Sales metrics 101: 17 key sales metrics to follow in 2024

As sales leaders, choosing the right key performance indicators can be a challenging task. But knowing what sales performance metrics are important for your team, and using them to understand the bigger picture is just as important as paying attention to your sales pipeline coverage and sales team performance.

In this blog post, I've put together the key sales metrics we've been using at folk, what they're for and how you can choose what' an important sales metric is for you and your team.

17 important sales performance metrics to follow in 2024

Below we've outlined the definition of each sales performance measurement and why it's important to pay attention to it in 2024.

To keep an eye on your demo generation

To understand your demo generation results, pay attention to the following metrics:

• Interest rate.
• Open rate.
• Conversion rate.
• Win rate.
  

Below we go into more detail to help you understand the meaning behind each metric and why it's important for you to pay attention to it in sales.

1. Interest rate

The interest rate measures the percentage of potential customers who show interest in your demo after initial outreach or marketing efforts.

Why the interest rate is important in sales: Tracking the interest rate helps you understand the effectiveness of your lead generation efforts. With increasing competition and more sophisticated sales and marketing strategies, knowing how many people are interested in your demo can guide resource allocation and improve targeting strategies. A high interest rate indicates that your initial messaging and value proposition are resonating well with the audience.

2. Open rate

The open rate is the percentage of recipients who open your emails out of the total number sent.

Why the open rate is important in sales: This metric is used for assessing the success of your email campaigns. A high open rate signifies that your subject lines are compelling and your audience is engaged with your content. In 2024, with email marketing still being a significant channel for reaching potential customers, optimizing open rates is essential for ensuring that your message reaches and impacts your audience. Monitoring open rates can also help in A/B testing different email strategies to find the most effective approach.

3. Conversion rate

The conversion rate is the percentage of interested leads who take a desired action, such as signing up for a demo, out of the total leads.

Why the conversion rate is important in sales: This metric is critical for evaluating the efficiency of your sales funnel. A high conversion rate indicates that your marketing efforts, sales pitch, and overall strategy are effective in convincing leads to take the next step. In 2024, with advancements in personalization and data-driven marketing, improving conversion rates will be key to maximizing ROI on lead generation efforts. Analyzing conversion rates helps identify bottlenecks in the sales process and areas where improvement is needed.

4. Win rate

The win rate is the percentage of deals closed successfully out of the total opportunities.

Why the win rate is important in sales: Win rate is a direct indicator of your sales team's effectiveness and the overall competitiveness of your offering. In 2024, as sales strategies become more complex and competitive, maintaining a high win rate will be crucial for business growth. It reflects the ability to not only generate leads but also close them successfully. Tracking win rates helps in understanding the quality of your leads, the effectiveness of your sales techniques, and the alignment of your product with market needs.

To gauge how well your sales process is performing

To understand how well your sales process is performing, pay attention to the following metrics:

• Revenue generation
• Revenue cohorts
• Sales cycle length
• Win rate
• Conversion rate
• Lost reasons
• No show rate
• Revenue per account
• Number of demos per month
• Number of deals won per month
• Churn rate
• Capacity usage
• Main alternatives (competitors)
  

Below we go into more detail about each metric and why it's important for you to pay attention to it in sales.

5. Revenue generation

Revenue generation is the total income generated from sales.

Why revenue generation is important in sales: This metric is the most direct indicator of sales success and business growth. Tracking revenue generation helps assess the overall effectiveness of your sales process and identify trends over time.

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6. Revenue cohorts

Revenue cohorts are when you group customers based on the period they started generating revenue and tracking their revenue contribution over time.

Why revenue cohorts are important in sales: Revenue cohorts help identify patterns and trends in customer behavior and revenue sustainability. It allows businesses to understand the long-term value of different customer segments.

7. Sales cycle length

Sales cycle length is the average time it takes to close a sale from the initial contact.

Why the sales cycle length is important in sales: Shortening the sales cycle can lead to more efficient sales processes and faster revenue generation. It also helps in forecasting and resource planning.

8. Win rate

The win rate is the percentage of deals closed successfully out of the total opportunities.

Why the win rate is important in sales:  A high win rate indicates an effective sales process and strong product-market fit. It's also a sales productivity metric and shows how well the sales team is performing and how competitive the offering is.

9. Conversion rate

The conversion rate is the percentage of interested leads who take a desired action, such as signing up for a demo, out of the total leads.

Why the conversion rate is important in sales: This metric measures the effectiveness of your marketing and sales efforts in turning prospects into customers. High conversion rates indicate effective targeting and persuasive sales tactics.

10. Lost reasons

Lost reasons are the documented reasons why potential deals were lost.

