What are the prospecting KPIs to monitor and optimize in 2025?

Gone are the days when salespeople knocked on their prospect's door, only had 15 prospects to contact each day and calculated their results in a few seconds. 

Welcome to 2025: the era where access to data and performance is present! 

Like us, you know how important results are. But do you ever get lost in all the data and results you have? I know ! 

In prospecting, key performance indices (KPIs) are as important as they are headaches. 

What results should we analyze? How to interpret each data? We will see all this together now 👇

Understand the importance of KPIs in commercial prospecting

Definition 

Key performance indicators (which we will call KPIs throughout the article) are data, measurable metrics allowing the commercial effectiveness and success of a specific strategy or action to be evaluated. In commercial prospecting, these indicators serve as a compass to guide teams in their efforts. 

Depending on your industry and your objectives, they will allow you to know, for example: 

• ​how many prospects ended up purchasing the service (conversion rate) 
• after how many reminders the prospect responded to your message 
• what message does your target respond to best? 
• the number of appointments made  

Today, data is very easily available: it's up to you to properly measure the performance of your actions! 

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‍The impact of KPIs on the performance of the sales teamInitially, KPIs are just numbers. But not just any: they are the engine of motivation and commercial performance. How do KPIs influence results? I will give you 3 reasons: 

• by improving the clarity of objectives: the more explicit they are, the more your salesperson will have an obvious direction to turn to;
• by empowering members of the sales team: each member knows what is expected and what he/she must do;
• by continually improving actions: between what you have in mind and what really works, there can be a world of difference. The important thing is to test, and improve by looking at the numbers. 

There are other reasons, but at least you know why it's important to evaluate performance! How KPIs can help improve prospecting strategyPoor little KPIs: we observe them but sometimes we do nothing about them... which is not really useful. Your KPIs exist to observe them but also to draw conclusions in order to refine your prospecting strategy: ​Example 1 : when you analyze your campaigns, KPIs provide information on what worked or notExample 2 : you realize that it could be interesting to segment the audience to adapt your message to the most qualified audienceExample 3 : you observe that LinkedIn brings a higher number of leads than phone calls, so you prioritize this channelSales performance indicators are very important and very powerful for your prospecting strategies. Sort them out, but always analyze them! How to choose the right prospecting KPIs?That's the big question you need to ask yourself: what KPIs should you observe, which ones will really mean something to you? In fact, it mainly depends on your industry, your strategy and your objectives: Step 1: Identify company and sales team goals It's the same in Marketing: we start from the objectives to establish the strategy and the KPIs that will be useful to us. 

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Once the objectives have been determined, we can establish the strategy that we will adopt (often, this works over 3 months). Then comes the famous question to ask: based on my strategy, what key indicator will I observe in 3 months? Step 2: choose measurable and relevant KPIs  Not all indicators are worth observing. Especially with the quantity of data that the tools provide, we can quickly get lost in all these figures. That said, your KPIs must be: 

• ​measurable (logic you might say): we favor quantifiable data, such as the conversion rate, retention rate, transformation rate, cost per prospect, etc. 
• relevant: your KPIs must be related to your activity, your industry. If your strategy is to send emails, you will need to observe the response rate of these, or the click-through rate. 

There is an important element to avoid when talking about KPIs: don't get too carried away! Often, companies want to observe everything, even the most complicated KPIs, which doesn't make sense. Choose KPIs that are easy to understand and related to your activity. Also, they are not fixed in time: certain indicators are useful today but will be of no interest tomorrow. Let’s go into more detail for each prospecting channel 👇What are the email prospecting KPIs?​Email: that salespeople love, that their recipients a little less so! But when it is well integrated into a strategy and with the right content, it can work miracles in lead generation. Here are the KPIs to observe for this channel: 

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What are the social media prospecting KPIs?When it comes to social networks, there are a multitude of KPIs that you find directly on the networks, or on content programming or analysis tools. Social media KPIs can be complex, especially if the content posted is organic or an advertisement. Here are some important KPIs:

What indicators should you follow in telephone prospecting?Finally, telephone prospecting requires additional adjustments because the data is generally not displayed in a tool following your actions. It is rather up to you to create a tool with a sales dashboard to add the total number of calls, whether you have made a first contact or not, and determine the telephone prospecting KPIs. Here are some KPIs to observe: 

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How to optimize your prospecting campaign?

