Joint marketing agreement template

Designed to facilitate collaboration between businesses, this template ensures that your co-marketing efforts are clearly defined and legally sound.

Joint Marketing Agreements (JMAs) are pivotal for businesses looking to leverage shared resources and audiences to maximize their marketing impact. Whether you're co-hosting a webinar, launching a co-branded product, or embarking on a joint sales initiative, a JMA provides a framework to ensure mutual benefit and protect each party's interests. 

But what exactly is a joint marketing agreement, who needs them, and how do you create one? Let's dive in.

What is a joint marketing agreement?

A joint marketing agreement is a contract between two or more businesses that agree to run marketing activities together.

Also known as a co-marketing agreement or JMA, it governs how the partnership works in practice: who does what, who pays for what, who owns the output, and how either party can exit if things don't go to plan.

The commercial logic behind joint marketing is straightforward. By pooling audiences, budgets, and brand credibility, both parties can reach customers they wouldn't have reached alone.

A SaaS company co-hosting a webinar with a complementary tool provider, two consumer brands running a joint campaign, or a manufacturer partnering with a distributor on a regional promotion are all examples of arrangements that benefit from a clear, written JMA.

What makes a joint marketing agreement different from a standard marketing agreement is that both parties are active contributors, not just a client and a vendor. That bilateral dynamic is what makes the contract harder to draft well. The rights, costs, and obligations run in both directions, and the agreement needs to reflect that accurately.

When do you need a joint marketing agreement?

Not every co-marketing collaboration needs a formal contract, but the threshold for putting one in place is lower than most teams assume. A JMA is worth drafting whenever:

• ‍The activity involves shared spend. If both parties are contributing budget to a campaign, the agreement needs to be clear about how costs are split, who controls the spend, and what happens to unused budget if the campaign ends early.‍
• Co-branded materials will be produced. Once both brands appear on creative assets, website content, event materials, or advertising, the question of who owns those assets and how they can be used after the partnership ends becomes a real issue. The agreement is the right place to settle this before it becomes a dispute.‍
• Lead or data sharing is involved. Joint campaigns frequently generate leads or customer data that both parties want access to. How that data is collected, stored, shared, and used needs to comply with applicable privacy law, and the agreement should document what was agreed between the parties.‍
• The relationship is expected to run over time. A one-off co-hosted event can sometimes operate on a lighter set of terms. But if the plan is to run multiple campaigns together, invest in shared content, or build a co-branded program, a more comprehensive JMA protects both parties across the full contract duration.

What should a joint marketing agreement include?

The content of a JMA will vary depending on the type of activity and the relationship between the parties, but a robust template should cover:

Parties and purpose

‍Full legal names of the businesses involved and a description of the partnership's commercial objective. Clarity about what this collaboration is actually for matters more than it sounds, particularly if the parties later disagree about what was in scope.

Scope of activities

‍A precise description of the marketing activities covered by the agreement, including channels, formats, geographies, and timelines. If a campaign involves paid social, a joint white paper, and an event appearance, each of those should be named. Vague scope language is the single most common source of co-marketing disputes.

Roles and responsibilities

‍Who is responsible for each deliverable? Who controls the creative approval process? Who is the point of contact for each workstream? These should be documented clearly, not left to verbal agreement.

Budget and cost sharing

‍How joint costs are split, the process for approving expenditure, and what each party is individually responsible for paying. If one party fronts costs and recoups from the other, specify how and when reimbursement works.

Intellectual property

‍Who owns the creative assets produced during the campaign? Who owns pre-existing brand assets and how can they be used? What happens to co-branded materials when the agreement ends? IP clauses are frequently underdrafted in co-marketing agreements and frequently contested afterwards.

Juro's guide to contract clauses covers how to approach IP ownership provisions in practical terms.

Lead and data handling

‍If the campaign generates leads or involves any exchange of customer data, document what data is shared, on what legal basis, and how each party can use it. This is especially important for campaigns targeting audiences in multiple jurisdictions.

