal was to demonstrate that inbound marketing could become a scalable partner-acquisition channel and secure leadership buy-in for the strategy.
How I approached it
I built a baseline acquisition model using a paid cost per lead of €150 and an expected lead-to-deal conversion rate of approximately 25%. This produced an estimated acquisition cost of €600 per new partner and showed that €15,000 in monthly advertising spend could generate 25% more starters.
I then defined an attribution model, a B2B performance dashboard and clear rules for collaboration between marketing and sales. These included definitions for inbound and outbound leads, an explicit MQL-to-SQL handover and a shared north-star metric.
Finally, I outlined a longer-term path toward product-led growth through self-service registration, onboarding and upselling within the partner environment.
What it delivered
Leadership adopted the strategy as a strategic theme. It informed the 2025 goal of increasing acquisition from 100 to 300 activated partners per month, as well as plans for a partner portal and a try-and-buy marketplace in 2026.
Inbound converted 25–30% of MQLs into SQLs, compared with 3.5% for cold calling. At a small scale, inbound remained relatively more expensive because it required campaign investment, whereas sales development representatives could automatically dial daily contact lists. However, cold calling was harder to scale. The results supported inbound as the strongest route for future growth.
Looking back
I learned that a new acquisition channel needs more than a promising conversion rate. It needs a credible baseline, shared attribution, clear marketing-sales handovers and a metric both teams can own. I would have made the small-scale cost trade-off even more explicit from the start: inbound required campaign investment, while cold calling was cheaper to operate but harder to scale.
The principle I carry forward is to connect strategic ambition to measurable operating choices. By showing both the economics and the longer-term route toward self-service registration, onboarding and upselling, I could help leadership make a grounded decision. The strong MQL-to-SQL results mattered, but so did honestly acknowledging cost and scale.