In a highly competitive B2B sales industry, appointment setting plays a significant role in bringing your potential customer into your sales funnel. The actual process starts from lead generation and goes through different stages, which ultimately lead to an appointment; this stage actually brings the final result. Today’s topic is how you can keep track of this entire funnel’s performance accurately and effectively.
What Is a KPI Stack for B2B Appointment Setting?
A KPI or key performance indicator stack for B2B appointment setting is a structured set of parameters used to track, analyze, scale, measure, and optimize the outreach and conversion effort. KPI determination begins from lead generation to appointment setting, and the result of this entire journey.
Let’s take a look at some key points that make KPI so important:
- Finds out poor links from your funnel
- Informs script and training optimization
- Sales team and marketing team alignment
- Helps automate and scale decisions
KPI stack is a set of metrics that includes the outcome of business, opportunity, meeting, contact, activity, and quality inputs. In the section below, we will discuss in detail the five layers of KPI frameworks so you can understand the core idea and its functions easily.
The Five-Layer KPI Framework (Top → Bottom)
KPI stack for B2B appointment setting has five different layers, where the performance of different roles is measured, like B2B sales team, representing appointment setters, gatekeepers, et, who are involved in the particular section.
Layer 1: Business Outcomes (Lagging)
These are your north star metrics. They show your final results according to your effort and investments. Let’s see which outcomes you should take care of and formulas you may require to calculate in the section below.
Key Metrics:
- Revenue (Closed-Won ARR/MRR)
- New Customer Acquisition
- Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
| Formula: CAC = (Total sales and marketing expenses) / (Number of new customers acquired) |
- CAC Payback Period
| Formula: CAC payback period = Customer acquisition cost / (Monthly gross margin per customer) |
- Win Rate
| Formula: Win rate = (Number of wins / Total number of opportunities) x 100% |
Layer 2: Opportunity Outcomes
This part shows how good your pipeline is because it shows how fast deals move. More specifically, the quality of leads and appointment setters’ performance is clearly visible here because the quality they produce determines the amount of opportunity you get.
Key Metrics:
- Pipeline Created (Total value of new opps)
- Pipeline Coverage Ratio
| Formula: Pipeline coverage ratio = Total pipeline Value / Sales quota Benchmark: A general rule of thumb is 3x to 5x for healthy coverage |
- Sales Cycle Length
| Formula: Total number of days to close all deals divided by the number of closed deals |
For example, if you close five deals in a month and they took 20, 25, 26, 35, 40 days each, respectively, then the sales cycle length will be (20+25+26+35+40) / 5 = 29.2 days. So your sales cycle length is 29.2 days
- Average Deal Size (ACV/ACV)
- Stage Conversion Rates
| Formula: Stage Conversion Rate = (Number of opportunities that advanced to the next stage / Total number of opportunities in the current stage) x 100% |
- Opp Velocity
| Formula: (Number of Opps × Win Rate × Avg Deal Size) / Sales Cycle Length |
Layer 3: Meeting Outcomes
This part tracks your sales talks. It shows whether meetings work well or not. Let’s see some metrics on how you can calculate your B2B sales team meeting outcomes.
Key Metrics:
- Meeting-to-Opportunity Rate
| Formula: Number of leads converted to opportunities / Total number of leads x 10% |
- Meetings Held (Discovery, Demo, Decision)
- Meeting Show Rate
| Formula: Meetings Held / Meetings Scheduled Benchmark: Starting from 70% to 80% and more than that is a good show rate |
- Multi-Threading Rate
| Formula: (Number of multi-threaded deals) / (Total number of active deals) x 100 % |
- Average Time to First Meeting
| Formula: Sum of days from initial contact to appointment for all leads / Total number of first appointments |
Layer 4: Contact Outcomes
This part shows how prospects respond to your multi-channel outreach for the appointment setting goal. Do they reply? Do they want to talk? Let’s see the easiest formula to measure that performance according to the effort your team puts in.
Key Metrics:
- Reply Rate
| Formula: Reply rate = Number of prospects contacted / Number of prospects replied x 100 % |
- Positive Reply Rate
| Formula: Positive replies / Total number of outreach x 100 % |
- Contact-to-Meeting Rate
| Formula: Meetings Scheduled ÷ Contacts Reached |
- Meetings Scheduled
- Response Time (Avg)
| Formula: Average response rate = Total number of times spent on responding to all leads /Total number of leads responded to |
Layer 5: Activity & Quality Inputs (Leading)
These are things you do every day that you can control. Keeping sincerity and accountability is the key to bringing better outcomes. So it’s up to you or your team how to take those micro tasks.
Activities to keep track:
- Emails Sent
- Calls Made
- LinkedIn Touches (InMails, connection requests, messages)
- Sequences Started
- Accounts Prospected
- Contacts Added to CRM
Quality Inputs to put and their KPI metrics:
- Deliverability Rate
| Formula: Delivery rate = Emails delivered / Emails sent x 100% Benchmark: 95 % or more is a good delivery rate |
- Bounce Rate
| Formula: Bounce rate = Bounced emails / Total emails sent x 100% Benchmark: below 3% is okay |
- Spam Rate
| Formula: Spam rate =Number of spam reports / Number of emails delivered x 100% Benchmark: below 0.1% is great, but 0.2 or 0.3 is acceptable |
- Email Open Rate
| Formula: Email open rate = Number of unique opens / Number of mail sent x 100% |
- ICP Fit Score
| Formula: ICP fit score, Manual or automated scoring of contact / Account fit |
- Data Completeness Rate
| Formula: Data completeness rate = Number of complete data records / Total number of data records x 100% |
5 Core KPI Glossary With Exact Formulas
KPI glossary or KPI stack is the same thing, which refers to a set of parameters that measures the performance of your company’s progress for a particular objective.