Why documenting lost reasons is important in sales: Understanding why deals are lost helps in refining sales strategies, addressing weaknesses, and improving the product or service offering.

11. No show rate

The no show rate is the percentage of scheduled demos or meetings that potential customers fail to attend.

Why the no show rate is important in sales: A high no show rate can indicate issues with engagement or scheduling. Reducing this rate ensures that more leads move through the sales funnel effectively.

12. Revenue per account

Your revenue per account refers to the average revenue generated from each customer account.

Why the revenue per account is important in sales: This metric helps in understanding the value of each customer and identifying opportunities for upselling and cross-selling. It also aids in segmenting customers based on their revenue contribution.

13. Number of demos per month

The total number of product demos given each month.

Why the number of demos per month is important in sales: This metric indicates the level of interest and engagement with potential customers. A higher number of demos typically leads to more sales opportunities.

14. Number of won deals per month

The total number of deals closed successfully each month by each deal owner.

Why the number of won deals per month is important in sales: Tracking this metric helps in understanding sales performance and setting realistic targets. It also provides insight into the effectiveness of sales strategies over time.

15. Churn rate

The churn rate looks at how many customers stop doing business with your company. You can calculate your churn rate by dividing the number of customers lost over a specific time period by the total number of customers at the beginning of that period.

Why the churn rate is important in sales: High churn rates can erode revenue and indicate dissatisfaction with the product or service because it means customers are leaving your business. Reducing churn is essential for maintaining a stable revenue base and fostering customer loyalty.

16. Capacity usage

Your capacity usage is the extent to which your sales team's capacity is utilized.

Why the capacity usage rate is important in sales: Understanding capacity usage helps in optimizing the workload of the sales team and ensuring that resources are used efficiently. It also aids in scaling operations as needed.

17. Main alternatives (competitors)

Main alternatives refer to the key competitors your prospects are considering.

Why paying attention to your competitors is important in sales: Knowing your main competitors helps in positioning your product more effectively and understanding market dynamics. It allows for strategic adjustments to better compete and win deals.

How do you choose the right sales metrics?

Even though a lot of companies pay attention to similar sales activity metrics, they don't all carry the same value. Even though one company might pay attention to the average sales cycle length, another might pay more attention to sales productivity or the lead conversion rate.

Choosing the right sales KPIs largely depends on what part of your sales growth you want to monitor. For example, if you want to spot over-performing or under-performing segments, it's worth splitting the above metrics by channel. These could be:

• Inbound vs outbound
• Account size
• Geography
  

Where as if sales managers want to get a sense of how well their team is performing. So they might pay more attention to sales quota attainment. This is where you can also split the above metrics by individual sales representatives so that everyone can get a sense of their performance against peers and spot improvement opportunities.

What's in store for the future of sales?

Research suggests that by 2025, 80% of B2B sales interactions between suppliers and buyers to occur in digital channels.

That's why Gartner suggests that you'll need to pay attention to how to position sales to facilitate complex buying decisions, and to make sure to increase your sales team’s digital skill sets. Especially with buying behaviour in both B2B and B2C industries.

How folk can help your sales team boost their sales activity

folk can help sales teams increase their close rate and say good bye to manual data entry. It's also built a reputation to help nurture customer relationships and improve sales productivity metrics thanks to its automation features and AI support.

Key features

• Contact sync: auto sync contacts from Gmail or Outlook and make full use of real-time sync so that your sales team doesn't have to waste time manually adding updated information.
• One-click contact import: Allows sales teams to import search lists from LinkedIn and LinkedIn Sales Navigator, as well as individual profiles straight into folk's CRM without leaving the page.
• Contact enrichment: Levels up existing data and enriches it with more information, and saves you from manually filling out missing contact information.
• Mail merge, sequences and AI support:  Includes a basic analytics tool to gauge the performance of your outbound email campaigns, and allows you to set-up sequences to increase your lead response time. You can also use 'Magic Field', folk's AI support feature, to save time personalizing your outbound emails.
• Pipeline management, highly customizable to align with your sales cycle: Supports custom fields to help segment contacts, and choose from a listicle or Kanban board style view to suit your sale cycle.

Conclusion

Knowing how well your sales teams perform is a big part of being a sales manager and leader. You need to have a good idea of your sales expense ratio, and how well it aligns with your sales activities. Especially when you're responsible for gauging how well your sales reps are doing. The metrics above will help you have an overall idea of how well your team is performing, where improvements can be made and how much further you have to go to get that YOY growth and pipeline coverage covered.

More resources

Looking to learn more about business development? Check out these blogs.

• Founder-led sales 101: Actionable strategies for early stage startup founders
• The modern sales stack for SMBs
• 6 tips for how to generate new opportunities with context-based business development

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