Marketing

6sense Revenue AI™ for Marketing

Who We Help

CMO

Unite your revenue team and drive strategy across the business.

Demand Gen

Focus on in-market accounts and take the guesswork out of demand gen.

Digital

Reach the people and accounts that matter to your business.

How We Do It

Account Identification

Accurately match anonymous and known buyer behavior to accounts.

Intent Data

Uncover 3rd party buying signals at the keyword or topic level.

Predictive Analytics

AI-driven buying stage predictions align teams on the best time to engage.

Data Enrichment

Enrich accounts, leads, and contacts with accurate firmographic data.

Smart Form Fill

Autofill and shorten forms with automated, real-time form enrichment.

Audience Building

Create audiences for segmentation, activation, and analysis across channels.

Advertising

Reach target buyers with display, video, retargeting, and social ad campaigns.

Conversational Email

Leverage AI to craft personalized emails that qualify & convert accounts at scale.

Orchestrations & Workflows

Scale data operations with accurate engagement of accounts and contacts.

6sense Revenue AI™
for Marketing

Uncover hidden demand to boost marketing impact and generate higher-quality pipeline.

Learn More
Sales

6sense Revenue AI™ for Sales

Who We Help

CRO

6sense gives sales leaders the intel they need to deliver on big revenue goals.

Inside Sales

When working hundreds of accounts, knowing where to prioritize is critical.

RevOps

Use clean, complete data and scalable processes.

How We Do It

Company & People Search

B2B account and contact data with insights for when to engage prospects.

Account Intelligence

Arm reps with account insights in CRM & SEP for prioritization and personalization.

Prioritization Dashboards

Dashboards that help sellers uncover which accounts to engage and when.

Chrome Extension

Access Revenue AI insights directly from LinkedIn and other B2B websites.

Predictive Analytics

AI-driven buying stage predictions align teams on the best time to engage.

Buyer Intent Data

Uncover 3rd party buying signals at the keyword or topic level.

Prospecting Workflows

The insights sellers need in the tools they use, everyday.

Get Started for Free

Access FREE credits to unlock relevant contact info, and see our packages for teams of all sizes.

Start for Free
Solutions

Solutions

Industries

Business Services

Drive efficiency with a data-driven approach.

Financial Services

Acquire loyal customers with rich secure data.

Manufacturing

Modernize revenue creation with AI-driven data.

Technology & Software

Drive growth and boost customer adoption.

Transportation & Logistics

Boost conversions with targeted audiences.

Data

Our Data

The most complete dataset for B2B.

Data APIs

Real-time enrichment and personalization anywhere.

Data Packs

Reduce manual processes to achieve database connectivity.

Ecosystem

Integrations

Get the most out of your tech stack.

Agency Partners

Get support from our partners.

Become a Partner

Let's do more than just work together.

Dive into 6sense Revenue AI™

Reinvent the way your team creates, manages, and converts pipeline to revenue.

Explore Platform
Resources

Resource Library

Resource Library

Dive into various topics and content types.

Blog

Short insights, designed to educate.

In-Market Demand Report

Know which companies are interested in you.

Guides

Follow our in-depth articles & how-to’s.

6sense for 6sense

See how the 6sense team uses 6sense.

Research

Events & Webinars

The Revenue Makers Podcast

Reports & Ebooks

Recorded Demos

Tools

One Pagers

Glossary

Videos

TalkingSense

The Science of B2B

6sense Named a Leader in Gartner Magic Quadrant for ABM for the 3rd Year in a Row

No email required to get a copy of this objective evaluation of the ABM vendors.

Read the Report
Customers

Customers

Meet Our Customers

See how companies like yours leverage 6sense to drive efficiency.

Customer Stories

Dive into the success and journeys of our customers .

Customer Reviews

Read real reviews to understand what 6sense can do for you.

RevCity

Connect with your peers, share successes, and learn about 6sense.

Knowledge Base & Support

Explore our help articles, product updates, and submit support tickets.

WE GET YOU. WE GOT YOU.

Introducing the 6dimensional Success Model™ – a methodology that empowers customers to unleash their full revenue potential and and achieve extraordinary outcomes.

Explore Our Success Model
Company

Company

About 6sense

Learn about our company values, vision, employee benefits, and more.

Leadership Team

Dreamers and data nerds; Meet the leadership team behind 6sense.

Careers

We want 6sense to be the best chapter of your career.

Newsroom

Read press releases, thought leadership, company announcements and more.

Community

Dive into the communities 6sense hosts and takes part in.

