How to Find Co-Marketing Partners for Your SaaS (Without Cold Outreach)

You've heard it before: content is king. But here's the uncomfortable truth most founders learn the hard way: content without distribution is just a hobby.

You can publish the best blog post in your industry, but if nobody sees it, it doesn't exist. The brands winning today aren't just creating content—they're borrowing distribution from partners who already have their buyers' attention.

This is co-marketing. And for B2B SaaS companies, it's one of the highest-leverage growth activities you can do.

What Is Co-Marketing (And Why It Works)

Co-marketing is when two non-competing companies collaborate to create value and share audiences. Unlike paid advertising, co-marketing compounds: the relationships you build and the backlinks you earn continue generating value for years.

Why co-marketing beats cold outreach:

Cold Outreach	Co-Marketing
One-way ask	Mutual value exchange
Low response rates	High engagement when positioned right
Transactional	Relationship-building
One-time benefit	Compounding returns
Feels spammy	Feels collaborative

The best co-marketing partnerships feel obvious in hindsight: two companies with overlapping audiences but non-competing products, helping each other grow.

The 4 Types of Co-Marketing Plays

Before you start reaching out to potential partners, understand the plays available to you:

1. Backlink Swaps

You link to their content. They link to yours. Both sites benefit from improved SEO authority.

Best for: Building domain authority, improving search rankings, establishing topical relevance.

Example: A CRM tool links to a proposal software's guide on "closing deals faster." The proposal software links back to the CRM's guide on "managing your sales pipeline."

2. Guest Posts

You write valuable content for their blog. Their audience discovers you. You get a contextual backlink and brand exposure.

Best for: Reaching new audiences, establishing expertise, earning high-quality backlinks.

Example: A SaaS analytics tool writes a guest post for a product management blog about "data-driven prioritization."

3. Co-Content

You create something together: a joint webinar, a co-authored guide, a research report. Both parties promote it to their audiences.

Best for: Bigger campaigns, lead generation, creating assets neither could make alone.

Example: Two complementary dev tools co-author "The State of Developer Productivity 2025" and share the leads.

4. Testimonial & Case Study Exchanges

You feature them as a customer success story. They feature you. Both get social proof and backlinks.

Best for: Building credibility, creating sales assets, strengthening partnerships.

Example: Your project management tool features how a design agency uses it. The design agency features your tool in their "tools we love" section.

How to Find the Right Co-Marketing Partners

Not every company is a good fit. The best co-marketing partners share three qualities:

1. Overlapping Audience, Non-Competing Product

Your ideal partner sells to the same buyers but solves a different problem. If you're a CRM, don't partner with another CRM—partner with the email tool, the proposal software, the analytics platform your customers also use.

Questions to ask:

Who else does my ideal customer buy from?
What tools sit next to mine in their stack?
Which companies show up in the same "alternatives" or "integrations" conversations?

2. Similar Company Stage

A 10-person startup and a 1,000-person scale-up have different priorities, timelines, and marketing resources. Look for partners at a similar stage—you'll move at the same pace and value the partnership equally.

Questions to ask:

Is their team size comparable to ours?
Do they have similar marketing resources?
Will they prioritize this partnership or let it die?

3. Active Content Marketing

A partner with no blog, no social presence, and no newsletter can't distribute anything. Look for companies actively investing in content—they have audiences worth reaching.

Questions to ask:

Do they publish regularly?
Do they have an email list or newsletter?
Are they active on social media?

Finding Partners Without Cold Outreach

Here's where most founders go wrong: they spam 100 companies with generic partnership requests. Response rate? Maybe 2%. And those 2% aren't the best fits—they're just the ones who happened to see the email.

Instead, find partners through warm paths:

Method 1: Your Existing Network

Start with companies you already know:

Tools you personally use and love
Founders you've met at events or in communities
Companies that have already linked to you
Brands mentioned by your customers

The ask is easier when there's an existing relationship, even a thin one.

