Business Impact Framework Report

Executive Summary

Revenue generation is 120% more effective when using 6sense to identify and pursue accounts that are in-market and ready to buy.

One of the greatest challenges organizations face when making the transition from lead-based to account-based is measuring the impact of an account-based approach on pipeline and revenue production.

Without a clear understanding of how to measure the business impact of their account-based efforts and a framework to understand how to make the transition, many organizations cling to traditional lead-based metrics. This often exacerbates the “dual funnel” problem — two distinct sets of processes and metrics, and no clear path to making the full transition to an account-based approach.

The promise of an account-based approach leaves behind the MQL-to-SQL hand-off that has traditionally plagued marketing and sales teams (e.g., quality/quantity of leads, poor collaboration, inconsistent metrics, etc.), and instead offers a way for the entire revenue team to prioritize the best accounts to pursue, gain deep insights into those accounts, and work jointly to move those accounts through the buying journey. The question remains however: What are the key measures of success?

The incredible benefits of focusing on “in-market” accounts

For years now, the approach to measuring the success of lead gen programs aimed at finding interested buyers has been mostly a one-size-fits-all scenario where marketing generates interest and passes qualified leads over to sales to “work.” The measure of success is generally rooted in the quantity of MQLs marketing can produce to satisfy sales’ pipeline needs.

And while volume metrics remain an important part of measuring both pipeline health and revenue generation, issues remain with the classic MQL- to-SQL hand-off, including focusing on a single person rather than the full buying team; inability to identify and capitalize on anonymous behavior; and “qualifications” based on arbitrary, point-based lead scoring. Even the most sophisticated lead scoring methodologies don’t get “smarter” over time, require manual intervention, and often produce unpredictable results.

Now we are delighted to share the results of 6sense’s first annual benchmark study across our customer base that examines the difference in outcomes between accounts worked by sales after being identified by 6sense’s patented AI-driven prediction models as ready to engage, and accounts worked by sales despite not being identified by 6sense as showing significant intent to open an opportunity. (6sense accounts vs. non-6sense accounts)

The details below reveal the dramatic improvement 6sense customers are seeing in average selling price and win rates, along with reduced cycle times when focusing on accounts identified by 6sense as “in-market.” The data is compelling and unequivocally clear about one thing: It’s not about generating more MQLs; it’s about fast-tracking in-market accounts and ensuring they’re worked as effectively and efficiently as possible.

Definitions

Buying stages

6sense’s AI-powered buying stage model predicts where accounts are on the buying journey, classifying accounts showing purchase intent from lowest to highest with four distinct pre-opportunity stages: Consideration, Awareness, Decision, and Purchase.

6sense account

An account being worked by sales that has been identified by 6sense’s patented approach to scoring and AI-driven prediction capabilities as showing significant likelihood of becoming an active opportunity prior to the opportunity being opened.

Non-6sense account

An account being worked by sales that was not identified by 6sense as showing significant intent for a solution prior to opening the opportunity.

Revenue maximization

The ability to achieve both maximum deal size and win rate. (Deal size x win rate.)

Revenue effectiveness

The improvement realized by working 6sense accounts vs non-6sense accounts, expressed as a percentage. (Revenue maximization from 6sense accounts revenue maximization from non-6sense accounts) / (revenue maximization from non-6sense accounts.)

Average deal value

Also known as Average Selling Price, and calculated by dividing the total revenue earned by the total number of units sold.

Opportunity conversion rate (or win rate)

The number of opportunities won versus the total number of opportunities, expressed as a percentage. (Number of opportunities won) / (total number of opportunities generated.)

Average days to close

Also known as Time-to-Close, or Cycle Time, this refers to the number of days betweenopening an opportunity and closing a deal.

Effort / “Worked”

An account has been considered “worked” by sales if there is at least one sales activity identified.

In-market account

An account that has been scored by 6sense’s proprietary prediction engine and determined to be in the “awareness,” “consideration,” “decision,” or “purchase” stage of the buyer journey pre-opportunity.

Key Findings

Following are the results of a comprehensive study analyzing key success metrics across a random selection of 6sense customers, comparing results from instances where 6sense identified accounts with a high likelihood to open an opportunity against accounts that were not identified by 6sense as showing significant intent to buy.

Dramatic improvement was seen within the first two quarters of analysis, and continued for all four quarters across key metrics, including average deal value, opportunity conversion rate, and time-to-close (a critical set of metrics to focus on in order to drive more predictable revenue growth).

Revenue & effort: Detailed analysis

As 6sense customers worked through their account-based transition, they began to spend more time and effort on accounts identified by 6sense and less time with non-6sense accounts (so it would make sense, revenue would follow the 6sense accounts).

However, what’s surprising is the degree to which focusing efforts on 6sense accounts had on revenue production within a very short period of time.

Within their first quarter with 6sense, companies were spending an average of 80% of their efforts on non-6sense accounts (driving $929,690,347 in revenue, on average). The other 20% of their time was spent on 6sense accounts (driving $226,237,200 in revenue). So, 20% of their efforts spent working 6sense accounts drove 20% of their overall revenue — a 1:1 relationship between effort and revenue production.

