Let’s get started!
20+ Key Sales Metrics and KPIs to Track
Chances are, you’ve come across metrics like customer acquisition cost (CAC), churn rate, or sales cycle length before.
But where do these metrics belong?
Let’s distribute them among three crucial aspects: sales performance, sales productivity, and sales activity.
1. Performance Metrics
This category focuses on the outcomes of sales efforts, such as total closed revenue, the value of a customer relationship, and sales growth trends.
Sales performance metrics often form the basis of many sales forecasting projections.
A. Total Revenue
What is total revenue?
Total revenue is the total income generated from your products and services.
Why is total revenue important?
Total revenue lets you know how much you make from products or services. It offers a high-level overview of overall financial health. Your total revenue should exceed your total burn to remain profitable.
How to measure total revenue
The formula is:
Total Revenue=No. of products & services soldPrice per product/service sold
For example, if you sold 400 subscriptions for $10 each in a month, your calculation is:
Total Revenue=400$10=$4,000/month
How often should you track total revenue?
Annually, quarterly and monthly.
What are acceptable ranges?
There’s no universally acceptable range. You should set your own sales goal and acceptable ranges, factoring in financial targets, growth objectives, competitors, and market conditions.
The length of sales cycles and contracts can play a part in deciding the range. For example, if your product has a monthly fee, it’s worth tracking sales revenue weekly to account for more frequent dips and peaks.
These factors also apply to a few other metrics, such as annual contract value (ACV) and net revenue retention (NRR), among others.
B. Percentage of Revenue from New vs. Existing Customers
What is it?
This metric calculates the proportion of your revenue from new customers versus existing ones. It helps you understand your company’s balance between customer retention and acquisition.
Why is it important?
It allows you to assess the effectiveness of customer retention strategies and new customer acquisition efforts. A healthy balance is vital for sustained business growth.
How to measure it
You can measure this metric by calculating the % of revenue from new customers:
% of Revenue from New Customers=Revenue from new customers Total revenue100
Using the example above, let’s say the total revenue for the period is $4,000, and new customers contributed $1000 in revenue.
Your calculation is:
% of Revenue from New Customers=$1000 $4,000100=25%
Hence, your revenue from new customers is 25% and 75% from existing customers.
How often should you track it?
Quarterly or annually to evaluate trends in customer retention and acquisition.
Some businesses also track it monthly, if they operate on a subscription model.
What are acceptable ranges?
The acceptable range may vary by industry, but maintaining a balance between new and existing customer revenue is preferable.
C. Revenue Churn Rate
What is revenue churn rate?
It quantifies the loss of revenue from existing customers over a period, either due to contract cancellations, contractions or downgrades.
Why is revenue churn rate important?
It’s crucial for assessing customer satisfaction and highlighting improvement areas. High churn rates typically signify low satisfaction levels and negatively impact revenue and profitability.
How to measure revenue churn rate
The formula is:
Gross Revenue Churn Rate=Lost revenue from existing customers Total revenue at the beginning of the period100
For example, if you lose $200 in revenue from existing customers, and the total revenue at the beginning of the period was $4,000, your calculation is:
Gross Revenue Churn Rate=$200 $4,000100=5%
How often should you track revenue churn rate?
Monthly or quarterly so you can detect and address issues promptly.
Acceptable ranges
Low churn rates are ideal, showing that customers are staying and continuing to generate revenue.
While exact benchmarks vary, revenue churn tends to be higher for newer companies, ranging from 4% to 24% for companies three years old or less. In contrast, more established companies have considerably lower churn rates at 2-4%.
To get a complete picture of revenue churn, compare it with a metric that considers your gains, not just your losses (e.g., NRR).
D. Net Revenue Retention
What is NRR?
NRR quantifies your revenue from existing customers after accounting for churn.
Why is NRR important?
NRR provides vital context for your revenue churn. It reveals whether the gains you make from expansion revenue (cross-sells, upsells, add-ons, etc.) exceed the losses from churn or downgrades.
