Introduction
Data has never been more critical in the ever-changing world of B2B Marketing. As we move forward in 2024-25, marketers would do well to focus on precise B2B marketing metrics to refine their strategies, win against the competition, and understand the ROI of their marketing efforts.
To reiterate, looking at the right metrics is vital to measuring marketing performance, customer acquisition process and the return on marketing investment. This article will cover the key B2B Marketing Metrics you need to track in 2024-25.
What are B2B Marketing Metrics?
As the introduction mentions, having relevant B2B Marketing Metrics helps businesses gauge their marketing strategy. These metrics measure marketing's success in generating leads, engaging prospects, and driving conversions. They show us what's working and what's not and help us make data-driven decisions that align with business goals.
Types of B2B Marketing Metrics
Lead Generation Metrics
These metrics are crucial to measuring your marketing campaigns' performance in attracting potential customers. The two most common ones are as follows:
- Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs): MQLs are leads who have shown interest in your product or service through actions like downloading content or signing up for events. Compared to general leads, they are more likely to convert into customers.
- Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs): When a lead is vetted by the sales team and deemed ready for direct engagement, it becomes an SQL. Tracking the progression from MQL to SQL ensures marketing and sales are working together.
Engagement Metrics
These metrics measure how well your audience is interacting with your content.
- Click-Through Rate (CTR): This metric tells you how well your content or ads encourage users to take action, like clicking a link. A high CTR generally means your messaging is resonating with your audience.
- Social Media Engagement: This includes likes, shares, comments and mentions on social media. These interactions give insight into how your brand is perceived and discussed online.
Conversion Metrics
Conversion metrics are vital in measuring how well your marketing funnel is performing.
- Conversion Rate: This is the percentage of visitors or leads who complete a desired action, like purchasing your product or filling out a form.
- Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): CAC is the cost of acquiring a new customer; it's calculated by dividing total marketing and sales spending by the number of new customers. The goal is to lower CAC while maintaining or increasing conversion rates.
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) Metrics
ABM metrics are for Account-Based Marketing campaigns targeting specific high-value accounts.
- Coverage: This metric measures whether you reach all the key stakeholders within your target accounts. Ensuring your marketing team engages the right decision-makers across the target account is also essential.
- Engagement: Engagement in ABM goes beyond simple interactions; it measures the depth of engagement within target accounts, such as multiple visits to your website, attending webinars, or interacting with different forms of your content.
- Pipeline Velocity: Pipeline velocity measures how fast targeted accounts move through the sales pipeline. Faster movement means your marketing and sales are aligned and effective at pushing accounts through the buying process.
- Account Win Rate: This metric calculates the percentage of target accounts that convert into paying customers. A higher win rate means your ABM is well-targeted and successful.
By measuring these B2B Marketing Metrics, you can get a complete picture of your marketing performance.
This allows you to optimise your approach so your efforts are practical and aligned with your customer relationship management and overall business goals.
What's the difference between Marketing KPIs and Metrics?
While B2B Marketing Metrics are important, it is equally essential to know the difference between them and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
Both are marketing performance measurement tools, but they serve different purposes in your Marketing Strategy and B2B Go-to-Market Strategy.
Think of KPIs as the big-picture goals your marketing team is working towards. For example, you might set a KPI to increase marketing qualified leads (MQLs) by 20% in the next quarter. This KPI is a clear strategic objective tied to your overall business goals.
Metrics, on the other hand, are the specific data points that help you measure progress towards a KPI. For example, if your KPI is to increase MQLs, you would track metrics like website traffic, email click-through rates, and content downloads.
Similarly, if your KPI is to reduce customer acquisition cost (CAC) by 15% over the next six months, the metrics you would track could be the cost per click (CPC) of your digital ads, the conversion rate from lead to customer and the number of touchpoints to close a deal. By looking at these metrics, you can see where your marketing funnel costs are increasing and where you can streamline or optimise to hit your KPI.
In this last example, let's say your KPI is to increase brand engagement by 25%. The metrics for this KPI are likes, shares, comments and mentions across all platforms. If you see high impressions but low engagement, this metric tells you that people are seeing your content but not interacting with it. You might then adjust your content marketing approach to be more engaging and get closer to your KPI.
The key difference between KPIs and metrics is scope and purpose.
KPIs are the strategic outcomes you aim for – like destinations on a journey. Metrics are the individual signs or milestones that tell you how far along you are on that journey and if you're on the right path.
