How to drive sales alignment to grow in AWS Marketplace

AWS Marketplace helps Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), Data Providers, and Consulting Partners reach active Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers through a powerful digital channel. According to a 2025 IDC study commissioned by AWS, software vendors reported their AWS Marketplace business grew 41 percent faster than their overall software business. The study found that AWS Partners who strategically align their sales teams and engage in co-selling opportunities with AWS achieved twice the sales growth compared to those who don’t. Study participants highlighted shorter sales cycles and improved renewal rates as benefits to selling in AWS Marketplace.

Successful sellers in AWS Marketplace implement best practices outlined in the characteristics of successful sellers (COSS) framework, a comprehensive approach to building and growing your business in AWS Marketplace. This post focuses on the sales alignment COSS pillar.

The sales alignment pillar includes three key elements to accelerating growth in AWS Marketplace: securing executive sponsorship, defining clear AWS Marketplace objectives, and aligning your sales team to maximize co-sell opportunities, all designed to help you grow your business.

Executive sponsorship: The foundation for success

Executive sponsorship is the cornerstone of success in AWS Marketplace. Without top-down commitment, organizations face unnecessary friction in their selling processes. AWS Marketplace helps AWS Partners accelerate and enhance deals, which means sellers can achieve measurable improvements in deal closure times, deal sizes, and win rates.

Organizations can demonstrate the value of AWS Marketplace to executives through systematic data analysis of key performance metrics. This analysis should examine average closing time, deal size, win rates, and revenue recognition timing. The key is presenting the metrics as part of a comprehensive financial advantage gained through selling in AWS Marketplace.

For example, a third-party security software provider conducted an analysis across 85 transactions in AWS Marketplace and identified $13.2 million in additional revenue benefit from faster closings, quicker billing, and larger deal sizes. This data led their chief financial officer (CFO) to approve funding for two additional co-sell resources to further accelerate their growth in AWS Marketplace.

Beyond these direct financial benefits, executive alignment becomes even more crucial when considering the operational efficiencies AWS Marketplace delivers. Organizations with strong executive sponsorship can use AWS Marketplace to streamline their operations. While the 1–3 percent transaction fee is often an initial focus of discussion, forward-thinking executives recognize this as an investment that can yield various returns such as:

1. Access to preapproved customer budgets – AWS Marketplace enables sellers to tap into customers’ existing AWS spend commitments, effectively accessing pre-approved spending channels that bypass traditional procurement hurdles.
2. Operational cost reduction – AWS handles the complex backend operations including billing, collections, and channel partner disbursements—functions that traditionally require significant internal resources and overhead.
3. International market expansion – With AWS managing local tax compliance and payment processing across regions, companies can pursue growth in new regions without building extensive local operations infrastructure.

Success in AWS Marketplace requires more than mere listing products. It demands a deliberate approach supported by executive understanding and commitment. Organizations whose leadership teams grasp both the immediate revenue benefits and the broader operational advantages outperform those viewing AWS Marketplace as merely another sales channel.

Defining your objectives in AWS Marketplace

When executive sponsorship is secured, successful sellers can begin with defined AWS Marketplace goals and a strategic approach to growth. Although a defined revenue goal serves as the primary target, successful sellers also develop specific targets across multiple dimensions of their business to help drive towards their revenue goal.

Consider a company that completed 20 private offers last year. Setting a goal to increase that by 35 percent to 27 private offers provides a clear, measurable objective. Similarly, if your total contract value (TCV) in AWS Marketplace was $8M last year, a 25 percent growth target provides a $10M goal to work toward.

Sales alignment: A three-pronged approach

Sales alignment requires a coordinated approach. First, sales enablement should be prioritized. This means establishing clear roles and responsibilities and ensuring your sales compensation plans align with your AWS Marketplace strategy. Sellers develop and maintain up-to-date go-to-market (GTM) resources for their teams and include AWS Marketplace training in new hire onboarding with regular training sessions throughout the year.

Second, sales processes should be optimized for success in AWS Marketplace. This means integrating AWS Marketplace opportunities into existing customer relationship management (CRM) systems and establishing effective co-selling practices with AWS that prioritize selling in AWS Marketplace. The key is maintaining a frictionless experience within the tools sales teams already use.

Third, positioning your organization for success extends beyond the sales team. Finance, operations, and marketing teams should understand and support AWS Marketplace initiatives. Sellers ensure their operations teams can report on AWS Marketplace business at scale, their finance teams understand the unique aspects of AWS Marketplace transactions, and their marketing teams align on messaging and positioning while incorporating AWS Marketplace into their overall strategy.

Compensation strategy in AWS Marketplace

Compensation strategy drives growth in AWS Marketplace. Sales representatives are motivated by the most profitable path to close deals, and organizations can take advantage of this behavior. One ISV demonstrated this by scaling to $100M in annual recurring revenue in AWS Marketplace in a “comp positive” approach, temporarily increasing compensation for AWS co-sell and AWS Marketplace deals as an incentive to sales reps. After sales reps experienced larger deal sizes and shorter sales cycles firsthand in AWS Marketplace, the ISV transitioned to “comp neutrality,” where sales reps were neither incentivized nor disincentivized to sell in AWS Marketplace. This initial investment in compensation led to lasting behavioral changes in the sales team.

Organizations should manage the relationship between direct and indirect sales channels. Some organizations designate AWS Marketplace as an indirect route to market alongside traditional Channel Partners and distributors. The key is to ensure that compensation structures don’t create internal competition. Indirect teams should integrate AWS Marketplace metrics into their overall territory or regional targets to create a unified approach rather than competing initiatives.

Mastering renewals

Successful renewal strategies with AWS Marketplace focus on early opportunity identification, proactive engagement with AWS field teams, and targeted expansion planning for high-propensity accounts. This systematic approach not only secures renewals but significantly increases the likelihood of expanding opportunities at renewal time.

AWS Marketplace engagement scores available through APN Customer Engagements (ACE) provide valuable data points to identify which customers are most likely to transact through AWS Marketplace, allowing sales teams to prioritize renewal opportunities more effectively.

The land and expand strategy, in which small initial deals can lead to larger deals, has become the dominant sales philosophy for third-party transactions in AWS Marketplace. When you identify highly engaged AWS accounts through AWS Marketplace engagement scores, partnering with AWS field teams helps uncover expansion opportunities in new business units, regions, or divisions that might otherwise remain inaccessible.

Conclusion

Success in AWS Marketplace requires a well-orchestrated approach combining executive sponsorship, clear objectives, comprehensive sales alignment, and effective renewal strategies. Organizations that achieve results in AWS Marketplace understand that having these elements work together seamlessly must be part of an overall strategy. By implementing these practices thoughtfully and systematically, organizations can increase deal sizes, accelerate closures, and support sustainable growth in AWS Marketplace. The key lies in maintaining consistent focus across all elements while continuously measuring and adjusting strategies based on results.

Next Steps

To begin implementing these insights, start by securing executive buy-in through a focused briefing that presents AWS Marketplace performance, then establish your quarterly and annual business objectives with clear metrics for success. From there, concentrate on aligning your sales organization through targeted enablement workshops and compensation adjustments while developing a renewal strategy that uses AWS Marketplace engagement scores in the ACE program to support sustainable growth.

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