In this episode, host Adam Weeks is joined by Carrie Smaha, Senior Manager of Marketing Operations at InMotion Hosting, live from CloudFest in Germany. Together, they chat about what makes an outstanding agency partner program, discuss the balance of risk and reputation when recommending hosting providers, and reveal behind-the-scenes insights into InMotion’s newest offerings for agencies.
Plus, with a few stories from CloudFest including the legendary server throwing championship this episode is packed with practical advice, industry trends, and a dose of fun you won’t want to miss.
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Takeaways
Understanding Agency Needs: Agencies value ongoing commissions and discounted purchases over one-time affiliate payouts. They want programs that respect their need for steady income streams and align with their business models, rather than acting as charity or beta testers for unproven services 03:01.
Risk and Reputation Management: Agencies are cautious about associating their reputations with hosting providers. They want host environments that are stable, reliable, customizable, and backed by strong support so they can confidently make client recommendations without fear of reputational damage 06:23.
Support and Responsibility: Good hosting partners offer robust support, allowing agencies, especially smaller ones to offload complex technical support when needed. When issues arise, both hosts and agencies prefer transparency in accepting responsibility and taking corrective action, depending on where the fault lies 08:05.
Value of Leads and Visibility: Agencies prioritize opportunities for new business through features like partner directories and lead referrals. Listing in a directory not only enhances visibility but can also funnel relevant leads, expanding agencies’ pipelines and client bases 10:12.
Vetting and Specialization: Hosting partners vet agencies with criteria such as application forms and portfolio reviews. Agencies with clear niches,whether by technology (e.g., WordPress, Drupal), industry (e.g., fintech, associations), or demonstrated work quality stand out and build trust with both hosts and clients 12:31.
Human Connection and Trust: Meeting in person at events like Cloudfest fosters deeper relationships, trust, and mutual understanding that can’t be built through emails or messaging alone. Face-to-face interactions make it easier to assess compatibility and form mutually beneficial partnerships 15:21.
Personal Branding and Approachability: Personal touches, like sharing interests or participating in fun activities (e.g., server throwing championships), help humanize professionals, break the ice, and build rapport, making business partners more approachable and memorable 16:39.
Privately Owned Hosting Value: Agencies may see additional value in partnering with privately owned, founder-led hosting companies like InMotion Hosting, seeing them as more stable or trustworthy in today’s market 17:58.
Mentioned Links and Resources
- InMotion Hosting Partner Program – InMotion Hosting is launching an agency partner program featuring ongoing commissions, a directory listing for lead generation, and dedicated partner support. 🔗 https://www.inmotionhosting.com/agency-partner-program
Timestamped Overview
- 00:00 Building an affiliate commission program
- 04:06 Agencies recommending website hosts
- 07:58 Navigating hosting support challenges
- 12:52 Vetting and onboarding agencies
- 14:44 Building trust through communication
- 17:34 Launching the agency partner program
Episode Transcript
Adam Weeks:
This is Adam Weeks from Open Channels FM and today I am joined by Carrie Smaha. Am I saying Smaha correctly?
Carrie Smaha:
It’s just Smaha.
Adam Weeks:
Smaha. So not. Not too much emphasis on the ha. Just a Smaha. I love it. All right, well, we are in a pretty special place today, Gary. We are going to be talking about agencies and the partner programs that hosting companies make for them. You are from InMotion Hosting. You guys are launching a new partner program. We were talking last night at CloudFest at one of the parties just kicking off CloudFest and I am really intrigued by what it takes to create a great partner program. Before we get into partner programs, I want you to just describe quickly for those who are not watching the video, where are we and what is this place that we’re at?
Carrie Smaha:
We are at CloudFest in Germany and we are in this amusement park here and we’re in studio. What is it? 78.
Adam Weeks:
78, yes. How do you say it in German?
Carrie Smaha:
I’m not even going to try. 78.
Adam Weeks:
It’s a pretty cool place. Yeah, we feel very lucky to be here and yeah, what a cool opportunity. Thank you for joining me.
Carrie Smaha:
Thanks for having me.
Adam Weeks:
All right, so, yes, CloudFest 2026. This is your first CloudFest.
Carrie Smaha:
It is my first and I’m very excited.
Adam Weeks:
First impressions.
