Traffic Cardinal
wrote July 09, 2025
Traffic Cardinal
wrote July 09, 2025
Tick the box if this applies to you: your marketing budget is being stretched thinner than pizza dough, you are still trying to crack the algorithm while watching competitors effortlessly reach millions of views… Well, here's what they know that you don't: they stopped playing solo years ago. Come to think of it, why exhaust yourself chasing new prospects? Just borrow someone else's instead! A perfect partnership means swapping audiences, splitting costs and cranking up each other’s volume. Dream come true? It’s all real! Today we’ll show you cross promotion marketing moves that separate winners from wishful thinkers. Read on!
What Is Cross-Promotion?
So, what is this cross promotion marketing all about? In basic terms, it’s teamwork at its finest. Two brands look at each other's fan base and think: "Hey, our people would be super into what you guys are doing!" And then they make it happen. No need to fight over the same slice of pie or try to outshout each other for attention. All gain, no pain.
The setup is beautifully simple: you've got customers who trust you, they've got customers who trust them and you both have something amazing to offer. So why not make those introductions? Plenty of options to choose from – go wild: bundling products together, co-hosting an event, swapping email shout-outs, taking over each other's social media for a day… But we are getting ahead of ourselves, more on those strategies later.
The genius of this lies in the exciting feeling of discovery. When a brand people already know introduces them to something new, their guard stays down. Customers are no longer mentally blocking out another interruption or wondering what marketers are trying to sell them. Instead, they are curious. They explore. And this is how brands earn attention without fighting for it.
Why Cross-Promotion Matters
Marketing feels impossible right now, doesn't it? Everyone is fighting for attention, ad prices are through the roof and half the time you are not even sure if anyone is listening. But you know what? Cross promotional marketing strategy isn’t reserved for big brands with astronomical budgets. You can get your name out there and save both your cash and your calm.
Lower Marketing Costs
We’ve all been there: you check your ad spend and it sends shivers down your spine. But cross promotional marketing can help you get rid of that sinking feeling. From now on, it’s basically splitting the check on everything. Whatever you and your brand buddy come up with (shared campaigns, co-created content, joint events), you will reach way more people for way less cash.
Access to New and Targeted Audiences
Here is a riddle for you: what's better than a million random impressions? That’s right – a thousand people who are truly excited about what you are selling. Quality over quantity, baby! Once you find that perfect match of a partner, you’ll be introduced to people who already trust their taste, which means they are way more likely to give you a real shot.
Builds Brand Trust and Authority
Let’s whip up a metaphor everyone gets: being a new kid at school. Nobody knew if you were cool or not until someone cool vouched for you. Well, business works the same way. When an established brand gives you a shoutout or teams up with you – ba-doom! Instant street cred. Their reputation becomes your reputation, at least for a moment, and that moment can change everything.
Increases Engagement Across Channels
Solo campaigns can feel a bit... lonely. Collaborative stuff is way cooler and, besides, it creates more buzz! People love seeing unexpected partnerships. It's fresh, it's interesting, and honestly, it just feels more fun. Any cross promotional marketing ideas you have, your audiences are going to eat them up. And when people are excited, they share. When they share, you win.
Fosters Long-Term Partnerships
This is where it gets really good. That mutual campaign you just crushed? It's not ending when the campaign ends. You just made a business friend and business friends are worth their weight in gold. Today's partner becomes tomorrow's referral source. Next month they might introduce you to someone amazing. And next year? Who knows, maybe you are launching something together.
How to Set Up a Successful Cross-Promotion Campaign
Alright, you are sold on cross-promotion. But now comes the tricky part – making it happen without it turning into a hot mess. History witnessed too many partnerships start with high hopes and end with awkward silence. Let's make sure yours doesn't.
Define Goals and Metrics
Before you reach out to anyone, get crystal clear on what you are trying to accomplish. And no, "get more customers" isn't specific enough. Are you trying to grow your email list by 500 people? Improve sales by 20%? Get in front of a new demographic? Then write it down and put a number on it. Both of you need to clearly see the aim. Otherwise, you'll be shooting in the dark.
