MARKETING METRICS THAT MATTER: KPIS EVERY PEO SALES TEAM SHOULD TRACK

As our business has grown, we have focused on building out our leadership team. We spent a lot of time building out departmental KPIs to measure success and revenue projections. What was once easy to know how clients were performing day to day, we needed a broader picture of leading indicators to project future growth or potential service issues. As our business has grown, we rely on these metrics to not only recalibrate our strategy when numbers are off, but reward performance when key metrics are met.

For the sales and marketing department, that meant looking at what was going to drive our top goal: worksite employee growth. We identified that if we added 2% worksite employees month over month, we would meet our annual top line goals. From there, it was just a matter of working backwards to outline the steps that would get us there.

SALES KPIs WE TRACK

1. Closed revenue per month. This is our most direct measure of sales success, tracking the actual dollars closed each month. It helps us gauge performance against monthly goals and overall revenue targets.
2. Number of WSE per closed deal. Tracking the average number of worksite employees (WSE) per deal gives us insight into deal size and overall account value. It also helps forecast onboarding volume and future service needs.
3. Number of deals submitted to underwriting. Fully submitted deals are a strong leading indicator of pipeline strength. We treat this as a signal that a prospect is serious, and it allows us to project how many deals may close in the next 30–60 days.
4. Number of discovery calls per week. Discovery calls reflect how effectively we’re generating qualified interest. A consistent number of weekly calls keeps the pipeline active. We like to see two discovery calls set per week at a minimum.
5. Number of outbound touches per week. Continuing to work up the sales funnel, this is a key activity metric that ensures we’re putting in the outreach necessary to generate conversations. It’s a foundational behavior that supports all other KPIs in the funnel.

From our own analysis and understanding of how our business operates, we determined that the number of deals submitted to underwriting was a contributing factor to understanding our sales success. From there, we can safely presume the prospect is serious about services and our chances of winning the business are high. Allowing sales executives to work autonomously is important for employee satisfaction so if valid deals are submitted, sales activity is clearly working and should be continued.

Alternatively, if a sales rep does not have at least two deals going into underwriting per month, we need to take a step back and look at other factors: how many discovery meetings have we set? How many phone calls are we making each week? All of our actions build upon the other, so if there is something not making the mark, we need to go back to the previous step.

The marketing KPIs we track are designed to measure how well we’re fueling the sales pipeline and building brand trust over time. With the right insights, we can connect outreach efforts to real outcomes and support the team in hitting their revenue goals.

MARKETING KPIs WE TRACK

1. Lead tracking by source channel. Knowing where our leads come from whether it’s advertising, referrals, social media, or email, helps us allocate time and budget to the channels that deliver the highest ROI. It also reveals which marketing efforts are generating the most qualified prospects. For our team, we are looking to see that one-third of our leads come from client referrals, which indicates client satisfaction. The remainder of our leads should be a result of marketing efforts supported by sales outreach such as drop-ins, phone calls and networking opportunities.
2. Conversion rates. We track how many leads move from interest to action, whether that’s scheduling a discovery call or signing a deal. Monitoring conversion rates helps us fine-tune messaging, target the right audience, and identify missing pieces in the funnel.
3. Open rates for email marketing. Open rates tell us how well our subject lines and timing are performing. High open rates indicate we’re reaching the right audience with the right message. For our prospect emails, we look to achieve a 21% open rate while our client emails should be around a 30% or higher open rate. If our messaging is curated, then we should be able to achieve this, but again, we pay close attention to these results to fine-tune for future campaigns.

We’ve learned over the years that it will never be one thing that drives a sale, but a series of actions and touchpoints. Our marketing KPIs tie into our sales KPIs because the results lead to achieving our sales goals. While client referrals are a leading indicator of client satisfaction, the remainder of our leads indicate that our message is on target and we are reaching people in the appropriate channel. Again, if we look at the data and see all of our referrals for a specific timeframe came from clients, then we can infer that we are meeting client expectations.

However, client referrals are not the only way we understand our client satisfaction. We’ve moved our client satisfaction surveys to quarterly with a different subset of clients each quarter. This enables us to have consistent data points to reveal what is going on with our clientele. By splitting the data into quarters, we have a continual flow coming in and can catch trends and plan accordingly based on the responses. Our client satisfaction should be increasing versus decreasing each quarter.

In the end, success in sales and marketing is driven by a combination of instinct and data. Ultimately, aligning our sales and marketing KPIs has allowed us to operate with greater clarity and confidence. We’re measuring what’s working, rather than guessing. With a consistent feedback loop and a disciplined approach to tracking performance, our teams are empowered to make informed decisions that drive meaningful results. When everyone knows what success looks like, it’s a lot easier to get there together.