Carrie Smaha:
It’s very big. It’s very awesome. I’m just really taking it all in and I can’t wait for the days to get even more kind of pumped up and more active.
Adam Weeks:
Yeah, it’s just getting started and yeah, they kicked off this morning, but I am really excited about talking to you. More about this idea of what are agencies from their perspective. What do you think an agency is looking for in a good partner program?
Carrie Smaha:
Yeah, absolutely. So we looked at our own customer base and asked the agencies that have been with us for a long time the things that they’re looking for. So we kind of Pitched a couple of ideas to them that they weren’t kind of really interested in. And then we just refined our program from there so that we were actually giving them something that they wanted. So a lot of programs kind of maybe have this like referral, referral or like affiliate like system where you just kind of get this one time payout. They don’t want that. You know, they, they’re not charities, they need to make money. So they just really wanted to have something where they could earn ongoing commissions from the hosting that either they’re procuring on behalf of the hosting or on behalf of the client, or they do refer the customer to go purchase own, but they will still earn a commission on their purchase plus discounted purchases as well.
Adam Weeks:
Got it. So you guys are, have been doing lots of research into what agencies are looking for. And these agencies, they’re going about their business, they’re working with clients and oftentimes in that workflow of a new client coming to them in my agency work the onboarding form that you’ll do, the intake form, they’ll often respond, okay, you know, what are all the things you’re looking for in a website? And oh, do you need hosting? Like that’s, and that’s kind of where you’re hoping that their clients are saying, yes, we do need hosting. Who do you recommend? And that’s when you guys want to swoop in and be that top of mind option for that agency. What things? Yeah, kind of. If we get some of the specifics as an, as an agency, what, what risks do they have when it comes to. Yeah, let’s talk about the, based on the risks when they are going to recommend a host?
Carrie Smaha:
Yeah, absolutely. Like maybe some of the things that we were pitching to them was would you want to be like if we were rolling out a new service or something like that that they could then resell to their clients, something that could be risky for them is, oh, do you want to be in a beta program? Do you want to be testing all of these features? They’re like, no. That kind of puts my reputation on the line. You know, I, you know, I have to make a business. I’m not kind of here to do QA for you, but I need something kind of tied or tried tested and true.
Adam Weeks:
Yeah.
Carrie Smaha:
So. But I would love to bundle maybe some of those other things once, you know, you’ve figured that all out.
Adam Weeks:
Okay.
Carrie Smaha:
Yeah.
Adam Weeks:
How, how are you thinking about their reputation? That’s one thing that kind of pops in my mind when, whenever we make any Kind of a recommendation. Because the agencies, they’re not, unless it’s a white label situation, they’re not picking the hosting, they’re often making that recommendation. Yeah. If it’s recommending a restaurant or recommending a movie or something in life, we make these recommendations. We’re putting our reputation on, on the line. Yeah. How do you think about an agency’s reputation?
Carrie Smaha:
I mean, yeah, I’m putting, I’m the agency responsible for getting your website online. So is the site going to stay up? You know, is uptime, is it going to be fast? Do you have optimized hosting environments or can I customize it to the way my agency likes to, to do that with the server? So.
Adam Weeks:
Got it.
Carrie Smaha:
Those are some of the things that I would want to look for with a recommendation. Yeah. Also the support, you know, if. So some of the agencies, you know, they want to have it white label and keep that support. They want to be the ones offering the support for some of the, maybe the smaller agencies that are still scaling and maybe they have smaller clients that they’re working with, offloading, that kind of really hand holding technical support that they don’t have the time to, to bother with over to the hosting company. So does the hosting company have good support?
Adam Weeks:
Got it.
Carrie Smaha:
Yeah.
Adam Weeks:
Yeah. So those, that’s that, that reputation, they’re trying to mitigate risk. No matter what project, nothing will ever go 100% correct. There will almost always be a time where the client is like, hey, this isn’t what we expected or this is different. And having that hosting partner is very important for those agencies. How do you think about the blame? Something’s going to go wrong. How does like what was it the agency’s fault that your website went down? Is it the host’s fault that your website went down? How does from your in motion hosting. How do you guys think about taking responsibility?
