Co-marketing links are links that result from marketing work done jointly with another company: a co-authored report, a shared webinar, a joint guide or a bundled offer. Each partner promotes the asset to its audience and links to the other. When the partnership is real and the content useful, these links are relevant and come with audiences attached.
Typical formats
Co-marketing works best between companies that sell to the same buyers without competing.
- Joint research reports or surveys
- Co-hosted webinars and event sessions
- Shared guides or templates combining both products
- Customer stories that involve both products
- Bundled trials or offers
Links and policy
Linking to a genuine partner in a joint campaign is ordinary business. Questions arise if money changes hands specifically for placement, for example one company paying to appear in the other's content. In that case, qualify the links with sponsored. Keep anchors natural and avoid using co-marketing as cover for a link exchange.
Getting more from the links
Host the main asset on one site and have the partner link to it, rather than duplicating it on both. That concentrates links and avoids duplicate versions competing in search. Agree in advance who hosts, how each side credits the other, and what each side will promote.
Example
A joint benchmark report
An illustrative customer feedback tool, Surveywick, and a support platform co-publish a report on response times and satisfaction, built from both companies' anonymized data. The report lives on Surveywick's site with a clear partner credit. The support platform links to it from its blog and newsletter, and journalists covering the findings link to the report itself.
Common mistakes
Publishing the same asset on both sites
Two copies split links and attention. Pick one host or use a canonical URL.
Partnering for links alone
If neither audience benefits, the campaign is a link exchange with extra steps.
Questions
Not when they reflect a genuine editorial partnership. If one side paid for placement, use sponsored.