A positive NRR shows you’re on the right track. In contrast, a negative NRR means you’re not effectively offsetting losses from churn and may indicate deeper problems, requiring an internal investigation to determine where your gaps are.
How to measure NRR
For this calculation, you’ll need to know:
- MRR: Monthly Recurring Revenue or regular, ongoing revenue from each customer’s monthly subscription or recurring payment.
- Expansion MRR: Additional revenue from upsells, cross-sells, and add-ons from your existing customers.
- Contractions: Loss of revenue from existing customers who downgrade to lower-value plans.
- MRR Churn: Loss of revenue from customers who cancel or don’t renew their subscriptions.
The formula is:
NRR=MRR at the month’s start+Expansion MRR - MRR Churn - Contractions MRR at the month’s start100
Let’s say your business begins the month with an MRR of $10,000 from existing customers, and you gain $5,000 from upsells. If you then lose $400 from contractions and $600 from churn, your calculation is:
NRR=$10,000 + $5,000 - $400 - $600 $10,000100=140%
How often should you track NRR?
Monthly, quarterly, or annually.
Acceptable ranges
A positive NRR, ideally greater than 100%, is considered healthy. It suggests you’re increasing revenue within your existing customer base, even after accounting for churn.
According to RevOps Squared, the median NRR is 103% for B2B SaaS companies.
E. Annual Contract Value
What is ACV?
Annual contract value represents the average yearly value of a single customer’s contract.
Why is ACV important?
While ACV helps you identify high-value accounts — the accounts that generate the most revenue — its significance extends far beyond that.
Understanding ACV is crucial for accurate forecasting. When you know your average customer value, it becomes easier to project revenue for the next quarter or other periods.
It also offers valuable insights into your market positioning and pricing strategies. For example, if your ACV lags behind competitors in your market, you can adjust your pricing to better reflect the value you offer and potentially raise your ACV. Additionally, excessive discounts from sales reps may harm your ACV, signaling a need for sales training and strategy adjustments.
How to measure ACV
You can measure ACV in several different ways, for example:
- The total or average ACV of all your customers
- The total or average ACV for a certain period
For example, by comparing total or average ACV values with past results, you can see how it changes over time and analyze what your GTM team needs to do in order to increase your ACV.
Although you can measure ACV along different dimensions, we’ll focus on ACV per customer for simplicity.
The formula is:
ACV=Contract valueDuration of contract
For instance, if one customer signs a two-year contract for $60,000, your calculation is:
ACV=$60,0002=$30,000
You can scale this metric organizationally by dividing total ARR (annual recurring revenue) by the number of closed-won opportunities. For this calculation, you’ll need to combine all of your existing deals or measure deals over a certain period to track historical changes.
How often should you track ACV?
Quarterly or annually.
Acceptable ranges
Acceptable ranges for ACV vary significantly.
According to Salesloft, the ACV is $20,020 for the software and tech industry.
Additionally, companies with higher ACV tend to have better NRR.
According to SaaS Capital, companies with an ACV of less than $12k tend to have a median NRR of around 100%, whereas companies with $250k+ see their NRR at about 110%.
When starting out, a company may initially have a lower ACV to establish its presence and build a customer base. However, it’s crucial not to undervalue your product too much, as this can lead to high churn when you eventually raise prices.
Ideally, your ACV should reflect your product’s value and align with your profitability goals, even if it takes some time to reach that point.
F. Year-Over-Year Growth
What is YoY growth?
Year-over-year growth shows the percentage change in a chosen metric (typically sales revenue) to benchmark your progress against the previous year. It allows you to measure the growth metrics you want to improve over time, whether related to leads, conversions, revenue, etc.
Why is YoY growth important?
YoY growth is one of the most versatile sales performance metrics, as you can apply it to other metrics to compare performance against previous periods.
Generally, positive YoY growth for metrics like ACV or total revenue demonstrates that your business is expanding. Alternatively, a downward trend might be good for metrics like revenue churn or customer acquisition cost.
