
Katana
Building a partner management system in HubSpot
About Katana
Katana is a cloud-based inventory software company committed to empowering manufacturers with real-time data to optimize production workflows.
Their solution integrates seamlessly with various e-commerce, accounting, and CRM platforms, enabling small and medium-sized businesses to manage inventory, production, and sales from a single platform.
Founded with a vision to streamline manufacturing processes, Katana focuses on providing intuitive, user-friendly tools to help businesses enhance efficiency, reduce waste, and scale operations effectively.
Services provided
This story, in short
This customer story covers how we worked closely with Katana to build a fully custom solution, via HubSpot, to help them collect and report data they can trust to drive their strategic decisions.
You’ll find comments from Henri Viirok, Revenue Operations Lead at Katana, and Zsofia Kovacs, Growth Technology Strategist at Advance B2B.
"It’s now reliable. Before, we did not have full confidence in the numbers."

The Starting Point
A unique reporting challenge
Despite having a talented RevOps team and an A-grade understanding of marketing, Katana struggled to track and optimize the performance of their partner network, which accounts for a significant portion of their revenue.
This gap made it difficult for them to identify which partners were driving the most leads and revenue and, therefore, where they should focus their efforts and investments.
In other words, they needed a way to collect, report on, and leverage partner-related data.
And that's where we came in.
Why Katana chose Advance B2B
Katana sought a partner who could not only implement HubSpot but also customize it to meet their unique needs.
Our track record of delivering non-standard, fully custom solutions in HubSpot made us a perfect fit. The journey began with a swift HubSpot onboarding in Spring 2023.
"Our legacy process was more of a ‘hacky’ solution. We didn’t use native HubSpot best practices, and it wasn’t convenient for our partner managers. That also meant we spent too much time on fixing stuff."
Henri Viirok
Revenue Operations Lead, Katana

Designing custom HubSpot processes to provide a clear data flow
The raison d’être of this project was to collect accurate data regarding the number of leads, pipeline, and revenue attributed to each partner company, and automate the entire reporting process to increase efficiency (and minimize caveats coming from manual inputs).
But we ended up doing much more than just building an analytics center.
- We mapped every single lead source, from which new partners sign up.
- We designed custom HubSpot processes to define what happens to newly created leads assigned to Katana’s partners and implemented it. For instance, we:
- Made sure relevant people and teams get notified,
- Clearly defined how leads will be qualified,
- Defined & set up a custom object in HubSpot for partners
- Documented how we track the journey of a partner from “mildly interested” to “active partner”.
- We designed a fully custom tracking and analytics system within HubSpot to help Katana track and measure what matters.
All in all, if HubSpot offers great out-of-the-box tracking solutions, none of this work was ‘standard’ in HubSpot. 100% of the solution we came up with had to be custom-built to meet Katana’s requirements.
"None of what we did for Katana is standard in HubSpot. 100% of this is custom made."
Zsofia Kovacs
Growth Technology Strategist


Creating a seamless automation for partner data
A key aspect of this project was automation. We relied on advanced integrations to automate the whole partner management tracking and reporting.
For context, Katana uses PartnerStack for partner management. This is where new partners can sign up and submit new leads. We used Zapier to connect Partnerstack to HubSpot so that all the leads and new partners reach their ‘designated place’ in HubSpot.
Additionally, we created more automation within HubSpot:
- Attribution: we created a process to assign the right owner to the new leads and partners.
- Segmentation: we set up smart solutions to mark who is a partner and who is a lead or customer. This simple segmentation helps marketing nurture everyone with the right content to move them further in the funnel.
- Pipeline: we automated the movement in the channel partner pipeline. When a cold partner becomes interested, HubSpot automatically moves the partner to the next stage.
What’s more, we had to create custom objects.
By default, HubSpot has ready-to-use common properties, such as contact or company lifecycle and company name or phone number (classic stuff). If your business operates differently, you must create and maintain custom properties.
And so we created a new object in HubSpot: Partners.
We set up the data model, the overall logic for how this object is supposed to behave, and how it should function alongside existing default and custom HubSpot objects such as companies, deals, contacts, etc.
"I'm happy we could create a solid data model that can deliver the information Katana needs. Of course, no system is ever perfect. Our goal was to build a strong and scalable foundation that’s easy to build on when the need arises for more detailed analytics."
Zsofia Kovacs
Growth Technology Strategist

The result? “We can now make strategic decisions with numbers we can trust”
Previously, Katana’s partner network relied on a cumbersome system and Excel sheets that required frequent ad-hoc efforts and provided limited visibility into revenue generation and conversion metrics.
With our custom solution, everything became more clear and measurable:
- Lead Tracking: The system now tracks leads generated by each partner, offering clear insights into which partners contribute the most.
- New Partner Funnel: We also developed a funnel to assist in onboarding and managing new partners, enhancing their ability to expand their network effectively (and enroll new partners to bring in more leads).
- Clear attribution: Katana can now measure conversions, pipeline, and revenue attributed to each partner. This allows them to make more informed strategic decisions and targeted investments. For instance, they can now produce and promote targeted campaigns towards the partner segments with the highest potential to bring in more leads and revenue.
- Increase in revenue generation: Due to the ability to track the abovementioned, Katana and Henri were able to optimize their efforts and significantly increase the revenue generated by their partner network.
To make a long story short, with this custom HubSpot tracking setup, Katana can now identify which partners to focus on, allowing them to invest in relationships that drive the most business.

“The data we now get from our partner management program is highly used by the teams. It tells us what areas we should focus on. As a result, we can now make strategic decisions with numbers we can trust. For instance, we have been able to identify segments that are working better and have started more focused marketing towards them.”.
Henri Viirok
Revenue Operations Lead, Katana

Clear data to make better business decisions
We love data that makes sense and so this is one of our proudest moments.
We transformed Katana’s ability to manage and grow its partner network by building a fully custom tracking and analytics center in HubSpot and, more importantly, gave them the means to positioned themselves for sustained growth and success.
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