Salesforce metrics and KPIs are important tools to define how you will manage and monitor your Sales and Marketing efforts. Metrics and KPIs playing a crucial role in aligning strategies with business goals. In this article, we dive into vital Salesforce Lead and Opportunity Pipeline Metrics, emphasizing the importance of consistency and clear definitions. Whether a stakeholder, Salesforce admin, or a member of a data analytics team, here, you’ll gain insights, answers to common questions and examples.
5 Salesforce Lead Metrics you Should be Tracking
While different organizations and industries have varying definitions for leads, prospects, and customers, the following metrics are designed for organizations where lead generation and handoff occurs inside of Salesforce.
- Qualified Leads Generated – How many qualified leads are delivered to sales? The qualification definition will vary per organization, as some use MQL (marketing qualified leads) and others use SQL (sales qualified leads). Having the qualification definition also helps identify un-workable leads which creates a feedback loop to improve lead generation channels.
- Lead Generation to Response Time – How fast are you making contact with leads after a prospect is delivered to your sales organization? Turn time for some businesses are measured in hours but for some they are measured in minutes.
- Lead Conversion Rate – How many leads need to be worked to generate a deal with revenue potential? Many organizations convert leads and create opportunities different stages of the Sales cycle. We recommend measuring from a key, well defined the point in your Sales funnel that is unlikely to change over a long period of time.
- Lead to Close Win Ratio – How many leads do you need to generate to close deals?
- Cost per Lead and Closed Won – What are your marketing campaign costs relative to lead generation and deal closure? For organizations that track their marketing campaigns and spend inside of Salesforce, this metric can be tracked using Salesforce campaigns. Not all organizations track marketing spend inside of Salesforce unfortunately.
5 Salesforce Opportunity Pipeline Metrics you Should be Tracking
It goes without saying the count of won opportunities, revenue and margin are important and common sales metrics. Here are 5 additional metrics that you can look to for inspiration.
- Deal Win Rate – How many fully qualified Sales opportunities are closed? This metric is used to measure the effectiveness of your sales team.
- Outbound Activities to Close – Measuring how many phone calls, emails, and SMS are required to close deals is effective at aggregate to measure top and bottom performers and understand globally what it will take to move customers through each stage to a win.
- Average Deal Size – Understanding your average and potential median deal size are important to understand market shifts, targeting, sales effectiveness and is typically a driver for forecasting and predicting future deals.
- Lifetime Value $ – For every customer, what is the total average value over time?
- Churn Rate – For customers that are won, how many of them churn at the end of their service period or no longer make second purchases within a specified timeframe?
3 Salesforce Metric Tips for Success
- Consistency of your metrics and KPIs are measured over time is most important. If the definitions change often, your ability to effectively use the metrics diminishes. Ensure you use clear definitions for points in your sales process.
- Clear and concise metric definitions will ensure your business stakeholders, Salesforce admins, and your data and analytics team are aligned.
- Ownership of every metric helps ensure accountability not only for monitoring. This also helps ensure changes in definitions and assumptions have a point person for approval.
Common Salesforce Metric and KPI Questions
What is a Salesforce Metric
A Salesforce metric measures performance over time where Salesforce is typically the system of record where the business process and transaction occurs. Salesforce metrics like sales revenue or lead conversion rate are created, calculated and measured with reporting inside of Salesforce or using 3rd party reporting and dashboard tools directly integrated with Salesforce.
What is a Salesforce Metric vs KPI?
A Salesforce metric tracks measurements over time while a KPI or Key Performance Indicator typically has not only a definitive target, but also a timeline and linkage to business goals and objectives.
A KPI should indicate the current and historical performance (Sales revenue is a common KPI for sales), while metric could help identify the leading indicators that influences sales (outbound calls, talk time).
How do I manage Salesforce metrics?
Many organizations simply manage Salesforce in Excel or word, which is fast and easy but requires a tremendous effort and cross functional ownership. There are a number of free solutions that help automate and streamline collecting, organizing and sharing metrics and tracking changes over time.
How do I ensure consistent Salesforce metrics?
Consistency in naming and consistency in measurement are two very common challenges within Salesforce. Tracking and managing aliases or synonyms for metrics over time is important but the measurements and application of metrics in reports needs to be consistent.
How do I design Salesforce KPIs?
The best advice is to ask your business leadership first what is the objective or goal that is most important? From there what are the top 3 things we should do to reach that goal? That is the framework for your KPIs. Setting a target and timeline to achieve the target in many sales organizations are monthly or quarterly. The most important thing is not to get hung up on terminology. If you are setting and agreeing to measurable goals and outcomes, that is most important. Consistency in terminology and approach is most important.
What is DataTools for Salesforce Metrics?
We built DataTools Pro to help inventory, manage, and track implementation of metrics and reporting inside of Salesforce. Bringing the same techniques we use for large scale enterprise Business Intelligence solutions, we have paired it down to make it very simple for Salesforce users.
- Inventory metrics
- Track aliases / synonyms for metrics
- Align dashboards and reports to metrics
- Detailed definitions and ownership
- Align metrics to topics and lines of business
How do I create Salesforce Metric and KPI Dashboards?
Salesforce provides powerful and flexibility reporting and dashboard tools that ship standard with Salesforce. As the sophistication of your reporting and tracking requirements grow or complexity of calculations increase you may need a solution like Tableau (owned by Salesforce) or one of the many powerful point solutions.
