• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, April 11, 2019

Partnerize wants to change the way brands find partners to work with, so the company’s software developers built a technology that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to determine the best match.

The platform, Intelligent Partner Discovery, recommends partners from among Partnerize’s network of 350,000 partners. Based on data, the technology analyzes and matches brands with partners that are most likely to drive the highest return on investment.

Peter Agardi, affiliate marketing manager at Emirates, plans to use the technology to find the "best new partners for our program," as the company works to identify and drive new growth.

The recommendations for partnerships are based on data showing historical partnership revenue by vertical, target audience and contextual fit, propensity to drive sales for each brand and campaign, and similarities to a brand’s most successful current partners.

And while the technology appears complicated, the strategy seems pretty straightforward. Matt Simmonds, chief product officer at Partnerize, acknowledges the challenges.

"We're promoting an industry shift in mindset, for brands to hone in on those partners that have the most potential to deliver results, rather than amassing the largest number of partners,” he wrote in an email to Search Marketing Daily. “We know that most brands don't have unlimited resources, and therefore focusing their resources a handful of partners and engaging with them more deeply is a better path to success.”

They key is the ability to recommend partners with the highest propensity to deliver the maximum conversion rates.

If successful, this technology, built on artificial intelligence, will change the way brands think about partnerships.

Historically, brands relied on directories that present advertisers with hundreds or thousands of potential partners. Intelligent Partner Discovery uses AI rather than guesswork by automating the process and searching for the best match.