If Not MQLs, Then What? The Metrics of B2B Buying Groups

The Gumball Machine Dilemma

Today’s revenue leaders are waking up to the undeniable flaws in the traditional B2B go-to-market playbook.

This outdated model of nurturing individual leads through the sales funnel and eventually throwing them over the fence to a sales rep is proving less and less effective. 

The main performance metric of this sales motion is the marketing-qualified lead (MQL). However, it’s hard to see the entire picture of opportunity-level activity using MQL-focused metrics. 

Jon Miller describes the problem perfectly in 2024 OpsStars session: 

“The fundamental problem with that approach is that it ends up treating marketing too much like a gumball machine. We sort of trained the executives, the CFOs and the CEOs, to think ‘I can put money into marketing and get MQLs out, and if I put more money into marketing, I’ll get more MQLs out’. And marketing doesn’t work that way.”

While account-based strategies fill some of the gaps, they’re still not flexible enough to support multiple opportunities at accounts that may already be a customer. 

If MQLs don’t paint the whole picture and account-level metrics paint too broad a stroke, what metrics can sales and marketing leaders use to drive growth?

The era of buying groups: Moving beyond the limitations of an MQL model

More and more forward-thinking sales and marketing teams are adopting an opportunity-centric go-to-market motion that addresses lead-centric challenges and supports existing account-based strategies. 

This new model is also called a Buying Groups motion, and it comes with a whole set of new metrics.

What is a buying group?

A buying group is composed of everyone who plays a key role in the buying process for a particular opportunity. Buying groups can be defined for each new deal in the works, and each member can play a different role than they do elsewhere.

A Buying Groups motion shifts the focus from a single lead, often whichever contact comes in first, to a set of stakeholders that impacts an opportunity in their own distinct way.

Further, this motion prevents second leads from being ignored, also known as “second lead syndrome.”  

Jeremy Schwartz, Senior Manager of Palo Alto Networks’ global lead strategy, explains the problem with second lead syndrome: 

“[With an MQL approach], oftentimes the first MQLs had the least influence. They were the employee doing all the research. The second MQL might be the first MQL’s boss. Those senior level members of the buying committee may never score up, but they have the power to make the final decision.” 

How revenue teams use buying groups

When Marketing, Sales, RevOps, and CS teams use a Buying Groups motion, they gain a better understanding of their prospects and customers throughout the sales cycle.

This motion uncovers multiple leads and contacts tied to each opportunity, allowing marketing teams to nurture them with personalized content and interactions. 

Sales reps not only enjoy greater context around new leads and opportunities, but receiving a qualified buying group rather than a lead speeds up the sales cycle — creating a faster time to revenue.

A Buying Groups motion improves productivity. Plus, outreach and engagement is easier to automate. Not to mention, handoffs are smoother thanks to more complete, nuanced data at every level. 

Most importantly, a buying groups motion drives more revenue.

Build on traditional metrics with buying groups insights

The beauty of buying groups metrics is that you don’t have to throw away your lead-centric or ABM dashboards. 

Analyzing engagement, conversion rates, revenue, and more on each opportunity helps you prioritize in-market, high-intent groups of buyers while marketing to the rest of your leads in parallel.

The good news is, when organizations adopt a Buying Groups motion and track new, opportunity-based metrics, they typically experience a shift in focus from quantity to quality. They also notice faster conversion rates as they build more sophisticated sales and marketing automations.

So, you won’t have to convince anyone to give up their lead-centric dashboards just yet.

However, once they see the ROI of a Buying Groups motion, they may decide to do that on their own.

Key metrics for evaluating a Buying Groups motion

The metrics for measuring a Buying Groups motion differ from their MQL-centric counterparts. They’re more focused on how various buyers engage and convert at the opportunity level as a cohesive group. 

There are many ways to measure performance of Buying Groups motion, but the following core metrics are a good place to start as you build out your own unique KPIs and dashboards.

Conversion rates on opportunities with buying groups

Organizations using a Buying Groups motion typically see higher quality and volume of pipeline,  reduced sales cycles, significant time savings, and increased revenue. 

As you adopt this motion for yourself, track conversion rates at various points in the deal cycle.

• Pre-opportunity to opportunity conversion rate: Instead of measuring MQL to SQL conversions, track the percentage of pre-opportunites (suggested opportunities based on Buying Group data) that convert to opportunities.
• Opportunity-to-Closed/Won conversion rate: Look at the conversion rate from pre-opportunity creation to closed/won. 

It’s helpful to examine these metrics alongside their MQL-focused counterparts while you’re still getting started. 

Visualizing them this way helps you build a strong case for an ongoing opportunity-based motion. When opportunities with buying groups perform better, the proof is right there in your dashboards.

Revenue from opportunities with buying groups

Analyze the amount of revenue generated by each opportunity to understand how a Buying Groups motion directly contributes to company growth and cash flow.

• Average deal size for opportunities with buying groups: Compare the deal size of Closed/Won opportunities with and without buying groups (this will later serve as your baseline for measuring the ROI of your Buying Groups motion over time)
• Revenue from opportunities with complete vs. incomplete buying groups: Segment revenue contribution by completeness levels of the buying group.
• Expansion revenue from Buying Groups: Measure expansion and upselling revenue earned from existing accounts via opportunities created with a Buying Groups motion.

Engagement and intent signals

You can measure buying group engagement at several levels. Track the engagement of each contact that’s been added to a buying group, examine the average engagement score of members in a buying group, or score the entire buying group to see which have the highest total engagement. 