However, very quickly after going live, we begin to see a dramatic shift in both focus on — and revenue production from — 6sense accounts. What we uncovered is that all effort isn’t equal. Within just two quarters of customers beginning the journey from a lead-based to an account-based GTM strategy, 6sense accounts were receiving 56% of the effort, but driving 79% of the revenue! That’s a 1.4x efficiency multiplier over working non-6sense accounts, meaning the same revenue could have been generated with 40% less effort (or 40% fewer leads!) had the revenue team focused 100% of their efforts on 6sense accounts.

This is a vivid example of the substantial efficiency and value realized by using 6sense to identify high value accounts that shows up in improved win rates, reduced cycle times, and larger deal sizes — in a very short period of time.

Revenue maximization & effectiveness: Detailed analysis

The ability to maximize revenue means achieving both maximum price (deal size) and quantity (win rate) simultaneously. The need to discount to close deals, or being priced out of opportunities, both affect revenue maximization.

Our analysis compared 6sense customers’ ability to achieve revenue maximization when working both 6sense and non-6sense accounts to determine what performance gains were realized by focusing on accounts identified by 6sense. This is expressed as Revenue Effectiveness, or simply to what degree (expressed as a percentage) revenue teams were able to maximize revenue when focusing on 6sense vs non-6sense accounts.

The improvement on both Revenue Maximization and Revenue Effectiveness are shown in the chart above. Revenue Maximization and Effectiveness attained by working 6sense accounts followed a similar pattern as Effort, with the first quarter after go-live setting the stage for massive improvements in Q3.

Here we see a similar crawl-walk-run approach to adopting an account-based go-to-market strategy with quick wins setting the stage for massive improvement in quarters three and four as the prediction models continue to get smarter, and teams increasingly work 6sense accounts. By the fourth quarter, on average, 6sense customers were seeing an Effectiveness rate of 120%.

Put plainly, a sales rep could close 100 deals that came from both 6sense and non-6sense accounts. If deals from non-6Qa accounts delivered $100K in revenue, deals from 6QA will deliver $220K in revenue for the same 100 opportunities; an effectiveness score of 120% (Q4 result).

Additional findings & analysis across the 6sense customer base surveyed

• Total opportunities opened: 714,000
• Total opportunities won: 144,000
• Total revenue generated across all won opportunities: $7.5 Billion
• Major industries represented: 5 (Business Services, Computer Software, Hardware, Software and Technology, Telecommunication Services)

Interesting side note…

At the end of the four quarters of analysis, we still found customers were, on average, working non-6sense opportunities 37% of the time. Had these customers only worked accounts identified by 6sense, our survey results indicate they could have generated $731 million in additional revenues in just one quarter.

Methodology & data

6sense examined 100 random 6sense customer accounts across industries, geographies, and size to better understand how using an intent-based, predictive approach compares to a traditional lead-based (MQL-focused) approach.

Dataset used in analysis:

• 100 random customers who have predictive models running for at least a year.
• 125 predictive models, as some customers have more than one model in order to predict in-market accounts for separate products or solutions.
• 500 quarters worth of data.

Key Findings

• Prioritizing efforts on 6sense accounts is critical to revenue maximization. The data conclusively shows it’s not about marketing delivering more leads; it’s about the entire revenue team prioritizing and working accounts with the highest likelihood of opening an opportunity. On average, sales and marketing teams were 120% more efficient in delivering revenue when prioritizing accounts predicted by 6sense over other accounts.
• All 6sense customers in the data set realized immediate improvement in revenue maximization with the most dramatic improvements being realized after two quarters, when revenue teams typically begin more fully adopting the 6sense approach.
• Long-term, predictable revenue growth requires the ability to specifically measure and influence average deal size, opportunity conversion rates, and time-to-close. The data presented in this report can provide some performance benchmarks as it is an average of 100 random 6sense customers across 500 quarters worth of data.
• Every organization needs time to change, yet those who prepare for and accelerate the adoption of prioritizing accounts as identified by 6sense across the entire revenue team realize the greatest gains the fastest.
• Arbitrary lead scoring efforts (e.g., points, minutes, etc.) are sub-optimal, as these manual efforts lack the ability to become “smarter” and improve over time. AI-based scoring models use historical opportunity conversion data as well as real-time intent and engagement data to identify exactly what specific actions and behaviors indicate an account is likely to open an opportunity.
• The data analyzed in this report indicates a “virtuous cycle” or flywheel effect as the accumulation of early wins leads to continually-increasing trust and collaboration between sales and marketing teams. As confidence increases in marketing’s ability to warm and deliver high-quality accounts, adoption by sales grows, resulting in the kind of high level trust and collaboration across the entire revenue team that’s necessary to deliver long-term predictable revenue growth.

Disclaimer

All data collected and presented in this report are from real 6sense customers; however aggregate/ average results are not intended to represent or guarantee that any organization using 6sense will achieve the same or similar results.