QWhiz

Founding AE / ex-SDR

Valued Contributor

saas growth metrics?

I have to coordinate with growth team a lot and most of the conversations just fly by me when they start using their everyday terminology with me, like I'm already a growth expert (which I'm not, but I don't think they are either). I also feel that now ROW sales has been happening, they're trying to capitalize on it and reverse the funnel to hit their growth targets using the deals I'm closing, but that should be a different post altogether.

My question is : What are the important growth metrics in SaaS and what's their use? Here's all what I know-

- CAC = Cost of Acquisition = money it costs the business to acquire 1 customer. The less, the better

- CLV = Customer Lifetime Value = money a customer pays my business in its entire lifecycle (new business + renewals). The more, the better

- MRR or ARR = Monthly or Annual Recurring Revenue = money being paid to my business on a subscription model per month/year

- Churn = Number of Customers at year beginning / Number of Customers at year end

- New Users = new signups = new logins created (I feel this is a useless metric since 1/2 the time people don't even know what they're signing up for or are tricked into it by product teams)

- Activations or Members = A subset of New Users that completed onboarding. What is onboarding? A certain XYZ steps that my company/ growth team would decide. Is this right? What if I count a user completes onboarding today and never touches the product again? Next month, would they still be considered activated?

-Any other important metrics in growth?

🤘 Personal Growth

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braintank

Politicker

4

Enterprise Account Executive

NRR, net revenue retention.

How much ARR are you keeping, and by what amount are you increasing per client.

I personally aim for 125% in my book of business, but that might not work for your situation.

QWhiz

Big Shot

2

Founding AE / ex-SDR

yea. expansions are KPIs for CS team, I’m only responsible for new business

braintank

Politicker

1

Enterprise Account Executive

Don't let marketing bring you down.

If you're doing the work they won't get the credit.

Meetings spent arguing with lame growth teams is time not spent selling. Just excuse yourself and get back to the phone.

Revenue_Rambo

Politicker

3

Director, Revenue Enablement

They should also be looking at some basic sales metrics. Closing %, velocity, ACV and reviewing the trend lines for each over a rolling 12-18 month span to anticipate changes that could impact their forecasts.

QWhiz

Big Shot

2

Founding AE / ex-SDR

I'm sure they look at 100 other metrics. My problem is I don't understand a lot of them and think many of them are just there for the sake of it. Additionally. I want to learn about the metrics that are imp. for me from a closing perspective, and from a conversational perspective as well (I don't understand half the things they say)

3

Retired Sales Professional

I think the confusion from what I understand is there's too many freaking metrics that it become convoluted and hard to understand. And all these acronyms, wow!!

I worked for a sales company that had at least 25 double sided pages of acronyms, man was that annoying. When you try to reinvent the sales wheel and it's not broken this is what you get.

It's, amazing how many companies believe if it's too simple it won't work, but the simplest of things can be more effective.

GDO

Politicker

3

BDM

I would look both at revenue churn and customer churn.

Also I would track upselling specifically. Here you can also do a Whitespot analysis.

HVACexpert

Politicker

2

sales engineer

This is fantastic as a lot of these KPIs are used across industries so an explanation of these is great, thank you!

Sunbunny31

Politicker

2

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Since you're net new business and are not compensated on growth, what is the purpose of coordinating with the growth team?

CuriousFox

WR Officer

1

🦊

👀🍿

Pachacuti

Politicker

1

They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy

I don’t get your post. Are you asking for definitions or SaaS sales-specific terms?

jefe

Arsonist

1

🍁

Always annoying, but make friends with Google.

1

CEO

I would look at conversion rates on opportunities. Should be >20% for new logos. If you're off, it suggests you might not have strong P-M-F. I also like to understand the % of closed deals following the established sales process- a low rate of adherence suggests there is too much variability, or too much risk, in the current GTM motion. Median sales attainment is another favorite, as it helps me understand "the struggle" of the bulk of the sales team, and also indicates how committed the rest of the company is to sales rep success. I generally believe only a handful of metrics require attention, but they vary a little depending upon where a company is in its maturation.

Kosta_Konfucius

Politicker

0

Sales Rep

Usage Reports are key

ThatNewAE

Big Shot

0

Account Executive - Mid enterprise

I worked in a company that helped customers report and analyse SaaS metrics. I can tell you the most common SaaS metrics (I onboarded 70+ customers) that they asked for:
- MRR / ARR - Churn- NRR : Net Retention Revenue- Expansion Revenue - CLV - Customer Lifetime value

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