Choose the Right Partner(s)
Sure thing, this isn't Tinder! But the pattern is the same: you need a partner who complements you instead of competing with you. Peanut butter and jelly kinda vibe! Find yourself a brand that serves the same type of people you do, but offers something totally different. Your customers should look at the partnership and think "Oh, that makes perfect sense" rather than "Wait, why are they working together?" Do your homework here. Stalk their social media, read their about page, check out their customers. You want to make sure you are not accidentally partnering with someone whose values will make your audience cringe.
Align Audiences and Values
Speaking about compatibility! Assuming your audiences will automatically love each other is where a lot of partnerships fall apart. Spend some time digging into whether your people and their people actually overlap in ways that matter. For instance, a yoga studio and a high-end athleisure brand might seem like a perfect match on paper. But if one aims at budget-conscious beginners and the other is created for luxury fitness enthusiasts, you are going to have problems.
Set Clear Responsibilities and Terms
So, you are both excited and everything feels friendly. But hold on for a second! Do you know what’s capable of killing a good partnership? It’s the confusion about who is supposed to do what. Spell out every tiny d-e-t-a-i-l. Who is creating what content? When is it going live? How are you splitting costs? What happens to the email addresses you collect? Who owns the photos from the event? It might feel awkward to get this detailed upfront, but trust us – it's way more awkward when you are fighting about it later.
Pick the Best Channels for Promotion
Don't try to be everywhere at once. Figure out where your consumers really hang out and pour your resources there. Maybe it's Instagram stories, maybe it's email newsletters, maybe it's a live stream. The main thing is choosing channels where both of your audiences are active and engaged. There's no point in doing a killer TikTok campaign if your partner's people are all on LinkedIn.
Cross-Channel Marketing: What It Is and How to Run Effective Campaigns
Monitor Performance and Iterate
Unfortunately, this is where people usually get lazy. But it's actually the most important part! Set up your tracking from day one and look at the numbers regularly. And let’s not forget another crucial detail – be honest about what's working and what isn't. If something's flopping, say it out loud. If something's crushing it, celebrate together. The meaning of cross promotion marketing is in joint effort, through every high and low.
12 Cross-Promotion Strategies You Can Use Today
Enough theory, let’s see how it all works in practice. Here are cross promotion marketing examples and strategies that brands are using right now and succeed. The good news is you can start any of these right now.
Co-Create an eBook or Guide
The perfect scenario is when two brands combine their smarts to create something neither could make alone. It can be anything: an eBook, guide or resource that truly helps people solve a problem (without just slapping both logos on some generic content).
For example, HubSpot and Litmus teamed up to create an eBook on email campaigns that united HubSpot's marketing know-how with Litmus's email expertise. It wouldn’t have been nearly as good if done on their own and both got to share it with their audiences.
Launch a Joint Webinar or Live Event
Most brands prefer to hide behind polished posts and perfect photos. Going live? That takes guts. If you embrace this vulnerability, you’ll see people are eager to lean in and listen.
Sephora figured this out with their virtual masterclasses. They brought in brands like Saie and OUAI to teach live beauty tutorials exclusively for their loyalty members. Why is this a genius move? Sephora gets premium content that makes their program feel worth it, the partner brands get face time with beauty obsessives who are ready to buy and customers get hands-on learning plus goodies to try at home.
Start a Referral or Affiliate Program
This one is our personal favourite because it keeps working long after you set it up. We don’t have to explain every nook and cranny here. If you’ve been following our media for a while, you already know what these programs are about. But let’s see how two brands can play at this game.
Here is a hypothetical example: you run a fitness app and your partner sells healthy meal kits. Your users get a discount on their first meal kit order, their customers get a free month of your app. And there you have it – instant access to a whole new pool of potential customers who are already warmed up and ready to try something new.
Bundle Products or Services Together
It’s time to stop thinking about bundles as just "your thing + their thing = more money". Smart brands are creating combinations that feel inevitable once you see them.
Adidas nailed this strategy when they started collaborating with Parley for the Oceans back in 2015. Instead of just co-branding some random products, they are literally making shoes out of ocean plastic. These sneakers aren’t only comfortable, they are made from trash that used to be floating around polluting the sea. Now their customers see it as buying into an environmental mission.
Collaborate on Social Media Campaigns
Some brand partnerships play it safe. Others decide to completely break the internet. Guess which ones people actually remember?
