According to Chaffey there are six major types of digital marketing which businesses should use in order to increase their online presence. One of these areas is Online Partnerships: 
Online Partnership marketing can be an effective tool to gain exposure and utilise new distribution channels. It is a smart collaboration of two or more organisations with the intent to develop a mid-term or long-term marketing program designed to meet each of their respective business goals (Kunitzky, 2009).
Chaffey et al. (2009) identifies a number of different elements which combine together to categorise online partnerships; affiliate marketing, co-branding, link building and widget building.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing (sometimes known as performance marketing) is typically a sales strategy used by businesses where they will partner with other businesses and individuals which will receive a commission or incentive for sales/sign-ups. Businesses should opt to seek partners that are not direct competitors and according to tradetracker for increased chances of success, partners that are transparent and that offer a degree of overlap of product may reap the biggest Return on Investment (ROI).
If successful, affiliate marketing offers a win-win approach for both parties involved (Duffy, 2005), as affiliates have the opportunity to earn a large amount of revenue for their advertising (Demonstrable by Chris Guthrie who made $90,000+ from Amazon’s associate scheme!) and businesses only pay when they receive a successful sale or lead. Amazon are able to individually track affiliates to see how they are promoting their business. Looking at each affiliate directly allows Amazon to see where customers are sourced (potentially where they are missing them) the scheme will not only produce a sale but also provides them with future ideas for targeted promotion and advertisement in the future. In the example above, Amazon’s Affiliate Scheme paid $90,336.65 in affiliate commission for a received revenue of $1,347,556.94 which arguably they may not have obtained without the use of their affiliate partner.
Co-Branding
GoPro & Red Bull
Co-branding is a strategic marketing and advertising partnership between two brands with the aims to bring their successes to one another. A great example successful co-branding are GoPro and Red Bull; GoPro does not just sell cameras, similarly to how Red Bull does not just sell Energy Drinks. They both help each other hand-in-hand and establish as a ‘lifestyle brand’ a lifestyle that is extreme and action packed, attracting a wide range of customers.
Once a business co-brands with a partner, they should track web traffic month-on-month via SimilarWeb or Google Analytics. Comparisons should be made to previous months looking at web traffic, where the traffic is coming from, visit duration, etc. and seeing the difference between before and after the launch of the co-branding.
Link Building
Having links on various other websites increases brand visibility and also increases brand’s visibility and also increases SEO ranking. There are a number of ways of getting links to increase brand visibility, for an example The Graduate Recruitment Bureau (GRB) write articles such as “15 life hacks to help graduates tackle mornings” in their specialised areas (graduates) and use their online partnerships, with companies such as the independent which they have built up over the years to build links.
The link which will get posted will be a specific tracking link which will be analysed via Google Analytics to understand the traffic which visits the link.
There are a number of features which can be tracked via Google Analytics, how many people visited, average visit length, whether they clicked to other pages, which pages they went to, etc. and in GRB’s case – whether they signed up to their services which allows understanding of to what extent link building is being used to promote the business and their services and whether it is beneficial to put resources into that area.
Summary
In conclusion, there are a number of different ways to promote a business and different methods and tools to analyse and understand if they are being used to promote the business. Carefully tracking data before and after techniques are put in places is pivotal to understand the extent which they are truly having.
References:
Chaffey, D., Ellis-Chadwick, F., Johnston, K., & Mayer. (2009) Internet Marketing: Strategy, development and practice. Harlow: Pearson.
Duffy, D.L., 2005. Affiliate marketing and its impact on e-commerce. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 22(3), pp.161-163
Kunitzky, R. (2009) ‘What is partnership marketing?’ searchenginepeople, 29th October 2009 [Online] <http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/what-is-partnership-marketing.html> [Last Accessed: 28/11/17]