rhipe

rhipe is Microsoft's specialist cloud-licensing distributor in Asia Pacific. The entire commercial model depends on a single thing: recruiting IT services businesses, managed service providers and resellers to sign up as Cloud Solution Provider partners, then build their recurring Microsoft cloud revenue through rhipe.

The target audience is small, specialised and decision-makers do not move quickly. Each signed partner is a high-ticket acquisition that goes on to generate recurring transaction revenue, which sets a very different CPA bar to a one-off lead or a low-value sale.

The brief was to build a recruitment engine that could deliver a defensible cost per partner across multiple Microsoft product lines (CSP, Azure, Office 365 Modern Workplace, Wiise) and across nine markets (Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, Sri Lanka), and keep it running continuously through four years of Microsoft's CSP programme expansion.

Account architecture was kept deliberately clean. Eight dedicated Google Ads sub-accounts segmented by product, vendor activation and geography: the master rhipe account (AU, NZ, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines always-on), rhipe Solutions (B2B content gating against case studies and webinars), rhipe IBM SoftLayer, rhipe Thailand (THB market), Red Hat rhipe (vendor co-funded), rhipe USD Account (USD-billed SEA expansion), rhipe South East Asia, rhipe Acronis. Brand campaigns separated from product. Search separated from display. Remarketing separated from prospecting. This is the structure that makes a 4-year programme readable, not the structure that makes a quarterly campaign look pretty.

Around that core sat the rest of the funnel. Display and Video 360 ran always-on display and view-through, layered with AdRoll retargeting. Facebook Lead Gen carried the SEA market-entry workload, generating 1,063 partner leads across 8 markets in a single calendar year. LinkedIn carried the Azure-specific targeting at IT decision-makers. Event registration campaigns ran on Facebook timed against the rhipe SEA Cloud Summit and Australian roadshows.

Budget rhythm aligned with Microsoft co-op funding cycles. CSP COOP, Modern Workplace and Azure Go Big flights ran on Microsoft funding through rhipe, with always-on brand and remarketing activity funded directly. The Modern Workplace half-year flight split AU and SEA; the Azure Go Big flight ran across AU, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, all routed through the same account architecture and reporting stack.

Across the 4-year Google Ads programme, 181 click-attributed Microsoft channel partner recruitment conversions, on A$231,263 of managed media. A$1,278 cost per partner.

For context on what that buys: each of those 181 partners is now a signed Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider transacting recurring cloud licensing revenue through rhipe. The right comparison is not the CTR or click-through conversion rate (both of which read low in isolation because the audience is small and the conversion definition is heavy), it is the cost to bring on a high-ticket distribution channel partner. A$1,278 holds up against any peer benchmark for Microsoft channel recruitment.

The rhipe Thailand sub-account ran at A$646 per partner, roughly half the programme-wide rate, on A$2,585 of media. Continuous engagement across the 4-year programme spanned the full ramp of Microsoft's CSP programme expansion across Asia Pacific.