Discover how top channel leaders are transforming partnerships into revenue engines with AI, Ecosystem Intelligence, and integrated tech stacks.
In our last article, we shared a bit about how having misaligned communication, workflows, and tech stack has impacted at least 47% of organizations, which say that data siloing and poor accessibility are their top obstacles to gaining marketing insights.
So, if you want to drive revenue, you have to make your technology work together — this means connecting your workflows and orchestrating your ecosystem.
The first step is to bridge the gap between all the parts of the technology map, and to do so, you’ll have to identify what are the crucial parts of your tech puzzle that matter the most in your motion.
To help you with that, Crossbeam CEO Bob Moore, James Hodgkinson, SVP of Ecosystems at 360Insights, and Justin Zimmerman, Founder of Partner Playbooks, got together during Orchestrate25 — The Ecosystem Impact Summit organized by 360Insights — to connect platforms, strategic partners, and proven methodologies not only to drive immediate business results, but also to lay the groundwork for sustained ecosystem-led growth.
The future of channel partnerships
The channel is no longer just about portals, logos, or MDFs. It’s about intelligent, connected ecosystems that create scalable revenue through data-driven collaboration. As ecosystems mature, the most successful partner programs will be the ones that move beyond legacy tools to become ecosystem orchestrators, powered by real-time intelligence, embedded integrations, and AI.
Ecosystem Intelligence tools like Crossbeam are redefining how partnerships operate. Instead of manually trying to determine which partner is right for a deal, Crossbeam provides actionable insights based on account overlap, relationship signals, and partner engagement. These insights flow directly into your existing GTM stack — CRM, PRM, marketing automation — turning disconnected teams into a unified, data-fueled revenue engine.
The rise of AI adds even more velocity. AI helps you surface what matters, synthesize partner signals, and generate personalized, scalable plays. But AI alone isn’t the answer, it needs data only you can provide: second-party data from your partners.
This is where Crossbeam and 360Insights become indispensable. Together, they empower you to harness your ecosystem data, enrich your GTM strategy, and outpace competitors stuck in siloed models.
Tomorrow’s high-performing channel teams won’t just manage partners, they’ll orchestrate revenue networks with AI and ecosystem data at the core.
How to orchestrate your channel ecosystem
Go-to-market motions are more complex than ever, with over 14,000 martech tools alone, and that’s before considering your partner tech stack. As a channel leader, your job is to simplify the chaos. That means connecting data across platforms, enabling co-selling and co-marketing, and embedding ecosystem intelligence into your team’s daily workflows.
But there’s often a disconnect between ecosystem data and your CRM or marketing tools. That misalignment leads to longer sales cycles and missed opportunities. When PRMs evolve into ecosystem orchestrators that include Ecosystem Intelligence and help you leverage your partners, you can:
- Target new markets with ecosystem overlaps
- Engage faster through Ecosystem Qualified Leads (53% more likely to close)
- Differentiate with insights that increase ACV by 48%
- Acquire deals 46% faster
- Expand retention with “better together” value props that reduce churn by 58%
James Hodgkinson put it best: “Best-of-breed, integrated technology and workflows are the only way forward.”
Ecosystem data should be leveraged by all GTM, not just partnerships. That’s why having an orchestrated ecosystem can help sales, channel, marketing, and customer success teams to overlay Ecosystem Intelligence into their existing workflows.
When you have Ecosystem Intelligence in your hands, you can fuel many motions and turn them into data first strategies that will drive revenue.
Scale co-selling, and build partner-led campaigns
Channel teams must shift from guesswork to precision. For instance, let’s say you want to assess whether a partner is a good fit or not; here’s when you can use an account mapping matrix to identify your overlaps and discover opportunities. If there’s a considerable amount of overlap with your partner, that means they can be a good fit for your program.
The next step would be to identify those key accounts your partner can help you with (and of course the ones you can help your partner with).
From a seller’s perspective, the role of partners shifts. It’s less about evaluating if a partner is worth engaging and more about understanding how the ecosystem can accelerate specific deals. Sales teams want a clear list of accounts, insights into how partners can add value, and clarity on which partner is the best fit — based on intel, influence, and warm introductions.
As Bob Moore emphasized, “Once the data layer is unlocked, you can curate how you leverage and share it. That’s when ecosystems become powerful.”
Showcase how your channel ecosystem is driving results
You can’t prove what you can’t measure, and even if it’s tracking down how your sellers are engaging with your partners, it can help you prove the impact of your program. To showcase ROI, track ecosystem influence:
- % of deals with partner involvement
- Missed opportunities due to lack of partner insights
- Ecosystem influence: contacts, intel, procurement navigation
This tracking and measuring process will help you know if your team understands and engages with your partners.
AI to scale: The agentic channel ecosystem
AI isn’t just a productivity tool, it’s a partner strategist. While first-party data (CRM) gives you a view of current customers, and third-party data is publicly accessible, the real gold lies in second-party data — the proprietary insights from your partner ecosystem. Crossbeam and platforms like 360Insights turn this data into strategic assets.
AI agents can now synthesize this data to generate deal-level insights, campaign content, and even sales plays. But to stand out, your AI must be fed with unique, relevant, and partner-shared data. Without that, you risk building generic experiences that don't convert.
As Bob Moore noted, “AI agents will only be as powerful as the second-party data you share with them. Without your ecosystem, your AI becomes an island.”
By leveraging your ecosystem you’re creating networks of second party data that can help you not only to build dashboards and improve your user experience, but is transformational when it comes to AI. “Integrated ecosystems with connected organizations, that’s the future,” said James.