How to measure YoY growth
The formula is:
YoY Growth=Current year's metric - previous year's metricPrevious year's metric100
For simplicity, let’s use total revenue as an example.
If your total revenue was $400,000 last year and it's $500,000 this year, your calculation is:
YoY Growth=$500,000 - $400,000 $400,000100=25%
How often should you track YoY growth?
You can track YoY growth quarterly to provide regular insights into how you’re pacing for the year.
Acceptable ranges
Ranges vary based on what metric’s growth you’re tracking.
The YoY revenue growth ranges between 15-45%, although this varies by industry. For example, 52-59% is the median YoY growth rate for SaaS companies at around $1-5M (Capchase).
However, you also need to consider current market conditions. For instance, a decade ago, tech companies might have aimed for higher growth rates because capital investments were easier to secure.
Today, the focus is on sustainable profitability. While it’s vital to grow every year, companies aren’t pressured to achieve inflated growth levels seen in the past.
However, if your aim is to become a ‘unicorn’ (a billion-dollar valuation), venture capitalist Neeraj Agrawal suggests a T2D3 growth strategy — tripling revenue twice, then doubling it three times as you expand market share.
G. Customer Lifetime Value
What is CLV?
Customer lifetime value estimates the total value a customer might bring during their business relationship.
You determine the future value of a single customer by analyzing the historical data of your entire customer base, looking at factors like the average deal size, purchase frequency, and overall lifespan.
Why is CLV important?
Customer lifetime value goes a step beyond simply identifying which accounts generate the most revenue. It reveals the potential growth and value of future relationships over time.
As such, you can identify customers with the most potential for repeat business and the opportunities that matter most. This, in turn, helps you spot where to focus resources for maximum impact and tailor retention strategies to focus on the most valuable relationships for your business.
You can also assess the cumulative value of all customer relationships and see whether your strategies yield sustainable growth over time. This broader perspective enables you to make informed decisions at both the micro and macro levels.
How to measure CLV
There are several ways to calculate CLV, but your chosen method depends on your business model and the available data.
For simplicity, let’s focus on one of the most classic methods.
The formula is:
CLV = Average Purchase ValueAverage Purchase FrequencyAverage Customer Lifespan
Here’s what each of these elements means:
- Average Purchase Value: The average amount a customer spends on each purchase.
- Average Purchase Frequency: The average number of transactions a customer makes over a month or year.
- Average Customer Lifespan: The average duration a customer remains active and makes purchases with a business or brand.
Here’s an example to illustrate this:
Let’s say your company’s average purchase value is $50 per year, your customer’s average purchase frequency is four times per year, and the average customer lifespan is around three years.
Your calculation is:
CLV =$5043=$600
How often should you track CLV?
Annually.
Acceptable ranges
The higher the CLV, the better. A healthy CLV indicates that customers generate significant value for your business over time.
For additional context, you can compare customer lifetime value against metrics like CAC.
H. Customer Acquisition Cost
What is CAC?
CAC shows how much money you spend on acquiring new customers through marketing and sales activity. These costs can stem from various sources, such as advertising, lead generation, sales calls, product demos, and customer acquisition campaigns.
Why is CAC important?
CAC helps you evaluate the efficiency of your sales and marketing programs, identify the best acquisition channels, improve resource allocation, and acquire new customers more cost-effectively.
How to measure CAC
The formula is:
CAC =Total sales and marketing expensesNumber of new customers acquired
For example, if you gain 100 new customers after spending $10,000 on marketing and sales efforts, your calculation is:
CAC =$10,000100=$100
How often should you track CAC?
Monthly, quarterly, or yearly. The appropriate frequency for measuring CAC depends largely on the length of your sales cycle.
Once you have enough data, you can measure your current CAC against past CAC to assess growth or decline. The goal is to continually reduce your acquisition costs over time.
This process will reveal whether your current marketing and sales tactics are resulting in sustainable growth or if you need to consider other acquisition channels.
