12 KPIs Every Media Sales Organization Should Track

Nimble Media Sales and Ops leaders are already leveraging data science that gives them ahead-of-the-curve insights. Yet, distilling all that information into distinct KPIs isn’t always easy—especially in a complex, omnichannel environment. Since what gets measured gets managed, choosing KPIs that align with modern data capture processes and long-term goals is crucial to obtaining a competitive edge. 

At Boostr, our CRM, OMS, and proposal recommendation engine were designed by former media executives to track, manage, and maximize omnichannel ad revenue. Since we have the privilege of working with some of the biggest names in media to help them track and manage key metrics, we have a pulse not just on all the latest trends—but also on what data is springboarding publishers to greater success. 

We’ve distilled our observations into a list of the 12 most vital KPIs that media sales and ops teams should track in 2023 and beyond, organized into three major categories: forecasting, margins, and sales activity. 

Forecasting

Despite short-term shareholder pressures, long-term growth is a goal most publishers share. KPIs associated with forecasting gauge future prospects and potential. Robust data in this arena also supports more data-driven sales strategy, effective pipelining, and coordination across Ad Ops and Rev Ops. Well-defined, well-tracked metrics fed by real-time data can be valuable to both sellers and the C-suite. 

Our top picks for forecasting KPIs are: 

1. Quota vs. booked by seller. Bookings by rep weighed against the sales teams’ quota portray the overall health of the team and bookings balance across sellers. Sales teams often miss quotas, and this metric illuminates the causes by examining the effectiveness of coaching, optimization, supportive technologies, and conversion tactics. 

2. Quota vs. forecast. This KPI can be broken down more granularly—by team, seller, or product. It provides visibility into quota attainment and an understanding of whether a team is on track to achieve its quota for a specific time period. 

3. Gap to goal. Many of our partners track a gap to goal or pipeline coverage KPI. This assessment calculates the difference between current sales performance and business goals. Having this info in real-time gives companies a chance to triage and make up lost ground before it’s too late.

4. Deals needed to meet the quota. Beyond straight quota and gap-to-goal tracing, it’s important to track the number of deals needed to meet quota, which can be estimated by using the average deal size. This metric delivers concrete insight into how a sales team is positioned in the quarterly or annual sales cycle, and it can help focus the team on how to allocate its time. 

5. Attainment by product family. Attainment by product measures the degree to which sales teams are capable of reaching their targeted output by different product types (e.g., video, display, sponsored, or content). This KPI has the added benefit of helping sales leaders determine the viability and potential scale of different product types. 

Margins

Businesses earn money by providing services and products.  Margins—the difference between the price of a product or service and the cost to produce it—are an indicator of the overall financial health of a business.  Getting a true view of profitability by product, campaign, or client has historically been challenging. Our technology empowers sales organizations by making this information easily accessible. We also notice the most successful publishers are using margin data as a carrot for their teams; with greater profitability, companies can increase investments in benefits, salaries, and more. 

Top margin-related KPIs include: 

6. Margin by individual product. Also known as “unit economics,” margin by individual product measures the amount of profit made on the sale of each product after accounting for all associated costs. Tracking this KPI helps savvy sales organizations sell more of their highest-margin products, maximizing profits—and allowing them to identify loss leaders quickly. 

7. Margin by media plans in production. This sales metric shows how effectively sellers are creating media plans. Some campaigns will always be more profitable than others, but this metric will help ensure companies aren’t losing money when they run a campaign. Naturally, companies want to keep these numbers high and use deficits as an opportunity to educate teams or implement technology to support plans optimized for both client goals and internal profit. 

8. Cross-sell and upsell rates. It’s easier to keep (and grow) existing clients than to win new ones. Upselling and cross-selling are vital to boosting overall sales pipeline value, revenue growth, and sales quotas. Many of our partners are tracking upsell and cross-sell ratio KPIs to determine how to refine sales tactics to maximize both and create more sustainable cash flow. 

9. Net advertising revenue retention (NARR). Successful publishers know that revenue retention is the key to growth. Our research shows that publishers with the highest revenue growth rates also have the best client revenue and retention rates, making NARR a leading indicator of recurrence of the revenue. For big-picture sustainability, NARR is a rewarding KPI. 

Activity

Sales activity is the area most closely linked to daily operations–and the metrics sellers are most used to logging. KPIs in this category provide customer journey insights and indicate how many MQLs and SQLs are likely needed in the pipeline to reach business goals. 

High-performing partners track the following KPIs, at a minimum: 

10. Deal volume. Sales leadership should always keep an eye on the number of active deals in the pipeline. This metric helps gauge the health of the pipeline, gives insight into the likelihood of meeting sales quotas, and facilitates forecasting. 

11. Likelihood to close. This metric provides the overall probability that a deal will close, typically rated at 10%, 50%, or 90% likelihood. Rather than leave it solely to the seller’s discretion; however, many publishers are putting in guardrails to ensure standardization across the org, such as a requirement for a sales call to be booked before moving to 50%. This KPI can offer useful intel on the efficiency of a sales team, its sales cadence, and the quality of leads. 

12. Prospects by Business type. By comparing sales volume across business types, you’ll see where product demand is highest and lowest. Determining the causes can help create or maximize momentum and provide an opportunity to pitch laterally to similar industries. 

Better insights lead to more profitable plans

KPIs are key to tracking business performance, offering guideposts and direction to execute a profitable, sustainable path forward. Yet, businesses often nail the data gathering without setting up systems for aggregation, interpretation, and insights. 

When sellers have better tools to see and understand data, they are more likely to win sales. Clear KPIs and visualization with the most up-to-date data give teams the ability to make their daily decisions more profitable. 

The success of a CRM or OMS depends on how much information they can ingest. When robust data is the input, better decision-making is the output. We’ve designed Boostr to be seller-friendly, with unmatched ease of use, so inputting data isn’t time-consuming. We have baked enterprise-level business intelligence software into our platform that enables companies to refine metrics as much as needed to get the insights that propel their unique businesses forward—without extra expense. 

Learn more about how Boostr can help define and track KPIs that create better performance here.