Collab Convo Podcast | Amber Dacres on building a partner marketing strategy from the ground up
Building a partner marketing function from scratch sounds exciting. It can also feel overwhelming.
Where do you start? Which partners deserve your attention? And how do you build something that can scale when you are working with limited resources?
In the latest episode of Collab Convo, Jo Dunkley is joined by Amber Dacres, Global Head of Partner Marketing at DeepL, to talk about her experience building the function from the ground up.
When Amber joined DeepL, partner marketing was a brand-new function. Since then, the partner ecosystem has grown from just three partners to around 60, with Amber actively supporting around 30 of them.
So how does one person manage that?
Prioritisation is key
For Amber, the answer is having a clear way to assess where her time and attention will have the greatest impact.
She developed an assessment that looks at factors including the joint value proposition, available marketing resources and potential impact of each partnership. Partners that score highly receive more hands-on support, while others are given the resources they need to progress more independently.
It’s not simply about working with the biggest names. Amber also looks for partners doing something genuinely interesting with DeepL technology that could create a compelling story in the market.
Making more possible with less
As a one-person global partner marketing team, Amber is also using AI to make her function more scalable.
Rather than replacing the human element of partner marketing, AI helps her create solutions that support the wider partner and marketing teams, enabling her to do more with limited resources.
But technology isn’t the only thing that matters.
Throughout the conversation, Amber returns to one word: relationships.
Building strong relationships internally and externally is essential, particularly when you are working as a small team and need others across the business to help make the partner ecosystem work.
For Amber, building from scratch has meant experimenting, learning and adapting along the way:
“Let me try this. That did not work. Okay, let me try something else.”
And perhaps that is the biggest lesson from the conversation. Building a partner marketing function is not about having everything figured out from day one. It is about creating the structure to prioritise effectively, learning what works, and continuously improving.
Watch the latest Collab Convo episode with Jo Dunkley and Amber Dacres to hear the full conversation.