The Vendor Funding Most MSPs Never Claim
Ric Hall, CRO
Vendor co-marketing funds are one of the least-claimed growth levers available to an MSP, and the money is not the problem. Most providers simply never put anyone in charge of the vendor relationship that makes that funding available. Partner-driven growth is not only client referrals. It also includes the funding your own vendors already set aside for you, and that channel rewards the same discipline as any other: ownership, tracking, and a defined process.
How much vendor co-marketing funding are MSPs actually leaving unclaimed?
The gap is not a secret inside the channel, even if it rarely gets discussed with clients. Omdia research found that more than 40 percent of partners were unsure which MDF-supported activity delivered the greatest impact on their business, according to Omdia analyst Rachel Brindley as reported by Channel Dive. That is not a story about partners being handed too little. Nearly 9 in 10 channel firms surveyed by Omdia considered marketing activation critical to strategic vendor relationships, and more than half of those same firms said their vendors had not provided adequate marketing resources to support it, so the friction runs in both directions.
The view from inside individual channel organizations matches that picture. Brad Clarke, founder of Channel Guru, has described co-op fund utilization across the channel as very low, echoing what the Omdia data shows at scale. Funds that exist specifically to help a partner go find new business sit unused because nobody owns the process of claiming them, the same way a referral never happens because nobody asked for it.
Why does the funding go unused even when vendors offer it?
Part of the answer is paperwork, not indifference. Vendor MDF and co-op programs typically run on a fixed cycle, a request submitted weeks ahead of the event or campaign it will fund, backed by a multi-page application and a post-campaign report before the next request gets approved. That cycle is easy to deprioritize when nobody on your team owns it full time.
A request that has to be filed weeks in advance, documented carefully, and reported on afterward will consistently lose out to whatever ticket or client fire is in front of a technician or an owner that same week, even when the funding on offer would more than cover the time it takes to claim it. The MSPs that actually capture that money are not the ones with the biggest vendor relationships. They are the ones who treat the application calendar as a recurring task on somebody's calendar instead of a one-off errand. Vendors themselves are responding to exactly this kind of underused funding. Nearly two-thirds of organizations plan to add new partner incentives within the next year, according to Forrester's Partner Ecosystem Marketing Survey, 2026, which means the programs on offer will keep shifting under MSPs who are not actively tracking them.
Does managing the vendor relationship actually change the payout?
Yes, and the effect is large enough to change how you'd staff it. Companies with dedicated Microsoft management support are three times more likely to receive Microsoft funding than those without it, according to Maven Collective Marketing's 2026 Microsoft Partner Global Benchmark and Success Index. A relationship that exists only on paper, handled by whoever has a spare hour this week, does not perform anywhere close to one that someone is actually responsible for maintaining, applying to, and following up on every quarter.
That same benchmark shows the pattern extends well past funding into the broader co-sell motion. Eighty-seven percent of the partners it surveyed were listed on at least one Microsoft Marketplace, 60 percent had a transactable offer in place, 58 percent reported receiving a Microsoft-sourced lead, and 77 percent held at least one Solution Partner Designation. A marketplace listing, a transactable offer, and a solution designation are not things that happen passively. Someone has to build them, maintain them, and keep them current the same way someone has to track an MDF application through its own submission calendar.
| Co-marketing motion | What it actually requires |
|---|---|
| MDF/co-op funding | A named owner, a tracked application calendar, and follow-through on a multi-page form |
| Marketplace listing and transactable offer | Ongoing maintenance, not a one-time setup |
| Solution Partner Designation | Documented capability that has to be renewed and kept current |
| Microsoft-sourced lead flow | A relationship actively managed, not an inbox checked occasionally |
What does a managed vendor-funding motion actually look like for an MSP?
It looks less like a grant application and more like a pipeline, the same shift that turns client referrals from a happy accident into a channel you can plan around. Someone on your team needs to know which vendors offer MDF or co-op funds, what the deadlines and documentation requirements are, and what campaign that funding is actually going to pay for before the money gets requested. Treating the application as a quarterly chore handled by whoever has time left over is exactly how funding that could offset a real share of your marketing spend instead sits unclaimed every cycle.
Measurement is the piece that gets skipped most often, and it is also what decides whether a vendor keeps funding you next year. Brindley has said partners frequently cannot measure the return on investment from the marketing funds they do spend, which leaves a vendor with no reason to prioritize that partner's next request over anyone else's. An MSP that can show a vendor exactly which campaign a claimed dollar produced, in pipeline or in closed revenue, is arguing from evidence the next time a budget gets allocated. One that can only say the money was spent is arguing from nothing, no matter how well the campaign actually performed, and that is usually the partner whose next request quietly gets a smaller check or no answer at all.
The same discipline applies to marketplace presence and solution designations. A listing that was set up once and never updated does not generate the lead flow a current, actively maintained one does, and a designation that lapses stops counting toward the funding and co-sell eligibility it originally made available. None of this is complicated work. It is unglamorous, recurring maintenance that rarely gets done unless someone is explicitly responsible for it.
Where does this fit next to your referral program?
Vendor-funded growth and client-referred growth are different channels, but they fail for the same reason when they fail: nobody owns them day to day. A referral program needs a named process for asking and tracking. A vendor-funding motion needs a named owner tracking deadlines, applications, and renewals with the same seriousness you would apply to a sales pipeline. Actiforge's AI University MSP is built around exactly that kind of structured, white-labeled approach to referral and partner economics, so the funding and the relationships that produce it do not depend on one person remembering to follow up.
The other part of the equation is making sure your stack can actually support what a vendor co-marketing campaign promises a prospect. A campaign that drives a lead into a thin or inconsistent toolset wastes the vendor's money as fast as an unclaimed application wastes your own time. If you are not sure where your current stack would fall short of that promise, Actiforge's stack builder walks through what a well-rounded MSP offering actually includes.
None of this requires chasing every vendor program available. It requires picking the ones that matter to your business and putting someone in charge of running them like a channel instead of hoping the next renewal reminder does not get missed. A handful of vendor relationships managed well will outperform a dozen left to whoever has a free afternoon, the same way a handful of engaged referral partners outperform a long list of clients who were never actually asked.
Browse Actiforge's full product catalog to see the tools built for MSPs who want every growth channel they already have access to, referrals, partnerships, and vendor funding alike, to actually get used.