Become Our Partner

Let’s do more than work together. Let’s revolutionize B2B together.

Explore Our Partners

Template is not defined.

How To: Boost Sales Performance at Every Stage of Your Pipeline

February 3, 2023 —

The 6sense Team

8 min

Chapter 1

Introduction

Chapter 2

But First, Some Metrics-Related Context

Chapter 3

Relevant Metrics from ‘Awareness’ to ‘SQL’ (or ‘6QA’)

Chapter 4

From 6QA to Meeting

Chapter 5

From Meeting to Pipeline

Chapter 6

From Pipeline to Closed/Won

Chapter 7

From Closed/Won to Adopt & Grow

Chapter 1

Introduction

Selling and marketing are harder than ever. Old-school tactics are pushing modern buyers away, leaving revenue teams frustrated, inefficient, and unable to compete. In No Forms. No Spam. No Cold Calls, Latané Conant delivers the recipe for scalable, repeatable, data-driven sales and marketing strategies that work today.

In this How-To, we provide a practical, tactical dive into some of the strategies outlined in Chapter 4.

In her book No Forms. No Spam. No Cold Calls, 6sense CMO Latané Conant points out that B2B revenue teams are always asked to do more. But more rarely means better. In fact, when marketers and salesfolk spread themselves too thin, they’re likely to lose focus and fumble opportunities.

These fumbles, Conant says, are often caused by disagreements within the revenue team on which metrics deliver the most impact to an organization’s pipeline.

She writes: “If we want to get the entire team engaged in creating predictable revenue growth, it’s crucial for sales and marketing teams to align on goals, data, and metrics. A siloed approach sets even the most sophisticated strategies and tactics up for lackluster results. … (A) lot of organizations aren’t even tracking the metrics they need to create and stick to an effective revenue operating model.”

So, what are these most-important metrics? Benchmarking the ones below will provide visibility into your pipeline stages and key activities that can help you progress accounts toward deals.

Chapter 2

But First, Some Metrics-Related Context

As we dive into this topic, you might encounter the names of some unfamiliar metrics — particularly ones mentioned within the early stages of the sales process.

This will be especially so if your revenue team uses traditional MQL-based models, which rely heavily on information that interested buyers provide via webforms or demo requests. This typically occurs near the end of a buyer’s journey.

However, the metrics we’ll share reflect buyer activities that occur much earlier in the buyer’s journey. These activities — which reflect buyers’ online research — are often invisible to selling teams because they’re generated on third-party websites, message boards, digital trade publications, and social networks.

Account-based marketing and sales intelligence tools (like 6sense) can detect, compile, and analyze these early-stage buyer intent signals and convert them into meaningful metrics. These metrics may differ by name, depending on which tool you use. For our purposes, we’ll use terminology from the 6sense platform for consistency.

(Check out this resource if you’d like to compare some of these metrics to their traditional-marketing equivalents.)

With that out of the way, let’s take a closer look.

Chapter 3

Relevant Metrics from ‘Awareness’ to ‘SQL’ (or ‘6QA’)

A buyer’s journey begins as soon as a buyer starts searching for a solution for an issue they need to solve. A tool that tracks these buyer intent signals can help you spot when an account has begun its buying journey.

Tools like 6sense can take this a step further by analyzing signals to determine where an account sits in its buying process. This is important because it enables you to personalize your communication with accounts as they progress through the funnel. It also nails the timing for outreach so you’re not too late (or too early) to start a one-on-one conversation.

As an account’s journey progresses and their interests increase in specific ways, it’s identified as a Sales Qualified Lead (SQL). At 6sense, we call these 6QAs (6sense Qualified Accounts).

This change is based on a combination of how closely an account matches your ideal customer profile (ICP) and how engaged buying team personas are in their research. The goal at this stage of the pipeline is to progress accounts from their initial awareness toward becoming a 6QA.

How well is your organization converting in-market prospects into 6QAs?

Use the metrics below as a guide:

Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) Web Traffic

How many of your targeted accounts are visiting your website? This is an indication of how well you’re reaching and enticing target customers.

ICP Engagement

How actively are accounts researching the problems you can solve, the solutions you can offer, your brand, and competitors?

Predictive Model Metrics

How many of the accounts in your pipeline are a “strong fit” — meaning they closely resemble past deals? AI and machine learning scores all of your opportunities to determine which accounts are “strong fit” vs. “moderate fit” or “weak fit.”