Method 2: Shared Community Membership

If you're active in founder communities, Slack groups, or industry forums, you already have warm connections. The shared context makes the conversation natural.

Method 3: Backlink Analysis

Look at who links to your competitors. These sites are already interested in your space—and might be interested in you. Tools like Ahrefs or GetFanatic's Growth Partners can surface these opportunities.

Method 4: Integration Partners

If your product integrates with other tools, those companies are natural co-marketing partners. You're already aligned technically—align on marketing too.

Method 5: Let a Tool Do the Discovery

This is what we built Growth Partners for. Instead of manually researching potential allies, our tool:

Analyzes your space to find non-competing companies with overlapping audiences
Ranks partners by fit and opportunity
Provides outreach templates for each play type
Suggests win-win collaboration ideas

You get a shortlist of vetted partners and the plays to pitch them—without the cold outreach grind.

The Outreach Template That Actually Works

When you do reach out, skip the generic "partnership opportunity" subject line. Be specific about the value exchange.

Template: Backlink Swap

Subject: Quick idea: linking to each other's content

Hey [Name],

I'm [Your Name] from [Your Company]. We [one-line description].

I noticed your post on [Topic]—really solid breakdown. We have a guide on [Related Topic] that covers the [specific angle] side, and I think our audiences would benefit from both pieces.

Would you be open to a simple link exchange? I'd add a contextual link to your [Post] in our [Your Post], and you could link to ours where it fits naturally.

No pressure if it's not a fit—just thought the content aligned well.

[Your Name]

Template: Guest Post Pitch

Subject: Guest post idea: [Specific Title]

Hey [Name],

I'm [Your Name], founder of [Your Company]. We help [audience] with [problem].

I've been reading [Their Blog] and noticed you cover [topic area] really well. I have an idea for a guest post that might fit:

Title: [Specific, compelling title]

Angle: [2-3 sentences on what it covers and why their audience would care]

I'd write it, you'd publish it, and we'd both promote it. If you're interested, I can send an outline.

[Your Name]

The key: make the value obvious, be specific, and keep it short.

Measuring Co-Marketing Success

Co-marketing isn't just about vibes. Track what matters:

Metric	Why It Matters
Backlinks earned	Improves SEO authority
Referral traffic	Direct audience reach
New leads/signups	Business impact
Content performance	Was the co-content worth it?
Relationship depth	Sets up future collaborations

The best partnerships compound. One successful backlink swap leads to a guest post, which leads to a co-webinar, which leads to an integration partnership. Start small, prove value, expand.

Common Co-Marketing Mistakes

Mistake 1: Asking Before Giving

Don't lead with "can you link to us?" Lead with "I'd love to link to your [great piece]—would you be open to exchanging?" Give first.

Mistake 2: Partnering with Competitors

If you sell the same thing, you're not co-marketing—you're creating confusion. Stick to adjacent, non-competing products.

Mistake 3: One-and-Done Thinking

Co-marketing works best as an ongoing relationship, not a one-off transaction. Invest in partners you want to work with repeatedly.

Mistake 4: Ignoring Partner Quality

A backlink from a spammy site hurts you. A guest post on a dead blog reaches no one. Quality matters more than quantity.

Build Distribution Into Your Growth System

Most founders treat co-marketing as a nice-to-have—something to do "when we have time." That's backwards.

Distribution should be built into your weekly growth system:

Visibility: Spot gaps and opportunities
Content: Create assets tied to those opportunities
Co-marketing: Use content as leverage to borrow distribution

At GetFanatic, we call this the weekly playbook. Every week, you get prioritized moves across all three pillars—including partner outreach opportunities ranked by impact.

Start Finding Partners Today

Co-marketing is one of the few growth levers that costs time instead of money—and compounds instead of depleting.

Try Growth Partners to get a shortlist of non-competing allies in your space, complete with outreach templates and play suggestions. Stop guessing who to partner with and start growing together.