B2B Marketing Metrics: 5 Examples for Stellar Reporting

In a perfect world, business-to-business (B2B) sales and marketing teams should have a symbiotic partnership. When they collaborate effectively, B2B marketing metrics and reporting can be a powerful tool, driving strategic insights and shared successes. 

However, the unfortunate reality for many teams is falling short of aggressive goals, missed targets, and the inevitable finger-pointing that follows.

When things are good, reporting is easy. But when things are bad, reporting can be a pretty painful process. So, if this sounds familiar, here are some examples and advice on how to best work with B2B marketing metrics when performance is less than stellar.

To establish a successful go-to-market strategy, it’s crucial to begin with defining target audiences, identifying ideal customer profiles, understanding their pain points, mapping their decision-making process, conducting competitive research to identify gaps, and, based on these insights, define positioning and distinctive communication strategies.

4 tenets to remember

1. Start from a place of curiosity, not judgment.

Many factors can affect your team’s performance and the data itself. But approaching reporting with an open mind and asking yourself, ‘Why are these things the way they are?’, are good ways to gain insight and to keep reporting productive. Being curious rather than judgmental also allows for greater honesty. If you can’t be honest about performance, reporting just becomes bragging about wins and obscuring setbacks. 

2. Lean into metrics that matter.

This will sound obvious. But those who’ve been reporting for a while know that there are many metrics you have little control over, don’t mean very much but sound good, or are, at best, vanity metrics. 

Unless you’re able to provide meaningful context, what are you accomplishing? If you’re reporting on items that sound good, but can’t be tied meaningfully to business impact, ask yourself if it’s the best use of your time. 

3. Let go of your assumptions.

Ever heard the saying, “Numbers don’t lie”? Well, actually, they do. 

How you choose to frame reporting, what you compare your data to, and what context you include – these factors can change everything. By letting go of your assumptions of what data should look like and what tactics should perform best, you limit your bias getting in the way of uncovering insight. 

4. Prioritize your bandwidth.

When marketing performance looks lackluster, you may be tempted to volunteer to take on every initiative you can think of to improve performance. This is the point at which you should slow down and prioritize tasks. 

First, determine which metrics are the most important. Next, figure out which initiatives are the most likely to have an impact on those metrics. And lastly, take into account which initiatives require the most bandwidth. Then, you can prioritize activities with the highest reward and lowest effort and shelve the initiatives with low reward and high effort. 

Once you’ve taken on only the highest priority initiatives, you’ll be in much better shape to accomplish your end goals than if you were to try to take on everything all at once. 

Now, to get into some metrics. Here are five B2B marketing metrics you should track and the questions to ask yourself with the data you collect to build a marketing strategy to improve performance in the future.

5 examples of optimizing your marketing performance with the right metrics

1. Lost Opportunity Post-Mortem
2. Target Account Gut Check
3. ‘MQLs’ That Never Make It
4. Self-Reported vs. Software Attribution
5. Pipeline Velocity Pivot

Take a look at five examples of metrics you should be tracking and how you can use them to form strategies to improve revenue metrics for sales and marketing. 

Key metric: loss reason

A loss reason is the reason that your team lost any given deal. Your sales team should be recording loss reasons for each deal when they move it to the closed-lost stage. Your loss reasons can be a gold mine of information for crafting more successful marketing strategies.

Optimization Example 1: Lost opportunity post-mortem

What is it?
This is a tactic to help you learn from your losses. Analyze the reasons your team lost deals that had been in the pipeline and determine ways that the sales and marketing teams can address them.

This is a good tactic to use when: 

• Deals have been lost at a higher rate than your team’s historic benchmarks;
• Deals have been lost in earlier stages than expected;
• The sales team says their meetings are not as qualified as they used to be. 

What to do:

1. Create a report of the loss-reasons for opportunities lost in the previous quarter.
2. Compare those loss-reasons to the previous quarter and the previous year. 

Take a look at an example.

Example 1: 

Loss Reasons	QTR	Prev. QTR	Prev. YR
Not interested in product category	80	60	40
Chose competitor	10	30	40
Lost contact with prospect	100	200	200
Insufficient budget	50	30	20

In the above example, you can see:

The ‘not interested in product category’ loss-reason went up – this could point to targeting issues or product messaging issues.