Confidentiality

‍Both parties will likely share commercially sensitive information, including audience data, campaign performance, pricing, and strategic plans.

A confidentiality clause defines what stays private and for how long, which becomes particularly important if the partnership ends on difficult terms. For standalone confidentiality terms, an NDA can be run alongside the JMA.

Performance metrics and reporting

How will the success of the campaign be measured? Who is responsible for tracking and reporting results? If one party's underperformance affects the other's investment, this section provides the basis for having that conversation.

Term and termination

‍The start and end date of the agreement, and the conditions under which either party can exit early. This should cover both termination for cause and termination for convenience, including notice periods and what happens to in-progress activity. See Juro's guide to contract termination for more on structuring these provisions.

Governing law and dispute resolution

‍Particularly relevant where the parties operate in different states or countries. Specifying which law governs the agreement and how disputes will be resolved avoids procedural arguments if something goes wrong.

Common drafting mistakes to avoid

1. Treating the JMA as a formality

‍Co-marketing often starts as a relationship between marketing teams who trust each other. The contract gets drafted quickly or adapted from a generic template without much scrutiny.

The problem is that the relationship can change: teams move on, campaign performance disappoints, or one party's business pivots. A JMA drafted carelessly at the start becomes a liability when the relationship deteriorates.

2. Undefined IP ownership

‍When both parties contribute creative input to campaign assets, the question of who owns the resulting work is genuinely ambiguous unless the agreement addresses it explicitly.

Without clarity, both parties may believe they have rights the other doesn't recognize. Specify who owns newly created assets, who retains licenses to use them, and for how long.

3. No mechanism for approvals

‍Co-branded campaigns require both parties to approve creative, messaging, and media placements. Without a documented approval process, one party can find themselves publicly associated with content or claims they never authorized.

The agreement should specify who has approval authority on each side, the turnaround time for feedback, and what constitutes approval by default if deadlines are missed.

4. Missing exit provisions for campaign activity mid-flight

‍What happens if one party wants to exit while a campaign is still running? Can they pull their brand from materials already in distribution? Who bears the sunk cost? These scenarios are easy to overlook when drafting and difficult to resolve without prior agreement.

5. Inadequate data and privacy terms

‍Where joint campaigns involve any collection, use, or sharing of personal data, the agreement needs to reflect each party's obligations under applicable privacy law. Generic confidentiality language is not sufficient. The specific data flows, legal bases, and responsibilities should be set out clearly.

Which type of marketing contract do you actually need?

Joint marketing agreements are easy to confuse with adjacent contract types. The right starting point depends on what the relationship actually looks like.

• If one party is paying the other to run campaigns, use a marketing agreement. That's a client-vendor relationship with obligations running in one direction. A JMA is for partnerships where both parties contribute, benefit, and carry obligations.
• If the partnership goes beyond marketing into product development, research, or building something together, use a collaboration agreement. A JMA is a collaboration agreement scoped specifically to marketing activity. If the scope is wider than campaigns, the broader contract gives better coverage.
• If the activity is primarily paid media placements, an advertising agreement may be sufficient. Advertising agreements focus tightly on paid placements: creative approval, placement, and asset ownership. A JMA is the better fit when the partnership spans multiple channels alongside paid media.
• If one party is funding the other's activity in exchange for brand exposure, use a sponsorship agreement. Sponsorship is asymmetric: one party sponsors, the other delivers visibility. A JMA is for equal partnerships where both businesses are actively running the campaign together.

What to do before you draft a joint marketing agreement

Co-marketing partnerships frequently run into trouble not because the contract was poorly drafted, but because the parties hadn't aligned on the fundamentals before drafting began. A few steps taken before legal gets involved make for a significantly smoother agreement.

1. Agree on the commercial objective in writing

‍Before any contract is opened, both parties should be able to describe the campaign's purpose, target audience, and success metrics in the same terms.

