AWS Marketplace

Goal-oriented growth: Driving AWS Marketplace success with COSS

In recent years, cloud marketplaces have evolved significantly, becoming valuable channels to reach customers for technology companies. According to Canalys, by 2028, enterprise software sales through cloud marketplaces will reach $85 billion USD. An increasing number of customers have made AWS Marketplace their preferred procurement solution to find, try, and buy software, data, and professional services from Amazon Web Services (AWS) Partners.

To help AWS Partners grow their business in AWS Marketplace, AWS has developed the characteristics of successful sellers (COSS) framework. The COSS framework is composed of six pillars that represent the best business and technical practices for a successful AWS Marketplace strategy. Independent software vendors (ISVs) can use the COSS framework to improve how they prioritize and organize selling in AWS Marketplace.

A 2025 IDC study, commissioned by AWS, found that AWS Marketplace sellers who implement the COSS framework achieve 31% faster AWS Marketplace sales growth compared to other sellers. In this post we discuss and expand on best practices for COSS pillar 4: Partner commitment to AWS Marketplace revenue.

AWS Partner commitment to AWS Marketplace revenue

Success in AWS Marketplace starts with leaders who recognize the growth opportunity available in AWS Marketplace. These leaders understand that committing to growing AWS Marketplace revenue as a percentage of total revenue is essential to unlocking growth. This includes setting a defined revenue goal and aligning your teams to achieve it. Setting specific revenue goals for AWS Marketplace is fundamental to your success.

Here’s why:

  1. Organizational alignment: Revenue goals drive organizational alignment, helping your sales, marketing, product, and operations teams prioritize AWS Marketplace within their business objectives and goals.
  2. Resource allocation: Defined AWS Marketplace goals can help you prioritize resource allocation and investment in additional resources to grow your AWS Marketplace business, such as operations headcount, marketing budget, and technical enablement.
  3. Accountability: Revenue goals create a foundation for accountability. They transform AWS Marketplace from an optional sales channel into a measurable business initiative with clear ownership. Your teams know what success will look like for your organization and, more importantly, their specific role in helping to achieve it. Tracking goals isn’t only about identifying areas that need more support or improvement. It also helps provide opportunities to celebrate wins across your teams.

Setting AWS Marketplace goals across your organization

At the highest level, the alliance or partnership lead should be setting output goals for total contract value (TCV), and total number of private offers transacted. They should also set a target percentage of total company revenue that is transacted in AWS Marketplace. Next, sellers should establish input goals across their organization to support achieving the output goals. These input goals should align to your business model and organization structure. Let’s consider some examples of goals by teams.

Sales teams

  • Compensation plans and incentives align with AWS Marketplace revenue goals
  • Targets are set for opportunities, deal size, win rates, and sales cycle length
  • Specific goals are provided for sales reps to complete a deal in AWS Marketplace by a given date
  • Additional targets include specific customer segments and geographic regions

Operations teams

Marketing and product teams

  • Set listing optimization, traffic, and conversion goals
  • Adopt AWS Marketplace product-led growth features to drive product discovery and evaluation
  • Develop AWS Marketplace collateral and sales enablement materials
  • Plan co-marketing activities with AWS

Training and enablement

  • Include AWS Marketplace training in new hire onboarding
  • Set goals for recurring AWS Marketplace training sessions across sales and operations teams, including quarterly sales training

Setting a revenue goal establishes a foundation for successful co-sell engagements with AWS. A clear revenue target strengthens your co-sell relationship with AWS. It demonstrates your commitment to working with AWS and gives AWS sales teams a specific reason to prioritize your solutions in their customer engagements. Revenue goals help you align more effectively with AWS sales teams. When you articulate a specific target, you can engage AWS sales reps in joint planning and execution. By setting and working towards a specific AWS Marketplace revenue goal, you create a foundation for a productive co-sell relationship with AWS.

Implementation

The following questions will help you implement a revenue commitment to AWS Marketplace and prioritize actionable next steps:

  1. Set AWS Marketplace revenue targets: Where are you in the revenue goal setting process and what needs to happen to get you to a defined revenue goal? Is it a conversation with executive sponsors? Have you shared the 2025 IDC white paper, AWS Marketplace is a Powerful Growth Engine for Technology Providers 2025, with your leadership team?
  2. Enable your teams: How are you driving alignment across your organization towards AWS Marketplace growth? Are you facilitating regular cross-functional meetings? Have you clearly communicated the AWS Marketplace opportunity to all stakeholders? Is your entire organization rallied around your AWS Marketplace goals?
  3. Create sales compensation plans that include your AWS Marketplace goals: Is your sales compensation plan aligned to your AWS Marketplace revenue goal? Are you incentivizing your sales teams to sell in AWS Marketplace?

Conclusion

Success requires more than setting goals. It demands creating a comprehensive framework that drives accountability and enables measurement of progress across all organizational functions. By implementing these strategies, AWS Partners can help build a robust, scalable business in AWS Marketplace that delivers measurable value to their organization.

Contact an AWS Representative for more information about how we can help accelerate your business.

Further reading 

About Authors

Katherine McCaslin

Katherine McCaslin is a technical business developer specializing in enablement and communications to empower AWS Partners to build, grow, and scale their business with AWS Marketplace. Outside of work, Katherine enjoys skiing and travel adventures with her family.

Juston Salcido

Juston Salcido is a senior technical business development manager at AWS, specializing in AWS Marketplace. With over a decade of experience in the technology industry, Juston’s primary focus is empowering sellers to transform their businesses through AWS Marketplace using the characteristics of successful sellers (COSS) framework. Juston balances his professional life with a range of personal interests, including golf, softball, and billiards.