Acceptable ranges
Lower CAC means you’re acquiring customers more efficiently. But, like many sales performance metrics, there isn’t a standardized benchmark. You can use the CAC:CLV ratio as a good reference point.
I. CLV:CAC Ratio
What is CLV:CAC ratio?
The CLV:CAC ratio compares the cost of acquiring a customer (CAC) to their lifetime value (CLV).
Why is CLV:CAC ratio important?
As a comparative metric, this ratio provides a more holistic view of your business’s financial performance. It reveals whether the average revenue a customer brings in exceeds the cost of acquiring them.
How to measure CLV:CAC ratio
You’ve probably seen this CLC:CAC ratio formula before:
CLV:CAC Ratio=CLVCAC
Using the examples above, if CLV is $600 and CAC is $100, your calculation is:
CLV:CAC Ratio=$600$100
If you divide both figures by this number, your CLV:CAC ratio is 6:1.
How often should you track CAC:CLV ratio?
Quarterly. Just take elements like purchasing frequency and seasonality into account.
Acceptable ranges
According to Toward Data Science, a ratio of 3:1 or higher is ideal. In other words, the average revenue a customer generates over their lifetime should be three times or more than what you spent to acquire them.
J. Market Penetration Rate
What is market penetration rate?
Market penetration rate calculates the percentage of customers your business has captured against your total addressable market (TAM).
Why is market penetration rate important?
It provides insights into your market share and footing against competitors. More importantly, you can give investors a quick snapshot of your market reach.
How to measure market penetration rate
For this calculation, you’ll need to know your target market size.
Your target market size represents the number of potential customers or target segments in your industry. It estimates the total customer base who could be interested in and benefit from your offering.
You can determine your target market size in various ways, typically by analyzing demographic data, conducting surveys, and studying industry reports relevant to your specific geographical area or segment.
Once you have that figure, your market penetration rate is calculated as follows:
Market Penetration Rate =Number of customersTarget market size100
Let’s say you have 100 customers, and your target market size is 500 potential customers. Your calculation is:
Market Penetration Rate =100500100=20%
How often should you track market penetration rate?
It’s a good idea to track market penetration after every marketing and sales campaign. This way, you can monitor any changes and determine what led to more or less reach.
Acceptable ranges
The average market penetration rate generally ranges between 10-40%. The higher the penetration rate, the more significant your market presence.
2. Sales Productivity & Pipeline Metrics
This category covers metrics related to pipeline health and sales team performance. Pipeline and sales productivity metrics tend to go hand-in-hand, as they paint a picture of what causes leads to progress, stall, or lose interest, and your team’s impact on deal progression.
A. Number of Leads Generated
What is number of leads generated?
The number of leads generated quantifies the total number of prospects your sales and marketing efforts have generated.
Leads are sales contacts who express interest in your product or service via certain actions, like downloading a whitepaper, requesting a demo, or signing up for a webinar. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean they’re ready to spend money (yet).
Why is number of leads generated important?
It’s crucial to assess the effectiveness of your lead generation strategies and the volume of potential business opportunities.
How to measure number of leads generated
You don’t need to manually calculate this one if you’re using a CRM.
Unfortunately, many CRMs are too complex for sales managers and their teams to use comfortably, and they resort to using spreadsheets to keep track of this data. Fortunately, with the right CRM add-on, you can streamline sales analytics.
How often should you track number of leads generated?
Daily, weekly, or monthly. It depends on the nature of your business and lead generation efforts.
Acceptable ranges
It varies significantly based on your industry, market, and business goals. The goal is typically to increase leads over time. Your sales pipeline coverage can be a good indicator of what your range should be.
B. Lead-to-Opportunity Conversion Rate
What is lead-to-opportunity conversion rate?
This sales productivity metric is the percentage of leads your team has successfully converted into sales opportunities.
Where leads are typically in the early stages of the sales process, opportunities are far more likely to close.
You can assess which leads can be considered opportunities via certain actions, such as demo or trial requests, price quotes, a sales call, etc.
