Shared KPIs for Marketing and Sales: The Foundation for Sustainable Growth
In principle, marketing and sales should pursue the same goal: sustainable growth. However, both areas are frequently evaluated using entirely different metrics.
Shared KPIs create a unified data foundation for marketing and sales, helping to break down silos and align decisions more closely with overarching business goals.
Marketing and Sales often pursue different goals
The conflict is as old as the disciplines themselves: Marketing delivers leads, and Sales criticises their quality. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg, and its effects ripple much further. Forecasts become unreliable, and revenue falls short of expectations. Customer acquisition costs skyrocket. When asked, „Where is the bottleneck?“, marketing and sales simply point fingers at each other.
The root cause is often that they are aligned with different goals and metrics. Introducing shared KPIs establishes a unified view of the revenue pipeline, marking a critical first step toward Marketing & Sales Alignment.
The introduction of shared KPIs creates a Single Point of Truth and provides absolute clarity regarding:
- Pipeline
- Revenue
- Conversion Rates
- New Customers
At the same time, you shouldn't expect miracles from this alone. Introducing shared metrics does not automatically or completely resolve existing conflicts between marketing and sales. It does not fix processes, nor does it define clear responsibilities. What it does create, however, is a shared view of the exact same data — and thus the foundation for better decisions.
The most important shared KPIs for Marketing and Sales
Introducing shared KPIs and dashboards doesn't solve the core problem overnight. Instead, it lays the groundwork for better decisions and greater transparency. Which metrics are best suited for this? We have compiled the most common metrics that apply across industries and business models.
Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs)
Relevance of the metric
Not every lead has the potential to become a customer. Downloading a whitepaper, registering for a webinar, or other actions demonstrate general interest, but not yet an intent to buy. Focusing on such contacts leads to a decline in quality, which ultimately generates more internal effort and higher costs. SQLs are classified as relevant by sales because they meet predefined criteria. If the focus does not shift from leads to SQLs, the very conflict of interest between marketing and sales arises, which in turn leads to friction.
Insight gained
SQLs demonstrate how successfully marketing is delivering sales-relevant contacts.
How the metric helps
An increase in the number of SQLs initially indicates a higher quality of demand generation. However, whether this trend is actually positive depends on whether those SQLs later turn into opportunities and customers. A qualification logic applies here as well: not every contact who is relevant to sales is ready or able to buy right now.
Important: For SQLs to work as a shared KPI, both teams must use the exact same definition. The criteria a lead must meet to be considered an SQL should therefore be determined jointly and reviewed regularly.
Pipeline Value
Relevance of the metric
Pipeline Value describes the worth of all active sales opportunities and uncovers realistically achievable revenue. This makes it a leading indicator for future revenue. Revenue alone is a poor leading indicator because it is always the result of past activities. Without pipeline transparency, companies only react after the consequences have already materialised, which can mean a delay of several months given the long sales cycles in B2B.
Insight gained
Pipeline Value shows whether there is enough volume to meet revenue targets. At the same time, it is frequently misinterpreted: a large pipeline does not guarantee that revenue targets will be met. To make this forecast more reliable, Win Rate and Lead-to-Customer Rate come into play.
How the metric helps
If the pipeline is insufficient to meet revenue targets, the causes can often be found in structural problems within demand generation or qualification. At the same time, a closer look at the Pipeline Value reveals whether that value is based on healthy growth or on just a few massive deals.
Lead-to-Customer Rate
Relevance of the metric
It provides an overarching view of the entire pipeline's efficiency, showing how many contacts are needed to acquire a single customer. Combined with Pipeline Value, it sharpens forecast accuracy.
Insight gained
A high or rising rate indicates a well-functioning workflow from lead generation all the way to closing. A low or declining rate tells you that there are weaknesses that need to be optimised.
How the metric helps
Breaking this rate down by individual channels reveals exactly which channel delivers the leads that actually turn into paying customers.
Win Rate
Relevance of the metric
The Win Rate measures the percentage of won opportunities in your pipeline, reflecting the quality of the pipeline up to the opportunity stage, as well as your ability to close deals. Combined with Pipeline Value, it sharpens accuracy because it doesn't just state what is potentially possible, but what percentage of your pipeline will actually buy.
Insight gained
A low rate shows you that your closing strength needs improvement. Reasons for this could include competitive pressure, insufficient qualification, or other structural weaknesses in the process.
How the metric helps
In aggregate, it shows how effective marketing and sales are at generating high-value sales opportunities. Broken down by individual SDRs, it highlights how well each SDR drives a deal to a close. If the win rate drops, we recommend closely analysing the reasons for rejection.
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
Relevance of the metric
CAC correlates marketing and sales expenditures with the acquisition of new customers. Furthermore, it is a profitability metric, not an efficiency metric. Rising CAC indicates that it is becoming increasingly difficult to acquire new customers.