By matching the right metrics to your KPIs, you can ensure that every marketing activity is purposeful and contributes to your overall business goals. This alignment allows you to make informed decisions, optimise your approach, and achieve more in your B2B marketing.
Why Do You Need to Track Marketing KPIs and Metrics?
Every business team needs to understand the difference between KPIs and metrics; the real power is tracking them consistently.
But why?
Firstly, tracking KPIs and metrics lets you see trends and determine where your marketing is winning or losing. For example, if your goal is to generate more leads and you see website traffic declining and the conversion rate stagnant, this could be a problem that needs attention. Maybe your content isn't resonating with your audience, or your landing pages need optimisation.
By checking these metrics regularly, you can spot these issues early and make the necessary adjustments to keep your approach on track.
Tracking these data points also allows for better decision-making. Imagine you're running multiple marketing campaigns across different channels. By keeping a close eye on metrics like cost per lead and conversion rates, you can see which campaigns are winning and which aren't. This allows you to reallocate resources to the best-performing channels and ensure your marketing budget is spent wisely and delivers the highest possible ROI.
Another key benefit of tracking KPIs and metrics is to be able to justify your marketing spend to stakeholders. In B2B marketing, where budgets are often tight and closely monitored, solid data is critical to back up your decisions.
If you can show that a particular marketing campaign has generated a significant increase in qualified leads or reduced customer acquisition costs, you can argue for more or continued funding. This data-driven approach builds stakeholder trust and positions your marketing team as a critical part of the business.
Lastly, tracking these metrics keeps your marketing approach agile. The B2B landscape is always changing, with new trends, technologies, and customer behaviour emerging constantly. By tracking your KPIs and metrics, you can respond quickly to these changes. For example, if you see a new social media platform driving more engagement than traditional channels, you can shift your focus and resources to capitalise on that trend.
B2B Marketing Metrics to Track in 2024
Okay, now that we have discussed why KPIs and metrics matter, let's consolidate them all in this section and list the top 15 that you should be tracking. This is not an exhaustive list; if other metrics make more sense to your business, please feel free to track them in addition to the ones we have mentioned below.
Website Traffic
Tracking website traffic gives you insight into how well your digital marketing is driving potential customers to your site. By knowing where your traffic is coming from and what website visitors are doing on your site, you can refine your digital strategy to meet their needs.
Social Media Engagement
Likes, shares, comments, etc, on social media.
Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs)
MQLs are leads that have shown enough interest in your product or service to be ready for a deeper sales conversation. They’re an early-stage indicator of lead quality and help sales teams focus on prospects most likely to convert.
Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs)
SQLs are leads that have been vetted further and are now ready for direct engagement by the sales team. These leads have moved beyond the marketing funnel and are ready to close. Tracking SQLs alongside MQLs will help you gauge how well your marketing and sales are aligned.
Conversion Rate
Conversion rate is the percentage of visitors or leads who take a desired action, such as signing up for a demo or buying your product. Track this at multiple stages in the funnel, like MQL to SQL or demo to sale.
Lead to Customer Conversion Rate
This metric shows how well your leads convert into paying customers. It’s key to understanding the efficiency of your sales process and where prospects drop off. This ties closely to demo-to-close rate, which tracks how many product demos turn into actual sales.
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
CAC is the total cost of acquiring a new customer, calculated by dividing the total marketing and sales spend by the number of new customers acquired. Keeping CAC in check is crucial for maintaining profitability and growing efficiently.
Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)
For subscription-based businesses, MRR is a key metric that measures predictable monthly income. This can be broken down further into New MRR (revenue from new customers) and Expansion MRR (additional revenue from existing customers upgrading or adding more users). Track MRR to monitor the overall health of the business.
Customer Lifetime Value
CLV is the total revenue a customer generates throughout their relationship with your company. Increasing CLV should be a top priority for businesses looking to maximize long-term profitability. Metrics like Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) and retention rate are often used alongside CLV to track revenue growth and customer loyalty.
Average Revenue Per User (ARPU)
ARPU is the average revenue generated per user over a certain time frame. It’s a key metric to understand revenue trends and is closely tied to Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) and overall profitability.
Pipeline Velocity
Pipeline velocity measures how fast leads are moving through your sales funnel. A faster pipeline velocity means a more efficient sales process. This metric will show you where prospects are getting stuck and allow you to make data-driven decisions to speed up the sales cycle.
Onboarding Completion Rate
Onboarding completion rate measures the percentage of new customers who complete the onboarding process. This is critical to ensure customer engagement early on and reduce early churn, especially for SaaS businesses.
Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)
CSAT measures how satisfied your customers are with your product or service. A high CSAT score is often associated with lower churn rates and higher retention. Track this metric to make sure you’re meeting customer expectations.
Churn Rate
Churn rate is the percentage of customers who stop using your service within a certain time frame. It’s a critical metric for SaaS businesses and subscription models, where reducing churn means steady revenue growth.
Reputation, Relationships, Revenue (Three Rs of ABM)
In Account-Based Marketing (ABM), these are the metrics of success. They measure how your brand is perceived, the strength of your relationships with key accounts and the revenue from those efforts.
These are important metrics but can also be KPIs depending on your business goals and strategy. For example, if reducing churn or increasing the MRR is a priority, then those metrics can be KPIs that drive your marketing and sales. We’ll see an example of this in the next section.
Examples of Marketing Metrics
Let's see how a hypothetical generative AI company, InnoGen AI, uses specific marketing metrics to measure their success. They are an AI content creation tool company and have set targets for the year. Here's how they are tracking their progress:
KPI 1: Increasing Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) by 20%
This is a key goal for InnoGen AI. They aim to increase MRR by 20% in the next year and are focusing on New MRR (Metric), which is the total revenue from new customer subscriptions each month, and Expansion MRR (Metric), which is from existing customers upgrading to premium plans or adding more users. By tracking these metrics, InnoGen AI can see how its efforts to acquire new customers and upsell to existing ones are driving revenue growth.
KPI 2: Reduce Churn Rate by 15%
Another key priority is reducing customer churn. Churn rate is their KPI here, as it measures the percentage of customers who stop using their service within a specific timeframe. To reduce churn by 15%, InnoGen AI monitors its customer satisfaction score (CSAT) to ensure customers are happy with the product. They are also tracking the onboarding completion rate to ensure new users are fully engaged with the tool from day one, which helps reduce early churn.
KPI 3: Increase the Lead-to-Customer Conversion Rate by 10%
Another strategic goal is to increase the lead-to-customer conversion rate by 10%. For this specific KPI, InnoGen AI is tracking sales-qualified leads (SQLs), which are leads ready for a direct sales conversation. They are also tracking the demo-to-close rate, which is how many product demos lead to actual sales. These metrics help them refine their sales process to increase conversion efficiency.
KPI 4: Increase the Customer Lifetime Value by 25%
Increasing customer lifetime value (CLV) by 25% is key to maximising each customer's long-term profitability. It is InnoGen's fourth key KPI. Its marketing team uses average revenue per user (ARPU) to understand how much revenue each customer generates on average and retention rate, which is how long customers stay with the company.
KPI 4: Reduce CAC by 10%
Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is another KPI for InnoGen AI. They aim to reduce CAC by 10% in the next two quarters. By tracking cost per lead (CPL) and channel performance metrics, they can see which channels are most cost-effective for acquiring new customers. This helps them optimise their marketing spend and acquire customers efficiently.
Finally, InnoGen AI is tracking website traffic to assess the performance of its digital marketing. This metric helps them determine where their traffic is coming from and how visitors are interacting with their site, which in turn informs their content and advertising strategies.
How to Choose Relevant KPIs to Track?
Choosing the right Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) is crucial to your B2B marketing strategy. After you understand the importance of tracking various metrics, the next step is determining which metrics should be elevated to KPIs reflecting your overall business objectives.
Here's how to do this:
- Align KPIs With Business Objectives: The first step in choosing the right KPIs is to ensure they are directly tied to your overall business goals. For example, if your main goal is to increase revenue, then KPIs related to customer acquisition and retention, such as customer acquisition cost (CAC) or customer lifetime value (CLV), should be a priority.
- Focus on Actionable Insights: KPIs should provide valuable data and drive action. When choosing KPIs, consider whether they will prompt specific actions to improve. For example, if customer retention is a priority, tracking a KPI like churn rate will directly lead to actions to reduce customer attrition.
- Use the SMART Criteria: KPIs should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. This ensures your KPIs are well-defined, realistic, and aligned with your strategic timeline. For example, instead of setting a vague goal like "improve customer satisfaction," a SMART KPI would be "increase customer satisfaction score (CSAT) by 10% in the next six months."
- Balance Leading and Lagging Indicators: It's important to include leading indicators, which predict future performance, and lagging indicators, which reflect past performance. For example, metrics like website traffic and lead conversion rate can be leading indicators that predict future sales growth, while metrics like monthly recurring revenue (MRR) and customer lifetime value (CLV) can be lagging indicators that provide insights into past performance and long-term success.