Whatever your criteria, it’s about seeing which leads have demonstrated a higher level of interest and engagement, making them more likely to progress toward a sale.
Why is lead-to-opportunity conversion rate important?
This metric can evaluate the effectiveness of both your marketing team in generating good-quality leads and the sales team in moving them down the pipeline.
You can also see which channels or reps are generating more opportunities. Alternatively, it helps you spot and address any issues in your pipeline.
How to measure lead-to-opportunity conversion rate
The formula is:
Lead to Opportunity Conversion Rate=Number of opportunitiesNumber of leads generated100
For instance, if you generate 500 leads and convert 50 of them into opportunities, your calculation is:
Lead to Opportunity Conversion Rate=50500100=10%
When expressed as a ratio, your lead-to-opportunity ratio is 1:10.
For more in-depth insights, it’s a good idea to track this across different segments — e.g., channels, campaigns, locations, behaviors, etc.
How often should you track lead-to-opportunity conversion rate?
Daily, weekly, or monthly. It highly depends on the duration of your sales cycle.
Acceptable ranges
Benchmarks for lead-to-opportunity conversion rates can be difficult to pin down as they vary across industries and business models. That said, your win rate can give you a good idea of what your range should be.
C. Win Rate
What is win rate?
Win rate represents the percentage of closed-won deals. It compares the number of each successful sale against the total number of opportunities — not every single lead or qualified lead that enters your sales funnel. To clarify, a qualified lead becomes an opportunity when a sales rep or sales manager believes they have a chance of closing.
Why is win rate important?
Your win rate shows how well your team converts opportunities into paying customers.
How to measure win rate
The formula is:
Win Rate=Number of salesNumber of opportunities100
For example, if your team closes 30 out of 100 opportunities, your calculation is:
Win Rate=30100100=30%
How often should you track win rate?
Monthly.
Acceptable ranges
As with most sales productivity metrics, ranges vary drastically depending on your industry and other factors.
A 2021 survey shows the average win rate is 47% across various industries and company sizes (RAIN Group Center for Sales Research).
D. Quota Attainment
What is quota attainment?
Quota attainment measures a rep’s total sales as a percentage of their given quota for that period.
Why is quota attainment important?
Quota attainment shows sales managers how well teams or individual reps hit their targets.
How to measure quota attainment
The formula is:
Quota Attainment=Total no. of sales achievedSales quota100
For instance, if a salesperson achieved $80,000 in sales against a $100,000 quota, your calculation is:
Quota Attainment=$80,000$100,000100=80%
How often should you track quota attainment?
It depends on your sales cycle and quota period.
For example, teams with high-velocity sales that are closing around 10-20 deals per month typically have a monthly quota. In this case, it’s advisable to track quota attainment weekly at a minimum.
In contrast, reps with longer, enterprise-level sales cycles resulting in only a few deals per year usually have an annual quota period. However, you should always maintain visibility to stay on track to meet your annual quota. So, even in these cases, monitoring the path toward quota attainment bi-weekly or at least monthly is essential.
Acceptable ranges
For individual salespeople, 80% is an acceptable quota attainment rate (Quota Path). Achieving 100% is great, and anyone surpassing this threshold is a top performer.
For your sales team as a whole, a quota attainment rate between 50% and 75% is a more realistic target.
It’s natural for a sales leader to want every sales representative to consistently hit quota, but this could also indicate that the quotas you’ve set are too low.
E. Closed Won vs. Lost
What is closed won vs. lost?
This sales productivity metric is the number and value of deals successfully won compared to lost ones. Whereas win rate focuses on the percentage of successful deals out of all opportunities, closed won vs. lost typically only focuses on those that have reached the negotiation stage.
Why is closed won vs. lost important?
Tracking the win rate is only a piece of the puzzle. You also need to look at the number of closed won deals vs deals lost over a set period.
It provides insight into how efficiently reps land each sale and shows whether you have a good product/market fit. If you’re losing a lot of deals, you need to train your team better, reconsider your target market, improve your messaging, or refine your product.
