The What, Where, Why, and How of Partner Programs

What is a Partner Program?

In the marketing world, a partner program is a mutually beneficial agreement between two or more entities. The most common examples are partner programs, also known as affiliate programs.

These two terms could be interchangeable and could have a slight difference. Both affiliate and partner programs imply cooperation between a company/ brand, acting as an advertiser, and another company or individual, acting as a publisher/affiliate that promotes a product and receives commissions for sales.

With the intention of many companies to build closer relations with their affiliates, active affiliates started to be considered partners, which inevitably drove the shift in the name from affiliate to partner program.

Also, some partner programs involve stronger integration between two companies up to joining projects or products, which is usually not the case in affiliate programs.