1. Meetings
Meetings Scheduled: There are some questions that can measure the meetings’ KPI easily.
- How many meetings have you booked?
- Each rep books different amounts
Meeting scheduling KPI are determined with questions, not by any formula, because it’s not that hard to find out.
Meeting Show Rate: Just count how many appointments actually happened, then divide them by the number of appointments you scheduled.
- Formula: Meeting held / Scheduled
Once you get the result, see if it’s above 70% to 80% or not. If not, then there is a scope to improve because the good rate starts from 70 percent.
Meeting-to-Opportunity Rate: To calculate the meeting-to-opportunity rate, just divide the new opportunity by the number of meetings held, and the good rate is 30% to 50%.
- Formula: New opportunity / Meetings held
2. Opportunities & Pipeline
Pipeline Created: Opportunity and pipeline do not require any formula to be calculated because you just need to calculate new deals and set them to increase by 2x to 5x.
Win Rate: To calculate the win rate, you are supposed to count the number of wins and divide it by the total number of opportunities, and calculate the percentage.
- Formula: Win rate = (Number of wins / Total number of opportunities) x 100%
A good rate of win is considered from 15% to 30%. If you get more than that, it’s excellent, but if it’s below, then you have a place to work on.
Sales Cycle Length: Calculating sales cycle length is easy; just count the total number of days to close all deals, and divide by the number of closed deals. Usually, 30-180 days is okay, but it depends on your product or service type.
Avg Deal Size: The formula for average deal size calculation (Total won value / Deals won) is total value you won and divide it by deals won, but remember it changes by customer type.
3. Efficiency & Cost
- CAC: Customer acquisition cost is called CAC in short. This is a very crucial part of running a business. Think before you spend money because you can’t get things back. Customer acquisition cost means how much you spend on getting a new customer. So, calculate this cost to identify sales and marketing costs, and divide by the new customer; those customers should pay back within 12 months.
- Cost Per Meeting: Find out the total spending to arrange appointments, then divide the amount by the number of meetings actually held, and the result will come out. This can be different depending on the company or goal.
- Cost Per Opportunity: The Same formula will be applied here also, just the names of operators will be adjusted to total spend, and money will be divided by the opportunity created. It also depends on the company.
- Revenue Per Representative: Divide total revenue by the number of B2B sales representatives. The amount depends on the company’s size, location, competition, and goal.
4. Deliverability & Data Health
- Deliverability Rate: To find out the deliverability rate, divide the delivered number by the total sent number, and a good result is 95% or more.
- Bounce Rate: Email bounce rate calculation is like a cup of tea, just divide the bounce email number by the total sent email number, and a good rate is below 3% or less.
- Spam Complaint Rate: Divide the spam complaint rate by the delivered email number, and it should be under 0.1 percent
- Data Decay Rate: Formula is invalid records/total, and the figure is usually 2 to 3% each month
5. Productivity
You can measure productivity by calculating activity per day, contact rate, reply rate, and time to first touch, and those are easy to calculate. All formulas and their good rate are given below, so you can measure them properly.
| Activities Per Day | Contact Rate | Reply Rate | Time to First Touch |
| How many things do you do per rep | Formula: Connects / Attempts | Formula: Replies / Reached | Formula: Days from Lead to Outreach |
| Good amount: 40-80 | Good rate: 5-15% | Good rate: 5-20% | Should be under 24 hours |
SDR KPI Troubleshooting Flow: If X Declines, Check Y
SDR stands for sales development representative, and their troubleshooting flow means that if a blocker comes to set an appointment, what should they do according to that issue? Let’s say if a meeting is booked, then they can check the contact rate, reply, and suggest the respective team to develop that particular area. So let’s see how many blockers are generally being faced by the B2B appointment setting funnel.
| If X Declines | Check Y |
| If a few meetings are booked | Contact Rate, Reply Rate |
| Low show rate | Email Sequences, Reminder Cadence |
| Low meeting to opportunity | Qualification Process |
| High cost per meeting | CAC, Channel Efficiency |
Conclusion
Throughout this session, we have discussed a lot of formulas to measure the key performance of B2B appointment setting. Let’s take a brief on that:
- Five layers of the KPI framework
- Core KPI stack
- KPI formulas
- Troubleshooting for KPI fulfillment
So, if your team follows those parameters to find out issues that resist your desired result, then things will become easier to resolve.
FAQ
What Are the Most Important KPIs for SDR Teams?
The most important KPIs for SDR teams are meetings booked, qualified opportunities created, pipeline value sourced, and lead-to-opportunity conversion rate.
How Do You Calculate Show Rate?
Divide the number of appointments attended by the total number of appointments scheduled, and then multiply the result by 100.
How Do You Improve SDR Contact Rate?
Focus on data quality, strategic timing, a multi-channel approach, and highly personalized messaging.
How Do You Lower the Cost per Meeting?
Cutting down on the number and duration of meetings, ensuring every meeting has a clear purpose and agenda, and reducing costs related to venue, technology, and food.
