Close more custom deals on Marketplace with private offers and App Advisor guidance
This is part of a series where we look at improvements to negotiated deals in Microsoft Marketplace and how App Advisor helps you choose the right negotiated deal types for your business. Marketplace customers don’t just buy according to the pricing, terms, billing, and procurement structure of a standard public offer. Sometimes, they need a more customized option. A to-customer private offer gives you more flexibility to meet those requirements, negotiate directly with a specific customer, and keep the transaction in Microsoft Marketplace. Let's look at questions that businesses like you may be asking. Why would I use a to-customer private offer? Private offers give flexibility to particular customers. A private offer can be a good fit when a specific customer: Requires customer-specific terms, Wants to negotiate custom pricing, Needs a billing structure aligned with its budgeting or procurement process. They also give you, the seller, some flexibility because you can: Negotiate directly with my customer without involving a channel partner, Include supported professional services as part of the Marketplace transaction, Keep the negotiated transaction completely in Marketplace (while gaining benefits). For eligible offers, the purchase can also count toward the customer’s Azure cloud consumption commitment, while the sale can contribute toward unlocking benefits after publishing, Certified Software Designations, and Azure IP co-sell. To see more about the benefits of to-customer private offers, go to this deep dive in App Advisor Who can I sell to with a private offer? To-customer private offers support a broad range of Marketplace opportunities. Private offers are: Available globally, Available to all Microsoft partners, Available to MOSA, Enterprise Agreement (EA), and Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA) customers. How can I find more customers for private offers? Your existing sales pipeline is one place to start. But Marketplace now also helps customers signal when they’re interested in a negotiated deal. With the new Request private offer enabled on an eligible Marketplace listing, customers can initiate a conversation about customized pricing and terms directly from your product page. On your "Offer setup" page, toggle the "Would you like to enable private offer requests from customers?" ON to have a button appear on your listing that interested viewers can initiate a conversation with you. You still own the sales conversation and create the private offer. The difference is that interested customers now have another way to raise their hand. For software companies asking how to generate more app leads, this creates a clearer path: Marketplace discovery → customer interest → negotiated deal → purchase. How do I create a to-customer private offer? Once you have an interested customer, the basic process starts in Partner Center: Gather the customer’s billing information and identify who can accept and purchase the offer. Create a new private offer using your published Marketplace offer as a base. Define the customer, terms, contacts, negotiated pricing, and other deal requirements. Review and submit the private offer. Share the private-offer link so your customer can accept and purchase. Want all the details to consider (from customer permissions and prerequisites to offer setup and acceptance)? That’s where App Advisor can help. Use App Advisor to move your Marketplace deal forward App Advisor brings the detailed, curated guidance together in one place. You can use it to understand: When to use a negotiated deal, Which type of negotiated deal to choose, What you need to know about your customer to start, How to move through the process with customer checklists, walkthroughs, and supporting resources. Ready to customize and close your next deal? Use App Advisor to learn how to create a to-customer private offer and turn customer interest into a Marketplace sale. Next, we’ll look at resale enabled offers (REO) and how they can help you expand your Marketplace sales motion through channel partners.
Open Data Infrastructure: How Fivetran in Microsoft Marketplace powers agentic AI on Azure
In this guest blog post, Natalie Waller, Lead Product Marketing Manager at Fivetran, examines why agentic AI is stalling in most enterprises — not because of the AI itself, but because today’s data infrastructure wasn’t built for autonomous agents.