Insight gained
It shows you whether your customer acquisition is profitable. Rising CAC is typically a sign of inefficient ad spend, increased competition, incorrect positioning, or inefficient sales efforts. The emergency brake should be pulled at the latest when CAC exceeds CLV (Customer Lifetime Value), because from that point onward, every customer represents a financial loss.
How the metric helps
In tandem with the Lead-to-Customer Rate, it shows you whether your customer acquisition is becoming increasingly challenging due to external or internal factors.
Revenue
Relevance of the metric
Revenue is easy to understand and directly tied to business success. It sits at the very end of the KPI chain.
Insight gained
It shows whether a company is growing, stagnating, or shrinking. At the same time, it is simple enough for every employee to understand and interpret.
How the metric helps
Operationally and strategically, it actually doesn't help at all. It is merely the result of all preceding actions and is therefore highly predictable. Anyone who looks at declining revenue with surprise has ignored the warning signs in the steps leading up to it.
Forecast Accuracy
Relevance of the metric
It describes the precision of your target versus actual revenue. At the same time, it shows how capable your company is of making reliable projections based on its own performance data.
Insight gained
High accuracy shows you that marketing and sales are confidently assessing future developments based on a shared data foundation.
How the metric helps
Forecast Accuracy makes the reliability of internal planning processes visible. As accuracy increases, it improves not only planning certainty but also the quality of strategic decisions.
When are these metrics considered „good“?
An exciting question, and logically the next one in line.
However, only a very broad, generalised answer can be given — if any at all. What is considered excellent for one company can be an absolute disaster for another. Good metrics for you depend heavily on your industry, sales model, deal size, target audience, sales cycle, market, and many other factors.
Instead of hunting for a generalised, one-size-fits-all number, you should focus on your own growth. You are in the best position to judge whether a CAC of €1,200 is good or bad. If your CAC drops quarter over quarter, you are on the right track.
And that leads to the next challenge: metrics are generally not designed to explain themselves. They show you results. You have to uncover the causes and meaning yourself.
Which KPIs make sense for which company
Not every KPI is equally suited for every business. Which metrics you should use for steering depends largely on your business model. Here is an excerpt of typical challenges and relevant KPIs by industry:
SaaS companies
Specific challenges
- •Recurring revenue
- •Scalable acquisition
- •Churn
Particularly relevant
- CAC
- SQLs
- Forecast Accuracy
- Revenue
Mechanical Engineering & Industrial
Specific challenges
- •Long sales cycles
- •Few, large deals
- •High contract value
Particularly relevant
- Pipeline Value
- Win Rate
- Order Backlog
- Revenue
Agencies & Professional Services
Specific challenges
- •Resource utilisation
- •Project-based business
- •Recurring clients
Particularly relevant
- Pipeline
- Forecast
- Revenue
- New Customer Rate
Not every metric belongs on the Management Dashboard
Fundamentally, good dashboards are focused and present the viewer with the essential metrics required to make decisions.
Therefore, not every metric is equally suited for a dashboard. An operational performance marketer can work with tactical metrics like CTRs, CPCs, and conversion rates. For the executive management, these metrics hold little interest. To use dashboards and metrics effectively, it helps to assign them to different levels.
Corporate Level
At the highest level are metrics that describe overall business success and serve as the foundation for strategic decisions.
Typical metrics
- Revenue
- Forecast Accuracy
- Pipeline Value
- New Customer Acquisition
- Growth
These metrics answer questions like
- ›Are business goals being achieved?
- ›Is the current pipeline sufficient to secure future revenue?
- ›How reliable are our revenue forecasts?
- ›Is the company moving in the desired direction?
Middle Management
Situated between strategic business goals and operational activities is the Revenue Level — middle management. This is where metrics are analysed that directly impact revenue development and are jointly owned by marketing and sales.
Typical metrics
- Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs)
- Lead-to-Customer Rate
- Win Rate
- Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
These metrics help evaluate the performance of the revenue engine and identify early on where opportunities or challenges are arising. For instance, if the Win Rate drops or the Lead-to-Customer Rate deteriorates, this can point to issues within demand generation, qualification, or sales execution.
Operational Level
At the operational level are metrics that are vital for the daily optimisation of individual tactics.
Typical metrics
- CTR (Click-Through Rate)
- CPC (Cost per Click)
- Open Rates
- Landing Page Conversion Rates
- Cost per Lead
These metrics show marketing and sales teams which individual tactics are working and where room for optimisation exists. Operational metrics offer valuable clues for tweaking specific campaigns, but they only describe a small fraction of the overall customer journey.
Middle management bridges the gap between the corporate level and the operational level, recognising whether the company is on track and which strategic adjustments need to be made.
From shared KPIs to a binding SLA
Shared KPIs create transparency, but they are no substitute for explicit agreements. Who is responsible when conversions plummet? What happens to an SQL that isn't followed up on? What does the handoff between marketing and sales look like in practice?
This is exactly where a Service Level Agreement (SLA) between marketing and sales comes into play. It governs definitions, responsibilities, handoffs, and escalation paths — turning shared metrics into a jointly manageable system.
Together we build
the bridge
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