12 Salesforce KPIs for your Sales Dashboard

 

As a Sales manager, you use Sales KPIs for monitoring your sales team performance. From decision making regarding strategic planning issues to employee management, sales key performance indicators can directly affect the complexity of your sales process and the cost of customer acquisition, thus affecting the company’s ability to gain profit and, in the case of startups, probably attract investors.

If you belong to the companies that use Salesforce as their CRM, then this article is for you. With this intention, we’ve narrowed down a list of commonly used KPIs to those we believe can help you measure your sales team.

Why visualize your Salesforce data with KPIs?

Visualizing data helps you notice patterns. Trends that were previously invisible suddenly become evident once we visualize the data.

For this reason, choosing the right visualization, in terms of both modality (line charts, pies, bars, etc.) and values included (counts, percentages, absolutes) is critical, but is different in every system. Several business intelligence tools can help you to visualize all your crucial business data.

Non-technical overview of Salesforce data

Salesforce is the backbone of your sales efforts, and if you want to analyze your data anywhere, everything sits behind Salesforce’s API. So first a word of caution…

Assuming that you have an easy way to get your data from the Salesforce API, such data include standard Salesforce Objects like Leads, Accounts, Contacts, or Opportunities along with custom objects.

Getting such information into a business intelligence tool has enormous benefits as it can help you combine sales data with other sources like support or billing or monitor specific sales KPIs.

Salesforce KPIs

Before starting, I wanted to note that, the objects columns and tables we are going to see, are based on a data schema, based on Blendo’s optimized and analytics-ready data model. That model gives you the best representation of your data from Salesforce and can help you “recreate” many of Salesforce’s UI screens into your dashboard.

As long as you have a dashboard with sales metrics, you can monitor the performance of your sales team in the blink of an eye.

1. Total leads created by month

That is a metric that managers most consistently monitor. How are your salespeople contributing to the expansion of your business?

This Salesforce KPI presents an absolute number of leads generated each month. What a lead is, depends on the company. For instance, a lead is someone that subscribed to your cloud application. Similarly, it can be generated after an attempt to contact through email or phone. By monitoring this chart every day, you can evaluate if your team is getting close to the monthly goals or if they are falling behind and react appropriately.

You can also compare month by month performance and catch the overall trends.

How to calculate leads created by month

Calculating such KPI means that you need to use data from Salesforce’s Lead Object (or Lead table in Blendo’s data model). Additionally, there are many parameters (columns) that you can group this info. For instance, Salesforce has a field called Lead Source inside Leads Objects, which provides info on the source that a lead arrived, eg subscribed to your a[plication, sales generated, conference lead, etc.

With Blendo, you can find the Lead Source field as leadsource into your data warehouse.

How to calculate leads in a campaign created by month

At the same time, many companies use Salesforce’s Campaigns that contain leads. In that case, you will need to combine data from Campaigns Object (campaign table in Blendo).

Click here to get our FREE 20+ page PDF Salesforce KPIs Cheat Sheet!

Pipeline Metrics & Conversion Rates

The sales pipeline is nothing more than a systematic and visual approach to keeping track of a sales progress. It consists of all the consecutive stages a potential customer passes through until he finally becomes a paying customer.

In the simplest form, it consists of three stages: Lead, Qualified Lead or Opportunity, and Won Opportunity. In Salesforce, for example, you have the Leads and their path stages you can configure. Likewise, you have the converted Leads (converts to Account, Contact) and the Opportunities.

The velocity of each stage is an indicative benchmark of the results your sales teams currently achieve and their future trends.

Furthermore, by making comparisons with results achieved during the past months you can quite spot and understand both negative and positive signs. Consequently, you could evaluate your strategies and refine if needed.

2. Total opportunities opened by month

In Salesforce, opportunities are tied directly to revenue. With that metric, you may check which sales agent reaches quota or the percentage of the sales team that hits their numbers. This sales metric is the absolute number of leads that turn into opportunities each month.

A lead converts into an opportunity when it has been qualified through email or phone and has met the sales team qualification criteria.

Since only a small fraction of them are going to convert finally, we need to have a large number of generated opportunities.

How to calculate opportunities opened by month

Calculating such KPI means that you need to use data from Salesforce’s Opportunity Object (or Opportunity table in Blendo’s data model). Additionally, there are many parameters (columns) that you can group this info. For instance, in Opportunity Object, Salesforce has a field called Lead Source (which can have a dependency on the Lead Score in Leads Object), or the field Opportunity Owner. You may use both to segment your opportunities per Lead Source or Owner.

For example, we are using a custom field in Opportunity Object (Loss Reason), which is a picklist. That way, we can analyze our Lost Opportunities to reasons lost.

You can find all the above fields as leadsource, ownerid, and loss_reason__c (custom fields are always depicted with __c in the end) into your data warehouse.