Segmentation

How precisely are you able to segment your audience? This provides insights into the accuracy and robustness of your account data.

Share of Voice (SOV)

How visible is your brand compared to competitors? Are you reaching your ICP often enough to make an impression, even amid competition?

Accounts Reached

This represents how many unique contacts within target accounts are seeing your marketing content, indicating the effectiveness of your methods for segmenting and targeting prospects.

View-Through Rate (VTR)

How much of your audience takes further action after viewing a piece of content? Thanks to buying signals that track account behavior, you can see how campaigns influence research — no clicks required.

AR (Accounts Reached) Engagement

Which of your campaigns are influencing pipeline, and is that influence growing or shrinking?

CTAs

What are the conversion rates for your calls to action? Which CTAs attract the most engagement with certain audience segments?

Creative & Content

Which types of content and creative have the most influence? Should you double down on certain content types? Is there a piece of content that is underperforming and may need to be reworked?

Keywords

Are you tracking the right keywords and topics? Look at which accounts are progressing and the keywords being used. Consider expanding your targeting to include related keywords.

Chapter 4

From 6QA to Meeting

Once accounts become 6QAs (or SQLs), it’s time for your reps to engage in live conversations.

Consider these factors as you evaluate efforts to book meetings:

Conversion Rate & Velocity

How quickly accounts are progressing through the pipeline? Which outreach efforts are in getting the right people in meetings?

Cadence

How often are you reaching out and engaging with accounts?

Service-Level Agreements (SLAs)

Once a lead is qualified, you should have an agreed-upon timeframe for reaching out. Is the sales team consistently meeting that timeframe? If not, what can be done to overcome any obstacles?

6QAs Worked

How many 6sense Qualified Accounts (aka Sales Qualified Leads) are currently being engaged? Are your marketing efforts successfully turning strong fit prospects into 6QAs, and are those 6QAs being reached by sales reps?

ICP Engagement

This shows how engaged ICP accounts are with marketing content and advertising. Critically, consider how many buyer personas are engaged and the steps you can take to increase the number of buying team members exposed to content.

CTAs

Which calls to action (CTAs) are leading to meetings or engagement?

Web & Content Experience

How effortlessly can contacts at target accounts move through your website and access relevant content? Look at page depth, time on site, and other metrics to find ways to improve the user experience. Consider how you can use intent data and audience segments to personalize the website experience for prospects.

Bot Conversations

Live website chat, Conversational Email, or other AI powered bots can be powerful tools for increasing conversion rates — but only if they are triggered appropriately and deliver a personalized experience.

Chapter 5

From Meeting to Pipeline

You’ve had the first conversation.

It’s time to examine what might be preventing prospects from taking the next step.

Conversion Rate & Velocity

Again, keep a close eye on how long accounts stay in each pipeline stage. If they are lingering, that’s a red flag to look at your process.

Aging Reports

Even with a great process, some accounts will linger. Set up a report to hone in on the accounts stuck in the meetings and 6QA stages, and consider setting up specific campaigns for moving them forward (e.g., offering a discount or other incentive).

Conversation Intelligence

Review your team’s sales calls and listen for topics discussed, questions asked, and more to determine whether seller behaviors are working to advance accounts. If you’re not already recording your sales calls, invest in conversational intelligence software like Gong, Chorus.ai, or Salesloft.

Cadence

How often are you reaching out and engaging with accounts? A certain number of touch points are typically needed to move an account forward.

Worked Opps Accounts

How many opportunities is sales engaging with at a given time? Do you have enough resources to handle all of the conversations?

Web & Content Experience

Take a look at the prospects in this pipeline stage. What content are they consuming on your site, and what topics are they reading about elsewhere? Do you need to add or strengthen content that is of interest to buyers at this stage?

Chapter 6

From Pipeline to Closed/Won

The finish line is within reach, so make sure there are no remaining bumps that prevent the account from crossing it.

Investigating these metrics will set your team on a path to win:

Win Rate (Compete)

How often you are closing new customers when you’re up against competitors? This gives insight into your ability to demonstrate your differentiators and unique value.

Win Rate (Non-Compete)

How often you are closing new customers when you’re not up against competitors? This gives insight into how effectively you’re reaching the right accounts before they’ve spoken to other vendors.

Cycle Time

The average time it takes to get an account through your buying journey, providing visibility into the overall efficiency of your sales process, as well as an indication of how quickly you will be able to book revenue.

Annual Contract Value (ACV)

The annual revenue a specific account brings in.

Engagement Trends

Campaign and content performance month-over-month or quarter-over-quarter.