‍It is thanks to indicators that we can monitor our results and make these prospecting efforts evolve. In 6 steps, here’s how to do it: 1. Start by analyzing your resultsFirst of all, the idea is to use the defined KPIs to measure the performance of your actions. You will need to identify weak points (eg: a low response rate) or a high acquisition cost.

‍2. Personalize your approaches

‍Once the data has been analyzed, I am sure that your action will be to personalize your approach: start by segmenting your databases to target the right profiles. Then you can personalize your messages for each channel and each segment. In order to be able to do this quickly and on a large scale, it is time to talk about Humanlinker ! 

​Humanlinker is your dream commercial prospecting tool! With ultra-comprehensive dashboards, artificial intelligence and a tool to know your customers by heart, you have everything you need to create powerful prospecting campaigns and acquire hundreds of new customers. To test, it's free, you can click on the image above.3. Work on your scripts and messagesWhen one deal in 10 is not concluded, it is not the problem of what you are selling: it is a problem of message and perception. The recipient of the message always wants to know: 

• what he can benefit from your product/service (more time, comfort, emotion) 
• how will the product/service transform it 

In this case, do not hesitate to test different email subject lines, or different content to maximize the acquisition of new customers. 

‍4. Train your sales teamAnd yes, a good sales team starts with a trained team up to date with the latest developments! 

‍5. Automation and CRM toolsTraining your salespeople in new prospecting techniques is good, but training them in specialized tools to acquire leads is better! In this case, your best ally is the CRM tool (for example Hubspot or Salesforce). This will allow you to have complete dashboards and tools to automate time-consuming tasks. 6. Test and iterateIn Marketing and digital prospecting, the person who knows the least about their job will tell you "it works like that because we've always done it like that". Except no, I don't agree! There may be methods, words, techniques that work better. So go ahead, test, and observe (with your KPIs of course) Use prospecting KPIs to improve your sales strategyKPIs are ideal for checking what is working - but especially what is not working. For example : 

• A low open rate indicates that your email subject lines or content catchphrases are not suitable. 
• a low qualified appointment rate means that your targeting needs to be optimized 

In terms of regularity and after several tests, the best way to use your KPIs is to observe them every 3 months. This will allow you to quickly adjust if necessary, or keep a constant if everything is working. When you test your content, it's THE time to observe your KPIs. You will be able to check the conversion rate for each test. If you have a high conversion rate for option A, you can test a different approach for option B. AB tests are truly experimental data and allow you to have a learning experience for better customer satisfaction. This way, you will be able to make informed decisions for your prospecting: adjust the budget, adjust the target, adapt your strategy. By the way: we created a video that explains how to best interpret data on Humanlinker! To watch it, click here 👇

Integration of digital prospecting and KPIsIn a world where digital transformation is omnipresent, online prospecting is essential to reach a wider audience, adapt your approaches to new purchasing behaviors and transform them into opportunities or sales, generate qualified leads using powerful tools, have more effective and large-scale prospecting . Performance indicators are not the same in physics as in digital. In the virtual world of prospecting, here are some of the most important: email opening rate, click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate and cost per lead. What you need to remember is that it is through these indicators that you can:

• analyze performance and monitoring, 
• personalize your messages to reach your target, 
• test and automate your processes, 
• and above all: prioritize your actions. 

What are the essential KPIs in digital marketing?More generally, when we talk about KPIs in digital marketing, here are the ones that the most successful companies look at: conversion rate, cost per acquisition, click-through rate, bounce rate, cost per click, type of prospect, the opening rate and obviously, the ROI. How to monitor sales performance?Ok, now that we've said all that, how do we set up and acquire leads? The first step is to set up a dashboard. Without an effective view of performance, it will be complicated to analyze the results. You can use simple sites like Excel, or all-in-one tools like Humanlinker. Then, after a few months of campaigning, analyze the performance and compare with your goals departure. This is when you need to discover the sticking points, and develop the ones that work. You will also be able to compare with the results in your sector. ​Once that's done, all that's left to do is prioritize your next actions. And back to the analyzes in 3 months! To conclude this article, I would simply say not to ignore your performance indicators. Although they are sometimes a headache, they are essential for the proper development of your structure and acquiring leads. Prospecting KPIs are much more than a number: they are strategic tools to develop your sales and your business. Remember to always use the right tools, that’s what they’re there for!