If the teams have different ideas about what the partnership is for, those differences will surface as drafting disputes about scope, performance metrics, and cost allocation. Surface them in a brief commercial alignment document first.

2. Map the data flows

‍If the campaign will involve any collection, sharing, or use of personal data, both parties need to understand what data is moving, in which direction, and on what legal basis before drafting starts.

Retrofitting data and privacy terms onto a contract that was drafted without them is harder than building them in from the start, particularly where the parties operate across different jurisdictions.

3. Sign a mutual NDA

‍Before either party shares audience data, campaign performance benchmarks, pricing, or strategic plans during the scoping process, a mutual NDA provides a layer of protection. It also signals that both parties are serious about the partnership and sets the right tone for the commercial conversation that follows.

4. Confirm budget authority internally

‍Both parties should know, before drafting begins, what they're actually authorized to spend and commit to. Agreements that reach legal review only to stall because someone doesn't have budget sign-off waste time on both sides and erode goodwill.

5. Identify who owns the relationship

‍Co-marketing partnerships frequently span multiple teams — marketing, partnerships, legal, and sometimes sales. Designating a single owner on each side, with authority to make decisions and approve the contract, prevents the agreement from being pulled in different directions during negotiation.

Red flags when reviewing a counterparty's draft

When a co-marketing partner sends their standard template rather than negotiating from yours, the terms tend to favor them. These are the provisions worth examining closely.

1. Broad IP assignment language. A clause that assigns ownership of all campaign materials to the other party, including assets your team created, is a red flag. Look for language that captures pre-existing IP in the definition of what's being assigned, or that gives the counterparty perpetual rights to use your brand assets without a mechanism for withdrawal.
2. Unilateral approval rights. If the draft gives the counterparty final approval over all campaign materials without a reciprocal right for your side, you could find your brand associated with content you didn't sign off on. Approval rights should run in both directions, with defined timelines and a clear escalation process if approval is withheld unreasonably.
3. Uncapped spending authority. Watch for clauses that authorize the counterparty to incur costs on your behalf without a spending cap or prior approval requirement. Joint campaign budgets can escalate quickly, and an open-ended cost-sharing obligation is a significant commercial risk.
4. One-sided data rights. If the draft gives the counterparty broad rights to use jointly generated leads or audience data for their own purposes without equivalent rights for your business, that's worth pushing back on. Also check whether the data rights provisions are consistent with applicable privacy law, not just commercially balanced.
5. Termination provisions that favor the other side. Look for notice periods that are far shorter on their side than yours, termination triggers that are subjective or vague, and post-termination provisions that let them continue using your brand or data after the agreement ends. A well-balanced JMA should give both parties comparable exit mechanics.

Managing joint marketing agreements at scale

For businesses running multiple co-marketing partnerships simultaneously, visibility quickly becomes the core operational challenge. Each JMA carries its own campaign timeline, its own IP and data terms, and its own set of brand usage permissions.

If those agreements live in email inboxes or shared drives, tracking which partnerships are active, what each party has permission to do, and when campaigns are due to conclude becomes incredibly difficult.

Contract collaboration across legal and marketing teams is also a recurring friction point. Marketing teams want to move fast; legal needs to review IP, data, and liability terms that require proper attention.

Without a shared workspace, contracts bounce between email threads, revision history gets lost, and campaigns can start before the agreement is properly in place.

Juro lets legal teams build joint marketing agreement templates with structured fields for campaign scope, budget, IP ownership, data terms, and expiry dates.

Those contract smart fields are then searchable post-signature, so the business can see at a glance which partnerships are live, which are approaching their end date, and whether brand permissions remain in effect.

Marketing teams can self-serve on new agreements from pre-approved templates, reducing the turnaround time from partnership conversation to signed contract without bypassing legal review.

If your team is managing a growing volume of co-marketing contracts, book a demo to see how Juro handles it, or join the community to hear how other legal and marketing teams keep their partnership agreements under control.