The ‘insufficient budget’ loss-reason went up, which could indicate stakeholders are facing economic issues. Perhaps you could benefit from using intent data or company growth signals such as funding rounds, headcount increases, etc. 

Example 2: 

Loss Reasons	QTR	Prev. QTR	Prev. YR
Not interested in product category	40	50	60
Chose competitor	75	40	30
Lost contact with prospect	100	50	30
Insufficient budget	50	100	100

In this example, you can see:

The ‘chose competitor’ loss-reason went up – this could point to market positioning issues, a need for competitive resources, and a need for marketing air cover.

The ‘lost contact with prospect’ loss reason went up – this could indicate a need for stronger follow-up, a need for a multithreaded approach, and a need for marketing air cover.

Key metric: target account list

A target account list is a list that marketing and sales teams agree on to target for marketing and outbound sales activities in a given time frame. Marketing and sales should align on a central target account list to agree on what the ideal customer looks like, as well as to best surround target accounts with outbound and marketing messaging concurrently. 

Optimization Example 2: target account gut check

What is it?
This is a tactic to check whether sales and marketing are aligned on their target accounts and whether those targets are being reached in practice. 

This is a good play to use when:

• The sales team says marketing-driven leads don’t have intent;
• You suspect you’re not breaking into in-market accounts.

What to do:

Using intent data, pull a report of companies that viewed one or more of your competitors in the past quarter. You could also use firmographic sources such as BuiltWith to track installs of competitor scripts, if applicable.

Next, cross-reference that list against your pipeline – how many in-market accounts did you break into? Of the rest, how many were reached with sales/marketing messaging?

Example:

Say you’ve created the report, cross-referenced it against your pipeline, and found: 

– Target accounts showing intent: 100

– Target accounts converted: 20

In this example, 20% of target accounts that were showing intent were converted. Next, look at the 80% of target accounts that you didn’t convert – were they in cadences, marketing nurtures, or ad audiences? Did they have ad impressions during the quarter they were in the market? 

Key metric: marketing qualified leads

Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) are, as the name suggests, leads that the marketing team has qualified. Once passed over to sales, if sales deem the leads qualified, marketing qualified leads become Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs) and move forward in the pipeline toward becoming revenue. 

Optimization example 3:  ‘MQLs’ that never make it

What is it?
This is a tactic to check whether sales and marketing are aligned on what is qualified. It ensures that marketing isn’t driving an unreasonably high volume of unqualified leads with their efforts.

This is a good play to use when:

• Marketing metrics look good, but sales metrics don’t;
• There’s a drop-off in conversions from MQL to SQL or SQL to opportunities.

What to do: 

Measure MQLs and conversion rates from the past quarter against the previous quarter and year, noting any drop-offs in conversion rates, and break out MQLs by lead source.

Next, review a sample of your MQLs with your sales team to see if they are qualified. And if so, how were they nurtured towards a conversion? Consider nurture streams, retargeting ads, and SDR outreach. If a significant portion of leads aren’t qualified, reconsider the targeting and tactics you’re employing that are driving those MQLs. 

Example:

Marketing hits their goal of converting 500 MQLs for the quarter, but the conversion rate is unusually low, and sales only get 50 meetings. 

Many of these MQLs came from content downloads with low intent/quality.

In this example, you should consider whether you could increase conversion rates through marketing nurture and sales outreach or if it would make more sense to shift investment away from the MQL sources with the lowest intent/quality. 

Did a high percentage of unqualified leads come from a specific advertising channel or perhaps a content syndication vendor? Reviewing conversion rates and lead quality by channel will allow you to optimize spend for the best return beyond a simple cost per lead.

Key metric: self-reported lead source

A self-reported lead source is where a prospect or customer personally says they came from. This usually comes from a form or salesperson asking the prospect, “Where did you hear about us?” Self-reported lead sources can provide open-ended feedback on what activities your company is engaging in that bring in new customers.