Carrie Smaha:
I mean as a former agency owner and then working at a hosting company, every situation is unique. You know, like did the customer go into WordPress and press update and break the site or install plugins? Yes. Is that the hosting provider’s fault? No. You know, but was there maybe some unexpected downtime? You know, maybe there’s a natural disaster at a data center or maybe there was a migration required because, you know, sometimes a hard drive does fail. It’s rare but you know, sometimes you need that unexpected migration to happen or what have you. So it’s going to depend on what that situation is. But you know, if, if we were at fault, whether it was like egregious in most cases, it’s not that or it’s just something very simple. We will, yeah, we’ll say, yeah, we did that, but we want to make it right and let’s work on the different ways that we can make it right. And then, you know, an agency, if, you know, if it was maybe something they did, they’d say, all right, I will, you know, comp you some extra hours for, you know, retainer, maintenance plan kind of situation.
Adam Weeks:
Yeah. I think agencies are trying to mitigate their risk and sometimes it’s nice for them to have a host like say, hey, this is the responsibilities over here and spread out some of that reputational risk is important. All right, let’s step back a little bit. You’re getting ready to launch this agency partner program. What are some of the things that in your research and as you put this program together, you kind of started at the beginning explaining it. Let’s get into some of the details.
Carrie Smaha:
Sure.
Adam Weeks:
What, what makes for a good agency partner program that you are including and that you would even recommend? Like, hey, this is what all agency partner programs should have.
Carrie Smaha:
Yeah. So again, at the beginning it was just like, how can I kind of earn money? I am charging my customers, but how can I maybe make a little extra on top of that? And then how can I make my initial investment kind of smaller with that discounted purchase? Another thing that they were looking for was we’re going to offer a partner directory listing. And so that gives the agency’s visibility and it’s going to create a lead funnel for them. So, you know, it’s, it can be hard to break into new markets or geo locations and you need to keep your pipeline open. You need leads coming in. So that was something that really resonated well with a lot of these agencies. So yeah, so we’ll have that. And then we can also make referrals for maybe people who don’t have an agency yet.
Adam Weeks:
Okay.
Carrie Smaha:
And they are hosting with us and, and they contact support. But you know, something that we can’t offer. We can say, go to our directory or I know just the agency that can serve this for you.
Adam Weeks:
Well, yeah, everybody wants leads. Just give us warm leads, Leads, leads. That’s all we’re really wanting. Just give us a warm lead. It’s nice to make money on top of that. That’s, that helps with the bottom line. But really their business is built on leads on clients. And as. And what. I love what you just were saying right there. Like, hey, boy, have we got the agency for you.
Carrie Smaha:
Yes.
Adam Weeks:
And so having that niche, last night we were talking about agencies, good agencies kind of find themselves in a niche because then they can optimize for that.
Carrie Smaha:
How do you think about that? Yeah, absolutely. So we want to be able to have filtering criteria so the agencies can say, hey, I, you know, everybody does WordPress but I also do Drupal or I can do these different CMSs, I can do mobile apps or I serve these very specific niches like fintech or maybe we work with like associations or membership based people. They really know what those customers want and they can speak their language and then they can find that agency partner in the directory and to make that recommendation too.
Adam Weeks:
You can make that recommend because you, you get to know that agency.
Carrie Smaha:
Absolutely.
Adam Weeks:
And just like the agency is wanting to make sure they can trust their hosting partner and their reputation is on the line for that, it also goes back the other way where you are making a recommendation to maybe you have an existing website, the client’s on there, they lost their old agency or they don’t like them, that hey, this agency didn’t do a great job for us. We’re looking for a new agency. And you’re able to put your reputation on the line for them?
Carrie Smaha:
Absolutely.
Adam Weeks:
Is there anything that from the hosting perspective you’re looking at, are you looking at some of the portfolios? What do you do to be able to trust those agencies?
Carrie Smaha:
Yeah, I mean we’re gonna vet certain criteria. They have to fill out an application form and we’ll do vetting criteria there and then for any of the ones that, I mean obviously you have, you have to have a good looking portfolio site. You don’t want to be in a situation where like the cobbler’s kids, you know, like they don’t have their own good looking site. That’s important. But also the work that they are doing. So what they are featuring on their portfolio site. But with each of these agencies that get onboarded like kind of the higher tiers, outside of just that basic entry level one, they’re going to have a dedicated partner, success manager. So we’re going to be able to understand everything about their business in order to intelligently make that recommendation.
