One-third of partners are cutting their marketing budgets in 2025 and want vendors to make up the difference in business development and demand generation.
The channel has a partner marketing problem. The Channelnomics Partner Confidence Index survey reveals that partners expect vendors to shoulder more marketing responsibilities in 2025, which could complicate channel leaders’ objectives.
The Channelnomics quarterly PCI survey measures partners’ confidence in their business capabilities and performance expectations for the coming 12 months. While that confidence, on the whole, is increasing going into the new year as concerns about inflation and interest rates wane, it’s declining slightly when it comes to revenue and profit expectations.
The decline may explain why 31% of partners plan to reduce their 2025 marketing budgets. The number of partners planning marketing cuts has increased 10 points since the first quarter of 2024. Since partner marketing spending is already minimal compared to vendors’, this reduction will likely shift more of the demand-generation burden to vendors.