How to measure closed won vs. lost
The formula is:
Closed won vs. Lost=Number of closed won dealsNumber of lost deals
For example, if your team closes four deals and loses eight, your calculation is:
Closed won vs. Lost=48
The ratio is 1:2.
How often should you track closed won vs. lost?
Monthly.
Acceptable ranges
There’s no standardized win/loss benchmark. Just ensure you track it periodically so you can create your own benchmarks.
F. Sales per Rep
What is sales per rep?
This sales productivity metric is the total revenue each sales representative generates within a given period.
Why is sales per rep important?
It allows your organization to evaluate the performance of each sales rep individually, highlighting top performers.
For underperforming reps, it aids resource allocation by identifying who might need additional assistance or not be a great fit for your team. It also plays a crucial role in incentive structures, as individual sales performance is the basis for many compensation programs.
How to measure sales per rep
CRMs usually have in-built features and reporting capabilities to automatically track this metric and similar sales productivity metrics like sales per team, region, and product. Once again, you’ll probably need a CRM add-on to ensure your sales teams won’t have to depend on spreadsheets.
How often should you track sales per rep?
Sales managers should track this monthly or quarterly.
For any sales representative with an annual quota, you might not get meaningful insights for making business decisions if you’re only tracking their performance over a month or even three months.
In such cases, it’s essential to align the tracking frequency with each rep’s specific quota and sales cycle.
Acceptable ranges
A rough benchmark for the revenue a sales rep should generate is around 3 to 5 times their total compensation.
While this is a useful reference point, you may need to adjust your expectations based on your unique circumstances and objectives. The quota you set depends entirely on the complexity of your sales process, cycle length, and your sector.
G. Sales per Team
What is sales per team?
Sales per team is the total revenue each team generates within a given period. Depending on your organization’s needs, you can assess the performance of individual sales teams or multiple teams.
Why is sales per team important?
This sales productivity metric provides insights into the collective performance of a sales unit to help you optimize resource and target allocations. Also, by revealing your best-performing teams, you can use their strategies for training purposes.
In some cases, consistently excellent performance may be down to individual reps, though you’ll need to compare this with sales per rep and quota attainment to identify who’s elevating the team’s overall performance. These are the reps you need to retain. The same applies to any sales manager whose teams consistently perform well – irrespective of who’s on their team.
How often should you track sales per team?
Weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annually.
Acceptable ranges
Again, the acceptable range varies widely. It depends on your sector, the size and composition of the team, and your organization’s specific goals. There’s no one-size-fits-all range. It’s vital to establish performance benchmarks based on your company’s objectives and the context of your sales operations.
H. Sales per Region
What is sales per region?
Sales per region is the total sales revenue generated within a specific geographic region.
Why is sales per region important?
It helps identify the most profitable regions and can inform any regional sales strategy.
How often should you track sales per region?
Monthly or quarterly.
Acceptable ranges
There isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer to what constitutes an acceptable range for sales per region. Assess the market’s competitiveness and analyze past regional performance to establish benchmarks and identify trends.
I. Sales per Product or Feature
What is sales per product or feature?
Sales per product or feature is the total sales income generated by each product or product feature.
Why is sales per product or feature important?
This metric is vital for identifying your most (or least) profitable offerings and any potential weaknesses in your product lineup. It informs product development, pricing decisions, marketing strategies, and optimizing your product to drive sales growth.
How often should you track sales per product or feature?
Monthly or quarterly. You may want to assess it more regularly, especially after feature rollouts, for timely insights into the performance of various offerings.
Acceptable ranges
The acceptable range varies based on your product portfolio and business goals.
J. Sales Cycle Length
What is sales cycle length?
It represents the average time it takes for a lead to move from initial contact to a closed won.
Why is sales cycle length important?
This metric serves as a historical baseline metric that facilitates more accurate revenue forecasting. With this data, you can better anticipate when revenue from potential sales will be realized and set more realistic targets.
