From referrals to revenue: How SaaS leaders scale cloud marketplace co-sell with automation

Why co-selling on cloud marketplaces matters

Cloud marketplaces like AWS, Azure, and GCP have quickly become essential growth channels for SaaS companies. Today’s buyers expect to purchase software through these marketplaces because it lets them tap into committed cloud spend, streamline procurement processes, and unlock valuable partner incentives.

But we all know that listing on a marketplace is just the first step. The real growth happens when SaaS companies co-sell with the cloud providers’ sales teams. Co-selling opens doors to shared customer relationships, helps speed up deal cycles by removing procurement roadblocks, and gives access to bigger opportunities thanks to enterprise buyers with committed cloud budgets. It’s why so many SaaS leaders see co-selling as the real engine behind marketplace revenue growth. But as many quickly discover, scaling co-sell efforts isn’t always as straightforward as it sounds.

The answer is co-sell automation. By automating everything from opportunity creation to CRM updates, sales teams can focus on what matters most — building relationships and closing deals instead of getting stuck in partner portals or chasing manual registrations. In fact, our proprietary 2025 State of Cloud Marketplace & Co-Sell Report spotlights this trend with the numbers. 71% of companies are engaged in co-sell, more than half report friction that limits their ability to scale.

This blog brings you real-world insights from Verint and Vectra AI, two high-growth SaaS companies that have scaled their cloud marketplace and co-sell strategies using Clazar.

The challenges of manual co-sell processes

If you’re managing co-sell referrals manually, you already know how frustrating it can be. Without automation, co-sell motions tend to be:

• Slow: Logging an opportunity in AWS ACE or Azure Partner Center can eat up 20+ minutes per deal. For Vectra AI, which was registering nearly every SaaS opportunity, this created a bottleneck. Their sales team was spending hours each week just submitting referrals, time that could have been spent engaging prospects.
• Error-prone: One missing field or inconsistent data point can hold up partner acceptance and delay the entire sales cycle. Verint experienced this firsthand when small data errors — like incorrect metadata or incomplete deal information meant opportunities sat idle in AWS Partner Central, delaying seller engagement.
• Disconnected: Sales teams often find themselves bouncing between partner portals, CRMs, and Slack threads just to keep everyone in the loop. Before adopting Clazar’s automation, both Verint and Vectra had deal data scattered across systems. Tracking status updates, partner responses, and next steps required manual follow-ups. And that  ended up in missed opportunities and slower collaboration with cloud sellers.

As Clazar customers often share, manual workflows don’t just slow things down. They make it nearly impossible to scale co-sell efforts or measure ROI and partner engagement effectively.

How SaaS leaders solved it with co-sell automation

After running into the usual co-sell roadblocks or manual submissions, disconnected systems, and delayed seller engagement, Verint and Vectra AI rethought how they approached co-sell operations. Here’s how they handle it today, and what other SaaS leaders can learn from their approach:

• Auto-create referrals: Vectra AI set up rules so that any Salesforce opportunity meeting co-sell criteria automatically triggers an AWS ACE registration. No more manual submissions across hundreds of deals each quarter — the system takes care of it.
• Two-way sync: Verint integrated Salesforce with Clazar so updates from AWS Partner Central and Azure Partner Center flow straight back into Salesforce. That means real-time visibility for sales and alliances teams without switching between portals or chasing status updates.
  
  
• Real-time alerts: Both companies use the Clazar Automation Builder to build custom workflows that fit into existing ones without disruption.  Including creating rules for Slack and email notifications, the moment AWS or Azure sellers engage on a referral. That way, reps can follow up quickly and keep deals moving.

The result? 

• More referrals automatically registered with sellers
• Faster engagement with the right partner reps on high-value opportunities
• Hours of manual work eliminated for sales and RevOps teams
• Co-sell scale without the chaos

Tools & integrations that really made it work

When Verint and Vectra talked about how they scaled co-sell, one theme kept coming up: keep it simple and connected. Instead of juggling lots of tools, both teams leaned on their CRM  working hand-in-hand with AWS Partner Central (ACE), supported by automation that seamlessly in the background.

Salesforce ⇄ ACE integration

Think of this as the foundation. By mapping fields between Salesforce and ACE (like postal code or industry), the teams made sure every referral went in cleanly without errors. Opportunities were automatically created and kept in sync as deals moved stages, so sellers didn’t waste time re‑entering data. Inside Salesforce, reps could see ACE status, engagement scores, and even synced contacts, everything they needed right where they already worked.

Taking in referrals smoothly

When an AWS referral came through, automation did the heavy lifting: checking or creating the right account, spinning up the opportunity, filling in missing details, and sending quick alerts in Slack or email. In some cases, referrals were even auto‑accepted so sellers could jump right in.

Keeping quality high 

Verint added a simple two‑step process: reps could draft a registration, then an alliances or ops owner gave it a final review before sending to ACE. This small check kept data accurate and compliant. On top of that, regular Salesforce reports and email alerts kept everything tidy without endless portal logins.

Smarter relationship building

Both teams wanted to know not just which deals were moving, but which AWS sellers were engaging. Having that context in Salesforce helped them prioritize the right relationships and double down where momentum was strongest. Co‑sell analytics gave visibility into which partners actually influenced pipeline.

Fast follow‑up on acceptance

The moment ACE accepted a referral, tailored outreach kicked off automatically. That way, the AWS seller got a friendly, timely message and the conversation started right away instead of days later.

Event‑driven automation

Finally, everything ran through an event‑driven workflow builder. Anytime something happened — a referral landed, an offer was published, a contract was accepted — the right follow‑up tasks were triggered instantly across the team’s tools.

Measuring impact

When Verint and Vectra AI automated their co-sell workflows,  the transformation was measurable:

• Vectra AI scaled its AWS Marketplace business 2.5x year-over-year and grew its Azure business by 6x by automating ACE registrations and streamlining Salesforce-to-AWS workflows.
• Verint eliminated hours of manual work by automating two-tiered approval workflows and ACE metadata validation, ensuring every referral met AWS quality standards before submission.
• Both companies saw faster AWS and Azure seller engagement because Slack and email alerts triggered the moment a referral was accepted — no delays, no missed opportunities.
  
  

With co-sell analytics dashboards and CRM integrations, SaaS leaders now track referral volumes, acceptance rates, and pipeline influence across cloud marketplaces with ease.

Future outlook: AI-powered co-sell

In the Scaling from Referral to Revenue webinar, Verint and Vectra AI shared that while automation has already transformed their co-sell processes, the next wave of innovation will come from AI-driven capabilities.

They highlighted a ton of exciting possibilities for the future:

• Auto-summarizing opportunity history: Instead of partner reps digging through Salesforce notes or AWS ACE records, AI could provide clean, instant deal summaries ahead of every partner call.
• Prioritizing high-value referrals: Predictive scoring models could help sales teams focus on opportunities most likely to close, boosting win rates and accelerating pipeline velocity.
• Recommending next-best actions: By analyzing seller engagement data from AWS and Azure, AI could guide partner managers on the most effective follow-ups and timing for each deal.

This isn’t at scale yet — but as AI matures, SaaS companies will evolve from basic automation to AI-assisted co-sell strategies that drive even faster growth across AWS, Azure, and GCP marketplaces.

FAQs: Scaling co-sell with automation

Ready to automate your co-sell motion?

Talk to our experts to see how Clazar can help you automate ACE submissions, Salesforce sync, and seller engagement workflows with Co-Sell Automation.

Book a Demo today and start scaling your co-sell revenue engine.

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