• Persona-level engagement metrics: Track engagement by role, segmenting by decision-makers, influencers, and any other key stakeholder included in your buying groups. Engagement may include consuming content, interacting with reps, or showing intent signals based on activity tracked by vendors like 6sense.
• Buying group engagement score – Examine the aggregate engagement scores from all members of a buying group. This can include content consumption, meeting attendance, or direct responses.
• Percent of in-market leads – Track the percentage of buying group members that are considered in-market versus not at a given point in time.

Sales acceptance and alignment

Monitor how well marketing and sales are working together with metrics focused on whether your transition to a Buying Groups motion is deemed successful by all parties. The goal is team-sourced pipeline—where everyone is working together to find opportunities, not alone in their silos.

• Sales acceptance rate: Track how often sales teams accept and act on opportunities enhanced by buying group insights.
• Buying group completeness: Track the percentage of key personas (decision-makers, influencers, champions, etc.) that are identified and engaged within a buying group for a specific opportunity. An incomplete buying group won’t hit the sales threshold for becoming an opportunity.
  
  
  

Measuring the impact and ROI of deploying a Buying Groups motion

In addition to measuring the performance of your buying groups, it’s important to understand how your entire go-to-market motion impacts your organization compared to your previous strategy. 

Compare as many of the metrics mentioned above as possible to their MQL-focused counterparts. This will show you how conversion or engagement has been impacted since a buying groups motion was implemented. 

A Buying Groups motion also saves revenue teams time and resources. Here are a few more metrics that uncover the ROI of a Buying Groups motion:

• BDR activity impact: Track productivity improvements in BDR teams, like time saved due to automation (with LeanData this includes things like lead-to-contact automation, meeting scheduling, and buying group creation)
• Number of opportunities created: Track opportunities with multiple stakeholder roles attached. These are important because they typically result in higher win rates, deal size, and scope.
• Opportunities influenced by BDRs: Track the number of opportunities expanded or created by BDRs through buying group identification.
  
  
  

Buying group metrics, delivered: Meet Buying Groups Blueprint & Orchestrator 

LeanData enables a Buying Groups motion through a two powerful products that automatically identify buying groups for each opportunity, measure the impact of a Buying Groups motion on sales KPIs, and allow revenue teams to manage buying group data in the Salesforce environment. 

Planning and predicting ROI with Buying Groups Blueprint

Buying Groups Blueprint builds the business case and strategic plan for adopting an opportunity-centric motion. It analyzes patterns in all historic opportunities, retroactively identifying buying group members and their roles, then determines the potential ROI of adopting a Buying Groups motion.

Blueprint provides a scorecard that determines:

• Revenue lost as a result of not implementing a Buying Groups approach
• The potential win rate if opportunities contained complete buying groups 
• Which leads were engaged and should have been associated with an opportunity, but fell through the cracks
• Where buying group members could have been used to cross-sell or upsell
• The size of each buying group and its potential correlation to deal size
• Persona trends and how they influence opportunities

More about Buying Groups Blueprint >

Bringing automation and intelligence to life with Buying Groups Orchestrator

After Buying Groups Blueprint lays the groundwork, it passes the baton to Orchestrator. Built on the foundation of LeanData’s best-in-class matching and routing, Buying Groups Orchestrator continuously populates buying groups, capturing buying signals and assigning members to roles even before an opportunity is created.

Orchestrator shines new light into your opportunities, including:

• Which persona a lead or contact may fall under based on job title groupings
• How leads or contacts might be related and grouped into buying committees to form new opportunities
• Where buying signals are found throughout the lifecycle of a buying group
• Where gaps in buying groups exist and how to fill them with the right roles

More about Buying Groups Orchestrator >


 

What if your organization loves the MQL metric?

Your organization might not be ready to let go of existing MQL metrics, and that’s not unusual.

A Buying Groups motion requires collaboration beyond just sales and marketing, and changing entrenched metrics like MQLs requires careful navigation. 

In the previously mentioned OpsStars session, John Steinert, Chief Marketing Officer at TechTarget, discusses company culture and how to drive change within it. 

“If the concept of MQLs, for example, is part of your company culture, you have to figure out how to adapt that idea to how you shape the project that you want to implement.”

To accommodate this reality, present a Buying Groups motion as an extension of your strategy. It’s a new level of sophistication rather than a rip-and-replace of the metrics everyone is used to. 

Speak the language of your sales team when you’re discussing buying group adoption. Connect it to existing practices like multithreading and SDR outreach.

Aim for iterative adoption. 

Last, introduce a Buying Groups motion gradually by demonstrating their value through pilot projects or using buying group metrics alongside MQL metrics until the results speak for themselves.

“We’re not saying forget about the MQL. We’re saying look beyond it. Opportunity-based buying groups are the next ABM. It’s opportunity-based marketing.”

Jeremy Schwartz Sr. Manager Global Lead Management & Strategy, Palo Alto Networks

Start the Buying Groups conversation with your team

LeanData makes it easy to build a business case for a Buying Groups motion and get excited about the possibilities. 

When you’re ready to explore buying groups more, we’ll help you take the first step of gaining organizational alignment around this new go-to-market approach. 

Then, we’ll guide you through the process of building and orchestrating all of the moving parts involved in a Buying Groups motion, continuously measuring performance once deployed. 

Learn more about Buying Groups in the LeanData Buying Groups Resource Center or request a demo from our sales team.