Cross-Promotion Partnerships Checklist

The buyer and marketing manager build a shortlist of 5–10 brands whose category adjacency fits the store's merchandise mix — e.g., a sporting goods retailer pairing with a local nutrition brand. Filter out direct competitors and any vendor already on the markdown calendar.

Review the partner's Google and Yelp reviews, recent press, and social tone. Co-branded campaigns inherit the partner's reputation — a single PR incident on their side becomes your problem. Confirm there are no active consumer complaints with the state AG or BBB.

Pull loyalty segments from Klaviyo, Yotpo, or your CRM and estimate overlap with the partner's stated audience. Look for a target overlap of at least 20–30% on demographics or purchase behavior; lower overlap usually means low conversion.

Pick the primary objective — new-customer acquisition, list growth, UPT lift, or clearing slow-moving inventory. One primary objective drives the mechanic; trying to hit all four with a single campaign dilutes everything.

Capture baseline traffic, conversion, UPT, ATV, and email-list size for the trailing 4 weeks per store. Without a baseline the post-promo ROI calculation is guesswork. Pull the numbers from your POS analytics (Lightspeed, Shopify, Heartland) and loyalty platform.

Lock the start and end dates with the partner. Avoid stacking on top of your own scheduled sale events (BFCM, end-of-season markdowns) where the promo gets buried. Note any blackout dates per the partner's existing campaign calendar.

Common mechanics: bundled SKU at a discount, GWP (gift with purchase) with the partner's product, joint in-store event, co-branded email drop, or shared loyalty offer. Each mechanic has different POS implications — bundles need a configured SKU, GWPs need inventory allocation, events need staffing.

Document who owns creative, who owns email send, who funds in-store signage, and who handles customer-service escalations on co-branded purchases. Most partnership disputes trace back to undocumented hand-offs, not to financial terms.

Map the rollout: creative approval (T-14), email scheduled (T-7), in-store signage delivered (T-5), associate brief (T-3), go-live (T-0). Both partners countersign the timeline so neither side launches early or late.

Define how attributed revenue is calculated (POS promo code, dedicated SKU, UTM-tagged orders), how shared costs are split (signage, paid social, event venue), and the payment cadence. Watch for double-counting when the same customer redeems through both channels.

The agreement covers co-branding and trademark usage rules, term and termination, indemnification, customer-data handling (CCPA/GDPR where applicable), and the dispute-resolution path. Both signers must have authority — a store manager's signature on a corporate-level agreement is usually invalid.

Route pending revisions to outside counsel or the corporate legal team. Common sticking points: indemnification carve-outs, IP ownership of co-created creative, and customer-data sharing scope. Do not proceed to operational setup until both parties have signed.

Set up the promo code, bundle SKU, or GWP rule in Lightspeed / Shopify POS / Heartland. Run a $0 test transaction in training mode to confirm the discount stacks correctly with loyalty and that the attribution tag flows into reporting. Sync the e-commerce site so in-store and online mechanics match.

Brief associates at the next shift huddle: who qualifies, what the customer says to redeem, how to ring it, and what to do when the POS rejects the discount. Post a one-page reference at each register. Untrained associates default to manual price-overrides, which break attribution.

Confirm signage is staged, email is sent on schedule, the partner has posted their side, and the POS code is active across all locations. The marketing manager monitors the first four hours for redemption errors and pulls the plug on a single store's mechanic if it misfires.

Pull attributed revenue from POS by promo code and SKU. Reconcile against the partner's reported numbers — discrepancies usually trace to refunded transactions, manual overrides, or duplicate attribution. Settle the revenue share per the agreement's payment cadence.

Compare promo-window UPT, ATV, conversion, and list growth to the trailing 4-week baseline captured at goal-setting. Net out the partner's contribution from organic lift — a 5% conversion bump during a brand's own paid-search campaign is not partnership ROI.

Joint call with both teams. Walk through what hit, what missed, and what each side would change. Capture the renewal decision: continue as-is, modify mechanic, or wind down. Document the agreed next step in writing so it doesn't slip.

Deactivate the POS promo code, pull co-branded signage from stores, remove web banners, and confirm the partner has taken down their side. Notify the customer-service team that the offer has ended so they handle expired-code complaints correctly. File the agreement and reconciliation in the vendor folder for future reference.