The metrics you choose to measure your demand generation success will likely differ depending on your industry. Still, there will always be some must-haves and some nice-to-haves that every business should track to maximize their return on marketing investment (ROI).
Here are nine metrics to use when evaluating the success of your demand generation programs, whether they’re aimed at existing or prospective customers. These KPIs (key performance indicators) can help you track whether your programs are producing results.
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Metric #1: Conversion Rate
Business owners should measure how many leads they’re getting from their demand generation efforts and then divide that number by the amount of visits or clicks the page receives. In other words, they should track their conversion rate.
For example, if a business gets 10 leads from 200 webpage visits, you can assume that qualified traffic has a conversion rate of around 5%, which is pretty good! This might indicate that you’d want to pour more resources into the specific traffic source that’s driving those conversions.
Metric #2: Inbound Sales Opportunities
Business owners can measure inbound sales opportunities by tracking the number of leads they generate weekly. Then, the team should qualify these leads to determine which ones will convert into customers.
By keeping track of this metric, you’ll know how many potential customers are being missed each week and how much money is currently being left on the table. Among all the demand generation KPIs, this is one of the most important ones to consider.
Metric #3: New vs. Repeat Customers
Another important metric to monitor is the number of new customers versus repeat customers. New customers are your best bet at demand generation success for new products because they’re more likely to be open and responsive to your marketing messages.
If a substantial number of your new customers turn into repeat customers, you’re doing something right and can continue investing in demand generation efforts.
You’ll also want to ensure that demand gen is contributing to customer retention rates, customer acquisition rates, and customer loyalty rates by measuring all three with KPIs like these:
- What percent of people who contact us via email become our customers?
- What percent of people who contact us on social media become our customers?
- What percent of people who visit our website buy from us?
Metric #4: Activations & Signups.
Activation is the first time a user takes a desired action, and signups are any users who opt-in to your email list. If activation occurs, that user has shown interest in your product/service. The number of activations or signups can measure how successful your demand generation efforts have been.
To measure this metric, divide the number of activations by the total number of emails sent. For example: if you send 100 emails and have 10 people activate, your conversion rate would be 10%. You can also look at signup rates (total signups divided by total emails sent) to see what percentage of people opted to receive communications from you.
Metric #5: Value Of A Lead
A lead is a potential customer who has expressed interest in your product or service. Therefore, leads are important because they represent your opportunities to close the deal with a potential customer.
However, a lead’s value differs depending on its stage. For example, if you get an email address from someone who says they want to buy your product, this would be considered a qualified lead and worth more than just getting their contact information.
On the other hand, some of these might not even be interested in your product. You can use demand generation KPIs like conversions, cost per lead and sales cycle length to determine which methods work best for converting prospects into customers.
Metric #6: Total Inbound Sales Opportunities Created Vs. Closed
Create a metric in your demand generation platform that measures how many total inbound sales opportunities were created vs. closed. This will give you a clear understanding of how demand generation drives revenue.
You’ll also be able to calculate your conversion rates by dividing the number of conversions by the number of generated leads. A conversion rate above 5% means demand gen programs are performing well and generating good ROI for marketing budgets.
Metric #7: Average Deal Size
Measuring the success of your demand generation efforts is a combination of quantitative metrics and qualitative feedback. Consider the following metrics when evaluating demand generation KPIs:
- Average deal size
- Clickthrough rate
- Conversion rates from lead to sales
- The lifetime value (LTV) of new customers acquired via demand generation
- Targeted traffic sources
- Referrals
- Revenue generated per marketing dollar spent on demand generation
- Return on investment
Metric #8: Pipeline
The pipeline is the number of qualified leads in your funnel. You can calculate the pipeline by dividing the total number of qualified leads by the number of customer conversions.
If you don’t know how many qualified leads are in your funnel, you can take a snapshot of it using a report like Salesforce’s Leads by Status report. According to Hubspot, when a company has more than 100 prospects in its pipeline, there’s an average probability of 20% that they’ll close.
Below 50 prospects, there’s only a 5% chance they’ll close. So the key takeaway is if you want to increase revenue and close more deals (who doesn’t?), ensure you’re actively pursuing and closing deals with prospects at all stages of their journey – not just at the end!
Use sales forecasting software such as Forecast to help determine how much time and effort should be spent on each stage to best allocate your resources.
Metric #9: What % of the pipeline is unqualified?
This metric would measure how many potential clients you have approached who were not a good fit. For example, let’s say you have 100 leads in your pipeline, and 20 are unqualified.
That means that 20% of your leads are unqualified. However, it may be helpful to know the percentage of qualified leads to gauge whether or not you’re working on the right deals. In other words, what is your ratio between qualified and unqualified prospects?
If there are more unqualified than qualified prospects, it might mean that your marketing strategy is too broad or doesn’t align with what companies need from an agency like yours.
Conversely, if there are more qualified leads than unqualified ones, this could mean that you’re just not targeting the right buyers.
Wrapping Up
If you want to measure your demand generation success, these 10 key metrics can help you get started. These metrics are relevant to both B2B and B2C. In addition, they cover a broad range of topics to help you make the most informed decisions about your demand generation program.