Optimization Example 4:  self-reported vs. software attribution

What is it?
This is a tactic to examine your lead sources and garner insights into which are the most valuable touchpoints in the buyer’s journeys that your leads follow. By combining insight from software attribution with self-reported “How did you hear about us?” data, you’re benefiting from statistical and anecdotal data. 

For example, tracking attribution via software can lead you to place outsized importance on channels that are more trackable than others that don’t necessarily have a larger impact. 

Traffic from Google ads and organic searches is easily tracked, while traffic from sources such as dark social or word of mouth is practically impossible to track using software. By asking your leads directly where they heard about you and combining that data with software attribution data, you see a more complete picture of the touchpoints your leads experienced.

This is a great tactic to use if you: 

• Have limited resources; 
• Have to decide where to focus your paid programs and team bandwidth; 
• You need to show ROI for your paid programs (though you should always be ready to do that anyway).

What to do: 

First, you need to track the self-reported data by including a “Where did you hear about us?” question on your inbound forms. Next, compile that data into summaries and compare them against your software attribution data. Some sources are, by default, more or less trackable than others. 

This exercise should also remind you to stay on top of your campaign tracking – activities should be tracked using UTMs with a documented strategy that allows you to identify channels, campaigns, and content that drives traffic. 

Example: 

Your metrics gathered via attribution software such as HubSpot show Google as your top channel for conversion attribution. Still, reviewing your forms’ self-attribution fields reveals other significant channels: LinkedIn, G2, Gartner, etc. 

This may indicate that though buyers are using search to get to you, they saw ads or heard from other users about you on LinkedIn or heard of you by viewing Gartner reports.

By combining software and self-reported attribution, you get a fuller picture of actual buyer behavior rather than making sweeping decisions like, “Let’s put all our money into SEO and paid search” based on software alone.

Key metric: pipeline velocity

Pipeline velocity is the rate at which prospects move through your pipeline. It is calculated by multiplying your number of qualified opportunities by the average contract value and win rate, then dividing the resultant figure by the sales cycle length divided by the period of time you’re referencing. 

Optimization Example 5:  pipeline velocity pivot

What is it?

This tactic assesses your overall pipeline health and compares the revenue benefits different pipeline sources bring to your business by taking into account the speed at which deals close, the number of deals, and the value of deals within a given period of time. 

When to use:

You should be tracking your pipeline velocity as an indicator of the health of your go-to-market strategy. It’s good as an overall directional indicator, but it’s even better when you look at your pipeline velocity by pipeline source. 

Auditing your pipeline velocity is a great idea if your pipeline is stagnating, the sales team is falling short of goals, or you need help deciding where to dedicate resources. 

What to do:

First, you’ll need to measure:

• The number of qualified opportunities;
• The win rate within those qualified opportunities;
• The average contract value of won opportunities;
• The average sales cycle length.

Next, calculate your pipeline velocity using the formula above. Once you have the overall pipeline velocity calculated, do the same for each pipeline source. 

Look at how your sources outperform and underperform against each other, make goals, and think about changes that could improve key variables.

Example:

In this example, you can see a few things:

The pipeline source with the highest contract value and win rate is referrals, leading to the highest pipeline velocity. Cold outreach had the highest volume of opportunities, but with a low win rate, it came out with the lowest pipeline velocity. 

Based on this example, here’s a few takeaways you could come up with:

1. Work on strategies to try to induce a higher volume of referrals: try initiatives like setting up a formal referral program for current clients, investing in customer marketing, or programs to track and reach out to customer champions who switch jobs. 
   
2. Take steps to increase your ACV for inbound opportunities, such as targeting more upstream accounts or upselling accounts in your pipeline.
   
3. Take steps to shorten sales cycles for cold outreach opportunities: support sales with marketing air cover ads to the current pipeline or use gifting as a touch point during the sales cycle.

Next steps

Now that you’ve learned about five examples that lead to improved B2B marketing metrics, recall a tenet shared at the beginning of this blog: “Prioritize your bandwidth.” 

These examples can help you think of ways to attack your marketing performance problems, but that doesn’t mean you must commit to everything. Prioritize tasks based on the impact they’ll have on performance based on your collected data. Set reasonable goals for improvement, and chart your progress over time.

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