Worked Opps Accounts

How many opportunities is sales engaging with at a given time? Do you have enough resources to handle all of the conversations?

Web & Content Experience

Chapter 7

From Closed/Won to Adopt & Grow

You’ve closed the deal, but you’re not done. Now it’s time for the customer success team to provide a positive experience that makes accounts stick around for the long haul.

You can also use the customer journey to identify patterns in your sales and onboarding process that predict the lifetime value of your customers.

Here’s what you should examine:

Net & Gross Retention

How many new accounts do you acquire, and how many do you keep year-over-year? New sales are nice, but customer retention is key to growing your revenue baseline. It can also tell you whether you’re signing on the right kind of customers for your product and delivering good value and customer experience.

Time to Go-Live

A measurement of how quickly your solution is implemented and adopted after a customer signs the contract, indicating the efficiency of your onboarding program.

Usage

How many people are using the product, and how often? Low usage is an early indication that a customer’s employees may not be adding the new tool into their workflows. Why?

Adoption

Adoption goes beyond usage to ask: How many people are using the product meaningfully and for its intended purpose? Are they getting the expected results? If not, why not? Do they need additional training support, or are they in need of additional solutions?

Personas Engaged

Who is using the product and how? As you build success with initial users, are there opportunities to serve others within the company?

Relationship Map

What are the relationships between engaged customers and others in the company? Understanding those relationships can help you spot opportunities to grow sales in other parts of the organization, and which customer contacts may be most influential for expansion.

Value Metrics

The goal is to capture profit while still delivering great value based on your pricing model. Does fixed pricing, tiered pricing, or per-use pricing make the most sense for your customers? Are you losing customers because they have a limited (but valuable to them) use case, but you only provide an enterprise-level solution? Are you only selling space shuttles when two-thirds of your customers just need a Volvo?

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

A measurement of customer experience and satisfaction with your brand that predicts business growth.

Learn More in Our ‘No Forms. No Spam. No Cold Calls’ Resource Center

Interested in learning more about taking your sales and marketing effort to the next level by uncovering and targeting the accounts most likely to buy? Visit our Resource Center to find more How-To’s like this one inspired from the pages of Conant’s book.

All of 6sense’s proceeds from book sales go to GoodSense, the charitable arm of 6sense whose mission is to do our part for our community and beyond.

No Forms.
No Spam.
No Cold Calls.

The 6sense Team

6sense helps B2B organizations achieve predictable revenue growth by putting the power of AI, big data, and machine learning behind every member of the revenue team.

Related Resources

Marketing

Account-Based Experience

How We Do It

6sense Revenue AI™ for Marketing

How We Do It

Industries

Data

Ecosystem

Dive into 6sense Revenue AI™

6sense Named a Leader in Gartner Magic Quadrant for ABM for the 3rd Year in a Row

WE GET YOU. WE GOT YOU.

Company

Become Our Partner

How To: Boost Sales Performance at Every Stage of Your Pipeline

Chapters

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Table of Contents

Introduction

But First, Some Metrics-Related Context

Relevant Metrics from ‘Awareness’ to ‘SQL’ (or ‘6QA’)

Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) Web Traffic

ICP Engagement

Predictive Model Metrics

Segmentation

Share of Voice (SOV)

Accounts Reached

View-Through Rate (VTR)

AR (Accounts Reached) Engagement

CTAs

Creative & Content

Keywords

From 6QA to Meeting

Conversion Rate & Velocity

Cadence

Service-Level Agreements (SLAs)

6QAs Worked

ICP Engagement

CTAs

Web & Content Experience

Bot Conversations

From Meeting to Pipeline

Conversion Rate & Velocity

Aging Reports

Conversation Intelligence

Cadence

Worked Opps Accounts

Web & Content Experience

From Pipeline to Closed/Won

Win Rate (Compete)

Win Rate (Non-Compete)

Cycle Time

Annual Contract Value (ACV)

Engagement Trends

Worked Opps Accounts

Web & Content Experience

From Closed/Won to Adopt & Grow

Net & Gross Retention

Time to Go-Live

Usage

Adoption

Personas Engaged

Relationship Map

Value Metrics

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Learn More in Our ‘No Forms. No Spam. No Cold Calls’ Resource Center

No Forms. No Spam. No Cold Calls.

The 6sense Team

Related Resources

Solutions

Company

Browse 6sense Data

6sense Revenue AI™
for Marketing

No Forms.
No Spam.
No Cold Calls.