How to calculate opportunities opened by month in campaigns

If you use Campaigns, you will need to combine data from Campaigns Object (campaign table in Blendo).

Click here to get our FREE 20+ page PDF Salesforce KPIs Cheat Sheet!

3. Total Opportunities Won by Month

Of the opportunities your sales team reaches out to, how many convert to customers?  This metric reflects the number of opportunities that turned into paying customers each month.

The reason why this indicator is especially important is that through its monitoring, you can identify at which point customers tend to drop off more frequently from the pipeline and thus work with your team towards preventing it.

How to calculate total opportunities won by month

Similarly to the previous KPI, you will need to use the data from Salesforce’s Opportunity Object (or Opportunity table in Blendo’s data model). To find the Opportunities Won, you need to filter with the iswon field being TRUE. Likewise, you may group or filter to columns like those we described earlier (Lead Source or Owner).

For the campaigns, you may use specific columns to calculate that KPI, like the numberofwonopportunities.

Click here to get our FREE 20+ page PDF Salesforce KPIs Cheat Sheet!

4. Lead to Opportunity conversion rate

This conversion rate reflects the percentage of leads that turned into opportunities each month. Keep the sales process moving when you qualify a lead and then convert it to a contact.

How to calculate lead to opportunity conversion rate

For this KPI, you will need to combine data from your Leads and Opportunities. For the campaigns, you may divide numberofopportunities with numberofleads in the Campaign table.

Click here to get our FREE 20+ page PDF Salesforce KPIs Cheat Sheet!

5. Opportunity to Won opportunity conversion rate

This conversion rate metric reflects the percentage of opportunities that turned into paying customers each month.

How to calculate opportunity to won opportunity conversion rate

For this KPI, you will need to use data from your Opportunities. Find all opportunities and won opportunities and then calculate the conversion rate. For the campaigns, you may divide numberofwonopportunities with numberofopportunities in the Campaign table.

Click here to get our FREE 20+ page PDF Salesforce KPIs Cheat Sheet!

6. Average Contract Value (ACV)

Average Contract Value (or ACV) represents the average value of each sale. By effectively quantifying this value, the sales team can get a grasp about how valuable can a potential opportunity be.

How to calculate the average contract value

Identically for this KPI,  you will need to use data from the Amount field of your Opportunities (amount column in opportunity table in Blendo). However, this is dependant on how you use the Amount field in opportunities. ACV is usually counted over 12 months, as long as you use an annual contract value in the Amount field then you may use it as is. In case you have a monthly price, you will need to multiply to 12. Then you can calculate your averages for ACV.

In contrast, for campaigns, you will need to use the expected revenue fields.

Click here to get our FREE 20+ page PDF Salesforce KPIs Cheat Sheet!

7. Average Lead to Opportunity Time (in days)

This metric reflects the time it takes to convert a lead to opportunity. In Salesforce a converted lead is tagged as you can see on the screen below. After that step, Salesforce gives you the ability to create an Account, a Contact and an Opportunity for that Lead.

How to calculate average lead to opportunity time 

For this KPI, you will need to use data from your Leads. Find the creteddate and converteddate and then you can calculate the difference. If you need the SQL code just download the ebook:

Click here to get our FREE 20+ page PDF Salesforce KPIs Cheat Sheet!

Outbound Reach

When the leads generated by inbound sales are not enough, your sales team may turn to outbound prospecting. This approach is about deliberately contacting your best potential customers even in the case when they are not aware of your company and its products. Usually, this contact attempt is made via email or phone calls and aims primarily in starting a relationship with the prospective customer.

8. Emails sent

It represents the absolute number of emails sent during the outbound lead generation. We consider that you use the Campaigns that are included in Salesforce.

Click here to get our FREE 20+ page PDF Salesforce KPIs Cheat Sheet!

9. Outbound calls

It represents the absolute number of calls made during the outbound lead generation. Note that in Salesforce, all calls are considered Activities.

Click here to get our FREE 20+ page PDF Salesforce KPIs Cheat Sheet!

10. Number of Opens per Campaign

The email open metric calculates the total number of people who open an email from an outbound approach.

Click here to get our FREE 20+ page PDF Salesforce KPIs Cheat Sheet!

11. Open rate per campaign

The email open rate measures the percentage of people who open an email from an outbound approach.

Click here to get our FREE 20+ page PDF Salesforce KPIs Cheat Sheet!

12. Number of responses received

The number of receivers who replied out of the total number of send emails.

Click here to get our FREE 20+ page PDF Salesforce KPIs Cheat Sheet!

 

To take away

In conclusion, once you have data on your Salesforce KPIs, you can monitor the important ones that can help you draw useful conclusions regarding the sales approach that works best for the market in which you operate. If you are looking to find a way to have easy access to your Salesforce data, check out Blendo and the Salesforce integration or signup for a trial.