Additionally, it’s a good metric to identify bottlenecks in your cycle. If you see cycles are longer when compared to historical figures, you have an issue that needs addressing.
How to measure sales cycle length
The formula is:
Sales Cycle Length=Total days in sales cycleNumber of deals closed
For example, if the total length for all closed deals is 180 days, and you closed ten deals, your calculation is:
Sales Cycle Length=18010=18 days
How often should you track sales cycle length?
Monthly. This frequency allows for more timely adjustments and insights into changes in the sales process.
Acceptable ranges
The aim is to shorten your sales cycle as much as possible. The ideal length varies by industry and complexity, but the average duration is 22.9 days for the software and tech industry (Salesloft). However, longer sales cycles are common with more complex products and sales cycles that involve multiple decision-makers in the buying process. Some companies will even have 9 to 12-month sales cycles.
K. Sales Pipeline Coverage
What is sales pipeline coverage?
This sales productivity metric compares the total value of all opportunities in your pipeline to your quota for the period. It’s typically expressed as a ratio or percentage.
Why is sales pipeline coverage important?
The main purpose is to determine if you have enough opportunities to meet your quota.
How to measure sales pipeline coverage
The formula is:
Sales Pipeline Coverage=Total pipeline valueSales target or quota
For example, if your total pipeline value is $2,000,000 and your sales target is $1,000,000, your calculation is:
Sales Pipeline Coverage=$2,000,000$1,000,000=2:1
How often should you track sales pipeline coverage?
Weekly or monthly.
Acceptable ranges
A widely-known guideline is to ensure your pipeline value is three times your revenue targets. That is, aim for a ratio of 3:1.
It’s important to remember that the ideal coverage ratio can vary for each business. The goal should always be to attain adequate coverage to consistently meet your quotas.
Tip: Read our detailed pipeline coverage guide.
3. Sales Activity Metrics
Activity metrics reflect the proactive efforts and actions of the sales team, which can influence sales outcomes. Examples of sales activity efforts include the following:
- Number of Calls Made: The total number of outbound and inbound calls made by your team.
- Number of Emails Sent: The total amount of emails, including prospecting, follow-ups, and responses, sent by your team.
- Meetings Held: The total number of sales meetings, including in-person and virtual meetings, conducted by your team.
- Proposals Sent: The total number of sales proposals or quotes submitted by your team.
Tracking these metrics helps you evaluate sales activity levels and outreach efforts, which are critical for progressing opportunities through the pipeline.
You can use sales and CRM software to record and report activity metrics like these. That said, if you want to find the average number of actions needed to reach a certain outcome, you can use this formula:
Average actions required=Total actions neededTotal no. of desired outcomes
For example, if it takes your team an average of 500 calls to book 50 meetings, your activity metric calculation is:
Average actions required=500 calls made50 meetings scheduled=10
Now you have a solid grasp on tracking sales metrics for effective sales performance analysis.
But how do you choose the right metrics for your business?
Let’s find out.
5 Tips On Choosing and Managing Sales Metrics
Here are essential tips to help you select the best metrics for your sales strategy:
1. Align Metrics and KPIs with Business Goals
Start by setting a clear sales goal, such as boosting revenue or customer acquisition.
Next, ensure your metrics are tied to SMART KPIs (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound).
For example, avoid a vague sales KPI like ‘boost lead-to-opportunity conversion rate.’ Instead, opt for precision, like ‘Increase the lead-to-opportunity conversion rate by 20% in the next quarter.’
Lastly, collaborate with a cross-functional team, including RevOps, SalesOps, finance, and leaders in sales, marketing, customer success, and CX, to define meaningful and attainable KPIs that reflect your strategic goals.
2. Tailor Metrics to Your Business Model & Sales Process
Customize your metrics to match your unique sales process.
For example, consider metrics related to sales productivity and pipeline stages if you have a long sales cycle.
