B2B Marketing KPIs

In the business world, a KPI is a Key Performance Indicator. In the age of big data, we can track all sorts of data points, including specific B2B marketing KPIs. For example, you can track click rate, bounce rate, influence reach, and campaign engagement. You can also track team efficiency, customer satisfaction rates, and completed orders — but which ones are the key indicators of your success?

And when it comes to the influence-based efforts of B2B marketing, how do you know which campaign designs or outreach methods are providing the greatest benefit in terms of reach and conversion?

B2B marketing KPIs are your guide points to these essential answers. By tracking your B2B marketing KPIs, you gain the ability to track your successful outreach and influence, then determine how to hone your strategies further to win even more B2B leads and clients.

The Most Important B2B Marketing KPIs

Update your business’s B2B marketing metrics with the essential KPIs in each of these areas:

MQLs, SQLs, and 6QA Lead Generation

MQL = Marketing-Qualified Leads

MQLs are leads that have expressed an interest in the product. They have, in some measurable and explicit way, interacted with your marketing campaign and chosen to interact with your assets. These leads have not revealed their pain points, but they are more interested than a cold call or random passer-by.

SQL = Sales-Qualified Leads

SQLs are leads that have spoken to your sales team or completed an onboarding survey. Their level of interest has warranted a direct follow-up with the sales team.

6QA = 6sense Qualified Accounts

These are MQLs and SQLs that have been uniquely scored using 6sense’s AI-powered, data-backed platform as being in-market to buy a solution. They represent an ideal fit.

Top-Viewed Pages and Content

Your top-viewed KPI shows you which pages and even which sections of each page get the most engagement. Track which pages and paragraphs are the most read, which assets gain the most engagement, and which content is downloaded the most.

Conversion From Campaigns

Conversion from campaigns is a KPI that shows how many deals were closed based on an email or ad campaign. Custom links and landing pages can make these conversions easier to track. But you can also ask leads to share where they first saw your marketing copy.

Campaign ROI

Your campaign ROI (return on investment) will show you the difference between the cost of a campaign and how much revenue it has generated in return.

Qualified Lead Conversion Rate

Your MQL/SQL/6QA conversion rate shows you how many qualified and pursued leads eventually become customers. This number indicates how well your combined marketing and sales efforts are helping leads make a positive final decision to become customers.

B2B Marketing KPI Examples

MQL/SQL/6QA Conversion Rate

Your qualified lead conversion rate lets you know how many leads and accounts convert to customers. This is a vital KPI for assessing whether or not your marketing efforts have effective messaging and timing to reach your ideal prospects at the right time.

Campaign ROI Analysis

Cost efficiency is essential to turn your budget into the most compelling and effective lead generation. The ROI, or return on investment, rate of your B2B marketing campaigns will tell you if your advertisement, email, or multichannel campaigns are running effectively and cost-efficiently.

If campaigns are not generating the revenue you anticipated, then they may need more specific or personalized messaging. The timing may not be right, or your campaigns may have the right message while targeting the wrong audience.

If any campaign results in more cost than revenue (negative ROI), you can then identify opportunities to reduce costs on ad spend or team hours. You can also fully eliminate ineffective campaigns.

3 Examples of How to Use B2B KPIs

Consider these three common scenarios and how having B2B KPIs in place can help:

You have a landing page that brings in many MQLs who read the content and might even download a piece. But a low conversion rate indicates something is missing from your customer experience pipeline. So you improve your landing pages and conversion funnel and then see a marked increase in conversions from your landing page.
You are ready to start a new campaign and need to know what worked best previously. Your team looks at your top-viewed KPIs and discovers that a niche download is ranking well, so you design a high-performing campaign targeting that niche.
You have a campaign that is performing well, but the ROI is not good. Upon investigation, you remove underperforming keywords from the PPC list and equip your team with tools to reduce the hours spent on the work. The campaign continues to result in excellent lead generation and conversions with a positive ROI.