When Balenciaga put Crocs on the Paris Fashion Week runway, fashion critics didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Luxury fashion house meets garden shoe? It shouldn't work. But that's exactly why it did. The collaboration turned foam clogs into a $850 fashion statement and had everyone from sneakerheads to style influencers losing their minds on social media.
Guest Appear on Each Other’s Podcasts
Your audience is probably getting tired of hearing just your voice. Their audience definitely doesn't know who you are yet. Time to fix both problems at once. Find someone whose expertise adds value to yours and whose audience would actually care about what you have to say. Then get on each other's shows and drop some knowledge. Besides, you are not interrupting anyone's day with an ad. You are showing up as the interesting person their trusted host wanted them to meet.
Run a Co-Branded Contest or Giveaway
Contests and giveaways are everywhere these days, so yours better stand out. It’s definitely more than just throwing random prizes together. You and your marketing buddy need to create a prize package that feels curated and intentional.
BlendJet and Herbivore Botanicals did just that: they paired portable blenders with premium skincare products. At first glance, smoothies and serums don't seem related, but they are both part of that whole wellness-focused lifestyle. People who care about what goes in their body probably care about what goes on their skin too.
Feature Each Other in Email Newsletters
Email subscribers are precious. They've already raised their hand and said they want to hear from you. So when you recommend another brand to them, they pay attention.
AllTrails and Calm came up with a smart way to do this without being pushy. AllTrails told their hiking-obsessed subscribers about a deal with Calm: track a hike this month, get three months of meditation app access. Calm promoted the same deal to their mindfulness-focused audience from the other angle. You’ve probably seen those memes “I’m talking a walk for my stupid mental health”, so a crossover like this makes total sense.
Create Shareable Graphics or Templates
Templates, checklists, infographics – if you can make something useful that people want to download and share – that’s a chance to shine for both you and your cross-promotion partner.
Let’s use our imagination again and think of a scenario like this: a financial planning company teams up with a productivity app to create a money-and-time management dashboard. Budget tracking on one side, task management on the other. Clean design, practical layout, subtle branding from both partners. People love free tools that make their lives easier, especially when they look professional enough to share. It can be dropped as a free download and promoted through both brands' channels so that people can customize it and post screenshots.
Mention or Link to Each Other in Blogs
Say what you will but nobody clicks on those awkward “check out our partner” mentions. Such links should be weaved into your content so naturally that readers barely notice they are being introduced to someone new.
When you are writing about a topic your partner knows better than you do, link to their expertise. When they are covering something in your wheelhouse, they point people your way. It's not just good for SEO (search engines do love quality backlinks), but it’s also helpful for readers who want to dive deeper. People trust your judgment, so when you send them somewhere, they go.
Attend or Co-Sponsor Events Together
Conference booths are expensive. Speaking slots are competitive. Networking events can drain your budget fast. But when you team up with the right partner, all of a sudden events become way more manageable and way more effective.
Red Bull and GoPro have turned event partnerships into an art form. At extreme sports competitions like the Red Bull Air Race, cliff diving or rampage events, you'll see both brands everywhere. Logos on helmets, cameras on athletes, content crews working together in real time. It works because they are both after the same people – folks who think jumping off cliffs sounds like a fun Tuesday.
Use Influencers or Mutual Testimonials
Sometimes the fastest way to reach new people is through someone who already has their attention. This doesn't always mean expensive celebrity endorsements – it could be industry influencers, satisfied customers or even just smart testimonials between brands.
Tim Hortons proved this when they partnered with Justin Bieber on the Timbiebs donut line. The Canadian coffee chain was struggling with younger customers and Bieber had millions of devoted fans who'd try anything with his name on it. The collaboration was a success! It turned around declining sales and got a whole new generation interested in Tim Hortons.
Final Thoughts: Make Cross-Promotion Work for You
Cross-promotion is something you actually do, not some fancy-pants theory you study. So stop reading and start reaching out. Your first partnership might be messy. So what? That's how you figure out what works and what needs a rethink. Every brand screws up their first collaboration. The smart ones learn from it and get better. Don't lose yourself trying to please a partner. Don't chase deals that make no sense. Don't overthink every little detail. Just start. Good luck!