Different types of products may require different financial forecasting metrics, like ARR and MRR for SaaS businesses. Subscription-based sales revenue is generally easier to predict, whereas other pricing models, like usage-based billing, may demand more complex forecasting methods, such as:
- User behavior modeling.
- Tracking resource consumption.
- Accounting for variable pricing structures based on usage volume.
3. Balance Leading and Lagging Indicators
Here’s a quick breakdown of leading and lagging indicators:
- Lagging indicators: Results-based metrics that reflect outcomes of past actions or events. They are typically used to assess the impact of actions that have already taken place.
- Leading indicators: Predictive metrics that can help forecast results. They provide early signals and insights into future performance, allowing businesses to anticipate trends and make informed decisions to achieve desired outcomes.
Many businesses consider leading indicators (e.g., lead-to-opportunity conversion rate) more proactive because they provide forward-looking insights.
However, they’re not always as accurate as lagging indicators (e.g., total revenue), which remain valuable for confirming trends and providing concrete, reliable data.
Overall, it’s best to use a mix of both for a comprehensive view.
4. Keep it Simple
Avoid overwhelming your team with excessive metrics. Focus on a select set that offers meaningful insights.
But it’s not just about choosing the right metrics.
You also need to choose the right sales tools.
No matter how much valuable data you collect, optimizing is difficult if your data is spread across multiple platforms like CRMs and spreadsheets. Streamlining data collection and sales analytics is essential for a smooth-running pipeline.
5. Make Sure You Keep Your CRM Updated
Chances are, you, like most other sales teams, use Salesforce to keep track of your pipeline.
To ensure that you’re tracking sales metrics accurately, your reps must regularly update your CRM with the right data on their deals, stage progressions, and so on.
However, Salesforce — like most CRMs — isn’t without its issues.
The interface can be complex and unintuitive, impeding navigation and effective use. Managing data and generating meaningful reports can also pose visibility issues, where businesses may struggle to gain a clear, real-time view of their sales and customer data.
On top of that, maintaining Salesforce to fit the needs of your sales organization is resource-intensive as it often requires entire operations teams to ensure the data is accurate, up-to-date, and displayed for sales leaders in a logical way.
Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be this way:
Streamline and Simplify Your Pipeline With Scratchpad
Scratchpad bridges the gap between your sales operations and Salesforce, providing a faster and more efficient experience for sales leaders and reps alike.
Create lightning-fast updates to the appropriate fields, assess deals on a granular and higher level, and automate forecasting — all in one place.
Most importantly, you get a cleaner pipeline without changing your habits while gaining the transparency and visualization that Salesforce lacks. This frees up your sales team to focus on what they’re good at — closing deals.
Let’s look at how you can use some of Scratchpad’s key features:
- Streamline updates with advanced views, enabling quick and easy modifications to fields, objects, or next steps in Salesforce.
- Create workflow tiles for shortcuts to essential data and get an overview at a glance.
- Identify gaps in your pipeline with deal spotlights, get alerts about missing fields, and ensure your deals accurately align with close dates and forecasts.
- Connect your Salesforce workflows to your notes and seamlessly edit, share, and templatize them for future use.
- Set up automations in Slack and transform tedious manual processes into effortless workflows — no coding required.
- Automate forecast roll-ups from sales reps to leadership levels and see which data points and past changes are tied to opportunities.
- Use trends analytics to visualize forecasts based on historical data, track deal progress, and ensure you hit your quota.
Elevate Your Sales Metrics and Salesforce Experience with Scratchpad
Sales metrics are at the core of any successful sales operation. They provide data-driven insights for sales managers to make informed decisions, optimize performance, and drive sales growth.
Any sales leader who understands how to strategically select and utilize the right mix of key sales metrics can navigate and adapt to the competitive landscape with precision and continuously improve sales strategies.
Plus, with a dedicated pipeline and forecast management tool, you can make tracking these metrics so much easier and equip your team for consistent success.
So why wait?
Say goodbye to scattered data and sign up for Scratchpad free to supercharge your team’s productivity.
