B2B Customer Acquisition KPIs: 2023
Evaluating your company’s customer acquisition strategy requires measuring and understanding the correct KPIs. The table below features the 8 most important metrics in B2B customer acquisition, as well as benchmarks based on data from 130+ B2B campaigns our agency ran between 2017 and 2022.
First, a note on our data set: We segment our B2B data into 3 categories based on the company sizes we targeted in our customer acquisition campaigns. Below is the composition of the dataset by target audience.
- Small-to-Midsize ($10M-$100M) – 47%
- Low Middle Market ($100M-$1B) – 31%
- Upper Middle Market & Enterprise ($1B+) – 22%
Lastly, our customer acquisition was accomplished primarily through organic SEO (79% of campaigns) with Paid Search following (13%), and the remainder a combination of Paid and Organic Social; Video Marketing; and Email Marketing.
| KPI | Benchmark | Definition |
| Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) | Organic: $942
Paid: $1,907 |
Average cost of acquiring 1 new customer. |
| Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) | Highly variable, see LTV Benchmarks | Total profit made from an average customer over their lifetime |
| LTV to CAC Ratio | 4:1 | Ratio of customer value to the expense of acquiring a new customer. |
| Cost Per Lead | Organic: $327
Paid: $458 |
Average cost of acquiring 1 new lead. |
| Annual Churn | 8.5% | Percentage of customers that you lose in a year. |
| Website Visitors | +45% YoY | Total number of visitors to the business’s website. |
| Visitor to Lead Conversion Rate | 2.2% | Percentage of website visitors that submit contact information or take another conversion action. |
| Lead to SQL Conversion Rate | 14% | Percentage of leads that become SQLs (i.e. move from Marketing to Sales). |
| SQL to Win Rate | 27% | Percentage of SQLs that become closed sales. |
| Lead to Win Rate | 3.7% | Percentage of leads that become closed sales. Combined percentages of Lead to SQL Conversion Rate and SQL to Win Rate. |
How to Use These B2B Customer Acquisition KPIs
While we provide a good broad overview of B2B customer acquisition KPIs above, it’s more helpful to understand which KPIs are relevant to your specific business. The table below shows the 3 most important customer acquisition KPIs for each industry, according to our clients.
Top B2B Customer Acquisition KPIs by Industry
| Industry | