Executive-Dashboard

16 Sales KPIs that Every Team Should Measure

Sales KPI is a measurable value that indicates the performance of various sales processes.

A sales dashboard is more than an interface with complicated numbers and charts. It’s a narrative that combines informative graphs and actionable metrics while giving you a quick overview of a company’s performance.

To benefit from a sales dashboard, sales managers need to avoid measuring the wrong success indicators that have no actual impact on business performance. A well-defined sales KPI is relevant, measurable and actionable, meaning that you can improve your results by following the trends on your sales KPI dashboard and have the ability to act upon real-time information.

Depending on your industry, goals, and vision of success, you need to frame personal success metrics that indicate whether your company’s growing or declining. After all, it’s your business and nobody else’s, right?

To create an informative and actionable KPI report, you need to reflect on your own business strategy and goals.

Want to see how dashboard software works? Learn how to create a perfect business dashboard in Scoro and see the complete resource to understand KPI dashboards.

The most widely used business metrics on company dashboards include:

  • sales & customer success
  • finance & budgets
  • growth & product
  • internal processes & projects
  • employees & self-improvement

In this article, we’ll cover 16 essential sales KPIs that every sales manager should measure.

Discover the most widely used sales and customer success metrics and be inspired to create your own KPI dashboard.

Read On: What is a KPI? (The Complete Guide)

1. Monthly sales/new customers

One of the easiest ways to evaluate your sales success is to compare monthly results over time.

Monthly conversions KPI shows how many new customers bought your product or subscribed to your service during the current month.

You can frame this KPI as merely the number of monthly sales or as “% of monthly sales quota” to evaluate whether you’re going to achieve your monthly sales goal.

To understand what causes an increase or drop in one metric, you need to track further indicators to find correlations between multiple sales and marketing processes.

Compare the monthly sales KPIs with previous month’s results to see whether your sales performance is increasing or declining. Always look for the root cause of poor results – is your sales slowing because of low season, lazy salespeople or poor marketing decisions?

Moreover, track the number of monthly new leads to get to the core of your sales performance.

Many sales metrics overlap with the ones measured by the marketing department. See a definite guide of over 30 widely used digital marketing KPIs to get even more ideas for your sales KPI dashboard.

2. Monthly new leads/prospects

This is a metric that depends wholly on the nature of your business. New leads can be people who sign up for a free trial. They may also be people who visit your website and spend a certain amount of time without yet ordering anything.

Frame your monthly new leads metric so that it gives you accurate information about the number of new prospective customers.

The monthly new leads KPI is beneficial in numerous ways. Compare it to your monthly conversions/new customers metric to calculate the average lead-to-sale conversion rate (see point 3). Measure the current month’s new leads to previous time periods to see whether your marketing spend is justified.

CEO/manager dashboard is not only about KPIs but also comparative month-to-month charts and graphs. For example, a line chart of monthly new leads is a great way to spot the trend and adjust your marketing and sales activities accordingly.

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3. Lead-to-sale conversion rate

Lead-to-sale conversion rate is the percentage of new customers compared to new leads.

Conversion rate KPI shows whether your sales team is capable of turning prospective deals into a real business. Let’s say that 4% of your new leads convert into a paying customer. This means that 96 leads out of 100 bring in no business whatsoever.

There are many ways to improve your lead-to-sale conversion rate. This can be done by providing better sales materials and offering a greater benefit to the prospect. You can also try discount offers or improved customer experience throughout the buying process.

There’s always a reason why all new leads won’t become paying clients. Find out the cause and improve the sales results by tackling the problem.

Want to increase your lead-to-sales conversion rate? Learn the tips, tricks, and hacks for successful lead management and acquire more customers.

4. Cost per lead

Everything that your team does to attract new leads costs you money. Be it advertising costs, web design or social media management, it’s taking a considerable amount of your company’s budget

Add the cost per lead KPI to your dashboard to see how much it costs to attract a prospective customer.

Cost per lead is calculated by summing up all your monthly marketing-related costs and dividing it by the number of monthly new leads. Remember to include the salaries of your marketing team. Or at least,e the time they’ve spent on lead generation.

To have accurate KPIs that reflect the actual situation, you need to gather a lot of data. A quick way to collect your data into one system is by using professional services automation software. The system enables you to use all the data for detailed reporting and real-time KPI dashboards.

Decreasing cost per lead can be a sign of improved customer experience or increased brand awareness. The opposite result indicates that you need to oversee your marketing strategy and focus on more profitable channels.

5. Cost per conversion

Intuitively thinking, the cost per conversion seems similar to cost per lead. In fact, the cost per conversion metric can be tens of times higher. Only a small number of your leads convert to paying customers or subscribers. This means that the cost per single conversion can be incredibly high.

Cost per conversion is calculated as cost per lead, meaning that you sum up all your monthly marketing costs and divide it by the number of monthly new customers/sales.

To evaluate whether your cost per conversion pays off in the long-term, evaluate your customer lifetime value. If the cost per conversion is so high that your customer lifetime value KPI is negative, you’re losing revenue and need to act quickly to improve your profitability score.

Read on: KPI Reporting – 62 Tips, Hacks, and Tools to Succeed

6. Customer lifetime value/customer profitability

Customer profitability (CP) is the profit that the company makes from serving a customer or a group of clients for a specified period. Read more on Wikipedia.

This KPI is calculated by combining the profit earned and the cost spent in association with a customer relationship. Customer lifetime value shows how much a customer is worth to you. If you’ve spent more money on turning someone into a paying client than they actually return to your company, it’s time to change your business strategy.

Moreover, use the customer profitability metric to calculate the profitability of different groups of customers. Create client categories according to your user groups and buyer personas. You can do it by age, location, interests, industry, etc.

Evaluate the customer lifetime value of all your client categories to understand which segments bring in a higher profit. Let go of clients who are decreasing your net profit and difficult to convert.

Tip: A great way to increase client profitability is to lengthen the average customer lifetime by building on loyalty.

7. Customer turnover rate

Also named customer attrition and churn rate, this annual metric shows how many clients decide to stop using your service or product. To grow, the number of new customers has to exceed the churn rate.

Customer turnover rate is calculated as a percentage of clients who have stopped using the service during the previous one-year period. For example, if one client out of 25 stops subscribing to your service, the churn rate is 1 / 25 x 100 = 4%.

It is normal to lose some clients but don’t let them go without analyzing the reasons behind their decision. Make the distinction between voluntary churn and involuntary churn.

Voluntary churn means that your customer goes to another service provider because they think it’s a better deal. Involuntary churn happens when a client’s decision is influenced by relocation, bankruptcy, etc. and they’re unable to continue using your service.

To keep your churn rate low, provide excellent customer care and user experience and be always ahead of your competitors.

8. Net promoter score

Net promoter score shows how likely is a customer to recommend your brand or service to a friend. This metric can be measured with customer surveys and interviews. The easiest way is to ask this question in the follow-up email of a product order or new subscription.

According to Net Promoter Network, there are three levels of customer advocacy:

1. Promoters (score 9-10) are loyal enthusiasts who praise your company to others and drive your sales
2. Passives (score 7-8) are satisfied but unenthusiastic customers who leave when they see a better offer.
3. Detractors (score 0-6) are unhappy customers who spread negative information about your company and can damage your brand image.

To calculate the Net Promoter Score, subtract the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Promoters.

Compare your customer success metrics over months to see whether the user experience is improving or getting worse. A decreasing Net Promoter Score may also indicate that a strong competitor has entered the market and is targeting your customers with a better service.

Now that we’ve covered the basics, there are still left some sales and customer success KPIs that could be added to your executive dashboard. We’ve added a link to the best resources for you to find out more.

9. Average conversion time

This sales KPI shows how much time it takes for a customer to move through your sales funnel (time between the first contact and making the first payment). See a quick overview of a buyer’s journey to understand the entire sales process.

10. Average annual sales volume per customer

Also known as the average revenue per customer, this metric shows the monthly or annual revenue acquired per one client. Read more here.

11. Hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual sales

If the volume of monthly sales alone is not informative enough, these metrics can be useful when compared to other short-term KPIs. Read an interesting article on how to improve your sales results.

11. Number of monthly sales demos

Measuring the number of monthly product demos shows how many new leads accepted your first proposal – a product or service demo. Getting a lead to accept your sales demo makes them more likely to become a paying customer. Here’s how to create a perfect sales demo that converts leads to clients.

If you like evaluating your sales in a cycle as projects, see the list of 16 project KPIs for more inspiration.

13. Relative market share

Add this metric to your CEO/manager dashboard to see your company’s relative market share compared to your leading competitors. Learn more about the RMS and get some ideas on how to increase your market share.

15. Product/service usage

When providing an online service, it’s easy to measure the time that customers spend on your website or use your online software. Compare this metric over months to see whether your clients stay engaged or show signs of ending their subscription. Here’s how to measure the product usage rate.

16. Website conversion rate

Every modern business has a website. It’s what defines you as a brand – the colors, user experience and design. Website conversion rate shows the percentage of visiting customers who sign up for your service, create an account or start a trial period. See a super useful guide to optimizing your website for higher conversions.

There are a countless number of key performance indicators that you can measure to evaluate your sales performance. But notice the word KEY.

Only measure and collect the sales KPIs that show relevant data and that you’re able to improve. Choose the data on your dashboard wisely and only include the metrics that are part of your company’s narrative. Only then can you achieve all your goals and improve your business’s profitability.

If you’d like to learn more about various KPIs and tracking them, see a detailed guide of financial KPIs.

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