The four pre-integrated solutions to boost your channel demand generation
To activate and execute your Ecosystem-Led Growth (ELG) strategies across your partner network, industry leaders Kevin Linehan (Director of Strategic Partnerships, Crossbeam), Cody Sunkel (Head of Growth, Partner Fleet), Steven Kellam (CEO, StructuredWeb), and Mike Reilly (CEO, Vartopia), shared actionable plays during Orchestrate25 to drive orchestrated ecosystem demand generation.
Scenario: You’re building your own partner marketplace in Partner Fleet and want to recruit, onboard, enable, co-sell, and co-market with your partners in a scalable, efficient way.
Here are the key steps to activate your ecosystem-led motion:
1. Show and tell: Onboarding through 360Insights Engage
Join the 360Insights platform to embed essential processes into your partner onboarding journey, from marketing to solution development to activation. In this stage, your partners will learn about your company, your partner program benefits, and how their offerings fit into your ecosystem. Feel free to share branded content directly through 360Insights to help scale onboarding and ensure consistency across your partners’ experiences.
2. Partner alignment and AI-enhanced listings
Next, your partner will be able to share some information about their company, goals, and ICP, this will help you align expectations and motions. Once done, it’s time to enable AI-generated listing content.
Using 360Insights integration with Partner Fleet, you can detect whether your partner is already listed in your Partner Fleet marketplace. Provide resources to guide them through the listing process and increase adoption. The platform lets you automatically create and brand your marketplace listings, including AI-generated tags and metadata.
Use the Ecosystem Activation Dashboard to track onboarding progress, and the Ecosystem Activation Solutions Dashboard to tailor experiences for different partner types.
As a bonus, 360Insights Ecosystem Orchestration Hub offers a holistic view of your program: assets, directories, dashboards, and more.
3. Account mapping and strategic data sharing
Once a listing is complete, the next step is seamless account mapping. Without leaving 360Insights (thanks to the 360Insights and Crossbeam integration), partners can access their Crossbeam account, connect CRMs or Google Sheets, and share second-party data to identify overlaps and drive collaboration.
Top tip: If you face resistance in data sharing, Suppeco CEO Sheldon Mydat recommends three proven tactics to improve trust and increase engagement while building out your partner program.
Thanks to 360Insights orchestrated platform you can invite partners directly from 360Insights engage, since they have integrated a “directory” that includes all 360Insights partners.
4. Co-sell signal activation
Leverage Partner Fleet’s marketplace visitor data and Crossbeam overlaps to surface high-intent prospects and identify how you can get an intro or figure out how to facilitate an intro to a partner.
Use these co-sell signals to:
- Identify joint target accounts
- Discover which partners already have relationships with them
- Define the best engagement strategy
- Find the right points of contact
Through 360Insights Engage, you can manage referrals easily: select your partner, enter opportunity details, and streamline the entire co-selling motion.
5. Scalable channel marketing
Now it’s time to promote and communicate about your new partnership. Here’s when we add marketing automation into the mix. Using StructuredWeb’s AI capabilities integrated into 360Insights Engage, you can:
- Launch automated, multi-touch campaigns
- Localize and personalize content by region, vertical, and language
- Empower partners with clear instructions, ready-made assets, and campaign timelines
Top tip: Use incentives like points or rewards to increase partner engagement and campaign participation.
Based on ecosystem intelligence from Crossbeam and your own CRM data, reps and partners can generate highly targeted content at the deal level. Just click “Generate Deal Content” to create:
- Personalized emails
- Social posts
- Landing pages
- Short-form articles
Add variables like logos, first names, company names, and industry-specific messaging, thanks to StructuredWeb’s AI agent.
You can also tap into the channel marketing chatbot. Ask, "Build me a 3-week campaign on launching a reseller program," and get email sequences, social content, landing pages, and a complete rollout plan.
6. Deal registration and program visibility
To scale, you must meet partners where they are. That’s where Vartopia comes in. Within the 360Insights Engage platform, Vartopia offers a unified partner experience:
- Register deals
- View deal pipelines
- Access analytics and prospect insights
For example, if you're building a reseller motion, Vartopia acts as a centralized control hub. No need for your partners to manage another tool, everything is integrated and streamlined.
Channel leaders need more than tools, they need strategy, integration, and intelligence. With the combined power of 360Insights, Crossbeam, Partner Fleet, StructuredWeb, and Vartopia, your partner program can evolve from transactional to transformational.
The ecosystem is the channel
The future of the channel is not a tool, it’s a stack. A stack powered by Crossbeam’s Ecosystem Intelligence, scaled by AI, and orchestrated through platforms like 360Insights, StructuredWeb, and Vartopian. It’s not about isolated tactics anymore; it’s about building a network that can sense, respond, and sell together.
To thrive, you must stop treating your channel as an external initiative and start embedding it directly into your core GTM motion. This means enabling co-sell signals, activating content campaigns with AI, and tracking influence through a single pane of glass.
The companies that win tomorrow will be those that connect the dots, between teams, tools, and partners. Ecosystem Intelligence is no longer a nice-to-have. It’s the new competitive advantage for modern channel leaders.
If you’re ready to move beyond isolated tactics and into ecosystem-led growth, book a free ELG (Ecosystem-Led Growth) strategy call with our team. Let’s explore how to supercharge your channel program with the power of data, AI, and connected ecosystems and turn your partnerships into your greatest revenue engine.
