How Spotify Made $32M+ With ONE Partnership (And How You Can Steal Their Playbook)
Hey – Jamie I.F. here, sorry, I got locked out of my Kit account, and haven't sent a newsletter in a while...
And, I've actually started another bi-weekly newsletter, too...
It's all about how the world's biggest companies are building partnerships to scale to massive revenues...
And how partnerships (from affiliate partnerships, to integrations, to influencer deals, and more....)...
Are scaling companies to millions (and sometimes BILLIONS) in revenue.
I've pasted the first edition below here so you can read it and see if you want to subscribe to get another every 2 weeks.
And if you like it, you can subscribe here!
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Spotify partnered with Ticketmaster to send 300M+ clicks and generate $32M in extra revenue 👀
And the best part? It's not some complex growth hack or expensive ad spend. It's just... really smart partnerships.
Picture this: You're jamming to Arctic Monkeys on Spotify (great taste, btw).
Maybe a friend recommended them, or they popped up on your Discover Weekly.
You're vibing, probably deep in some coding flow, when
BAM!! A notification drops:
"Arctic Monkeys live in Brooklyn next month."
Your brain goes "F*** YES!" and you tap it.
Two seconds later you're looking at ticket options. Seating charts, prices, everything. Right there in Spotify.
You buy them without leaving the app, in 30 seconds.
No Googling. No changing apps.
That buttery-smooth experience just made Spotify money.
And Ticketmaster got a customer without chasing them down with ads.
This is the partnership that's moving $32 million in tickets annually.
Here’s the full breakdown - and EXACTLY how you can steal this playbook for your SaaS:
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Why This Partnership Actually Works (When Most Don't)
Good partnerships:
- Adds value to uers: gets your users to want they want, faster and easier
- Make both partners more money
Most brands get this wrong, and focus on the wrong things.
But Spotify figured something out in 2016 that was painfully obvious:
People who OBSESS over an artist probably want to see them live.
(OBVIOUSLY?!)
The problem? The journey from "I love this song" to "OMG tickets purchased!" was way too long:
- Remember the band name (good luck with that random playlist discovery)
- Google tour dates
- Navigate to Ticketmaster
- Search again
- Pray tickets aren't sold out
- Enter payment info on their... questionable UI
In 2025, NOBODY has the attention span for that.
The best partnerships find users at the exact moment they need something and give them EXACTLY that.
The Results (Because I Know You Want Numbers)
Since launching this partnership, here's what happened:
However… Spotify doesn't even consider this a major revenue stream.
They care about adding value to their users, not the extra money.
The results from this partnership?
- Lower churn
- More daily usage
- Extra "wow" moments that make users tell their friends
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How YOU Can Build These Money-Making Partnerships
Look, Spotify had the advantage of 600M+ users. They had distribution, they wanted to add value.
But for 99.9% of SaaS startups (and probably YOU 👀), partnerships are about getting more distribution.
So here’s the playbook that works for ANY SaaS.
1. Find Your "Complementary Audiences"
There are two ways to nail this:
Option A: Use your brain. Think about your ICP (ideal customer profile), and what other tools they’re likely to use as well as yours.
Option B: Just ask your users: "What other tools do you pay for that should integrate with us?"
I guarantee you'll find 3-5 tools that 50%+ of your power users also use.
For a CRM? Email software, meeting tools, payment processors, Zapier.
For our affiliate marketing software at Endorsely? SEO tools, email outreach platforms, testimonial tools, CMS systems.
We don’t really talk about it, but as well as the Endorsely software, we also have an agency wing that manages the affiliate programs for some SaaS brands.
In our agency, we think about it like this:
“What are the companies out there that are NOT DIRECT COMPETITORS, but share more than 40% of the same audience?”
I call these “complementary audiences”.
Those are perfect-fit brands that you can strike partnerships with.
(We’re building a tool into Endorsely that automatically surfaces these partnerships, and makes specific recommendations for you, too 😉.)
2. Find the "Highest Need" Moment
Spotify nailed this because they have the data.
They know you've played "Do I Wanna Know?" 47 times this month - and pitch you concert tickets when you’re most likely to buy.
You have this data too.
Use tools like PostHog to see how users interact with your app, to understand what they want at any particular time.
For Endorsely, when someone just used our Affiliate Finder to discover 100+ potential partners, that's when they MOST need email outreach software.
When someone just integrated Stripe to take payments for their SaaS, that's probably when they want an affiliate program like Endorsely to grow their MRR.
3. Reach Out & Build The Relationship
Here’s a template you can use:
4. Make Integration Unbelievably Easy
When you tap to buy concert tickets, you're technically on Ticketmaster's checkout, but it never feels like you left Spotify.
Ticketmaster's Discovery API feeds real-time event data straight into Spotify. Venue capacity, pricing, availability – everything syncs automatically.
This makes it 100x easier to build a partnership with Spotify, who have 600M+ active users and who can send millions of clicks every year.
Without these APIs, Spotify may not have been interested - and all those sales would have been lost.
Make partnerships convenient, cheap, and easy for the other party to integrate.
Even Endorsely is essentially an integration partnership with Stripe.
Stripe has some of the best and clearest help docs in the world, which makes it easier to integrate with them and track affiliate payments.
Don't build some janky experience that feels like being transferred between departments while on hold with your bank.
5. Track Everything
Spotify and Ticketmaster use proper affiliate tracking to see every click, conversion, and dollar generated.
Spotify and Ticketmaster used Impact for affiliate tracking, but you can use Endorsely for all your tracking needs – and save the $5,000+ per year fees that Impact charges 😉.
Proper tracking lets you see exact ROI and see whether it’s worth continuing – which is why this partnership has lasted 9 years while others die in 18 months 💔
How to Keep Partnerships Alive (And Avoid Breakups)
Here's where it gets interesting…
Spotify has nuclear-level leverage here.
600M+ users, 9 years of data.
(In fact, they even tested cutting out Ticketmaster entirely in 2022, but ended up sticking with them…)
But the partnership has lasted for 9 years and counting…
Why?
1 - Opportunity cost: Building ticketing infrastructure is expensive and time-consuming. Shopify would rather not spend millions of dollars, and deal with all the maintenance, if Ticketmaster does this without any hiccups.
2 - Integration depth: 9 years in, their systems are deeply interconnected. Dozens of people work on this partnership. It'd be a major headache to uncouple.
3 - Data sharing: Both sides get valuable data they wouldn't have otherwise.
The lesson? Make it incredibly seamless for partners to make money with you.
(...And make switching PAINFUL.)
The Real Takeaway
Spotify turned existing user intent into a $32M revenue stream without building a single new feature.
Your SaaS is probably sitting on similar goldmines. You're just not looking hard enough.
Stop trying to build everything in-house (you probably don't have the resources anyway). Start connecting your users to what they're already buying.
But remember: partnerships aren't about the launch. They're about staying valuable to each other over time.
Monday morning question for your team: "How many taps does it take our users to buy everything they need?"
If it's more than two, you've got work to do.
Want more partnership strategies like this?
I'll be breaking down the 7- and 8-figure plays the biggest SaaS companies are using every two weeks :)
You can sign up to the Partnerships Vault here.
Until next time 🫡,
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Jamie I.F.
Founder, Increasing.com
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