Adam Weeks:
I love you saying about, you know, on, on their own website. I’ve worked with some agencies and they’re wanting me to help them out with some stuff and I went to their website. It’s like there are misspelled words on your website, there are dead links on your website. This isn’t a good look, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s just it’s not a good look. And so yeah, first off, the agencies need to have best in class websites. They need to have a really strong website and then showing on their website what they’re capable of and keeping those portfolios up to date.
Carrie Smaha:
Yeah, absolutely. It’s important.
Adam Weeks:
Yeah. So we’re here at CloudFest. Like I said, this is your first CloudFest. One of the things that why we’re here is to be in person and to meet each other.
Carrie Smaha:
Yeah, love it. Yeah.
Adam Weeks:
And that I think is also a big part of that trust. When you think of events and you think of being in person, how do you think about like developing relationships, client relationships? How are you thinking about those?
Carrie Smaha:
Yeah, I mean it’s just you can only infer so much like tone or meaning through an email or a Slack message and. And everybody is busy. Right. So sometimes you’re back and forth, send these messages and emails is just kind of short and succinct because you don’t have a lot of time when you get to sit down, you can actually understand who they are, where they’re coming from, from their business, the thing that they’re offering and then just who are they as a person, you know, and can I, you know, genuinely trust them with, you know, parts of my business and then can I, can they trust me? It’s so it’s a two way street and you got to have a mutually beneficial relationship as well. You just need that human element. Yeah.
Adam Weeks:
Well, as, as a marketer, I will have to say that you have done a good job looking at your LinkedIn profile leading up to CloudFest, getting someone might be able to get to know you a little bit better. What are some of the things that you did to get ready for coming to CloudFest? Where some of the posts at you.
Carrie Smaha:
Yes. So I’m really, really excited about the server throwing championship. I just think that is so awesome. And then like, personally like I’ve, I love movies and sci fi movies and stuff like that. So. All right, let’s kind of put those two things together. Let’s be Sarah Connor from the Terminator and destroy this, you know, bare metal server as I throw it. And then so people kind of can see that I’m excited about that and you know, I’m here for business but I’m also here for a little fun. And then they can go, oh, the Sarah Connor thing, that can be a nice segue or a way to break ice when you’re meeting somebody for the first time.
Adam Weeks:
No, I love that. Yeah, it’s it is that, like, you can get to know someone on socials to a degree, get to know your, you know, personality, humor, that type of thing. But now I’m going to actually get to see you throw a server. Yes. And that’s just, you know, there’s no excuse for that. Yeah, it’s going to be in person. It’s going to be great. And we were talking last night, we want to do business with people that we know we like and we trust. And having you throw servers, I know you better. I like you better trust if you can throw a server. Yeah, I mean, that’s trust right there.
Carrie Smaha:
Right? I mean, I hyped it up pretty good. Hopefully I can get that thing pretty far. But if not, I had fun and that was also kind of part of it, you know.
Adam Weeks:
Yeah, we’ll all laugh and smile together.
Carrie Smaha:
Yes.
Adam Weeks:
It’s going to be a good.
Carrie Smaha:
And it’ll make for a great story whether or not, you know, it went far or not.
Adam Weeks:
Well, with AI, we could probably make it go really far. Yeah, I’m sure we can figure that out. Well, Kerry, it was so nice. I’m so glad we get to hang out here at CloudFest. As we’re wrapping up, is there anything that you would like people to know about the work you do, about the work you’re doing in motion? How could people find you?
Carrie Smaha:
Yeah, absolutely. So I’m the senior manager of marketing operations and I lead a lot of our demand gen and go to market stuff in Motion Hosting is launching an agency partner program in April. And then, yeah, just, you know, if you want to maybe have a hosting infrastructure provider that is still kind of founder led, privately owned trust your business within Motion. We’ve been here for 25 years.
Adam Weeks:
Ooh, that Privately owned. Yeah. That’s a big deal these days. Well, thank you so much, Carrie, for your time. I appreciate this. Yeah, I’m sure on socials they’re going to be having some video of the server throwing, so maybe we’ll get some evidence of that here pretty soon.
Carrie Smaha:
Thank you so much, Adam, for having me. You are so welcome.
Adam Weeks:
All right, this is Adam Weeks for Open Channels FM.
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