- Review and Adjust KPIs Regularly: The relevance of KPIs can change as your business evolves, so it's essential to review them regularly. As market conditions change or your company's strategic priorities change, your KPIs should be adjusted to ensure they are aligned with your current objectives. For example, if your focus shifts from acquiring new customers to maximising revenue from existing ones, upselling and customer engagement KPIs might become more relevant.
By following these steps, you will have KPIs relevant to your current business and drive your marketing forward.
This selection and ongoing review of KPIs will keep you focused on what matters and ensure your marketing is always aligned with your overall business goals.
What is a Good Template to Use for Marketing Metrics?
A template can help you keep all your marketing data in one place, making it easier to monitor progress and make data-driven decisions. Here's how to set up a template for your marketing metrics:
- Define Your Sections
- Metrics Overview: Start with a high-level summary of the most important metrics and KPIs. This section should give a quick snapshot of your overall marketing performance.
- Data Source and Collection Frequency: Identify where each metric's data comes from (e.g. Google Analytics, CRM, social media platforms) and how often this data will be updated (daily, weekly, monthly).
- Current Performance: Include a column or section to track the current performance for each metric. This will allow you to see how you're doing relative to your goals.
- Target Goals: Set specific targets for each metric. These could be goals for the quarter, the year, or other relevant time frames. For example, if one of your KPIs is to reduce customer acquisition cost (CAC), then your template should include the target CAC value you want to achieve.
- Structure the Template
- Tabular Format: Use a table format for clarity. Columns might include the metric's name, current value, target value, data source and notes or action steps.
- Visual Indicators: Include visual elements like colour-coding or progress bars to indicate if you're on track to meet your goals. For example, green might mean you're meeting your target, and red means action is required.
- Comparison with Previous Periods: Include a column to compare current metrics with past performance. This will help you identify trends and understand if your strategies are working or need adjustment.
- Add Action Steps
- Next Steps Based on Metrics: Each metric should have a corresponding section outlining actions if it is off-target. For example, if your churn rate is higher than desired, your action step might be to implement a customer feedback loop to identify pain points.
- Owner and Timeline: Assign responsibility for each metric to a team member and set a timeline to achieve the target. This will ensure accountability and keep everyone focused on the goal.
- Use Tools for Automation
- Integrated Dashboards: Consider using tools like Google Data Studio, Tableau or HubSpot's reporting features to create dynamic dashboards that pull in data from your various sources. This will save time and reduce the risk of errors in manual data entry.
- Customisable Templates: Many of these tools offer customisable templates that you can tailor to your business. This can be particularly useful for companies that want to visualise their data differently or report on multiple KPIs across different teams.
- Review and Update Regularly
- Weekly or Monthly Reviews: Schedule regular check-ins to review the metrics with your team. This will ensure everyone is aligned and aware of the business's progress toward its goals.
- Adjust the Template as Needed: As your business evolves, so should your metrics tracking template. Be open to adding new metrics or removing ones that no longer serve your strategic objectives.
By setting up a template that fits your business, you can keep your team focused on the key metrics, make it easier to track progress, and make decisions.
This structured approach keeps your team aligned and shows where your marketing is working and where there's room for improvement.
At xGrowth, we have multiple templates that follow this approach. Use them as inspiration.
Conclusion
As we've seen throughout this article, tracking and managing B2B Marketing Metrics is key to success in 2024-25. By understanding the differences between metrics and KPIs and knowing how to choose the right ones, businesses can tune their marketing to their overall goals.
We looked at metrics like monthly recurring revenue (MRR), customer acquisition cost (CAC), and customer lifetime value (CLV), which give you insight into the immediate and long-term health of your marketing. We also looked at metrics like lead-to-customer conversion rate and churn rate to refine your sales funnel and retention strategies, so your marketing investments pay off.
Setting up a template to track these metrics is key to being organised. Use tools to automate data collection and review regularly. This keeps your team aligned with the company goals and shows where your sales and marketing are working and where it needs to be adjusted.
As the B2B marketing landscape changes, being agile and data-driven will be key to overcoming challenges and opportunities. By having a system in place to track the right metrics and KPIs, your business will be set up to achieve its marketing goals and grow sustainably.
Contact us at xGrowth using the form below if you want to build a B2B Go-to-Market Strategy or need help with your current Marketing Strategy. We are a B2B Marketing Agency that helps businesses like yours use data to drive growth and success.
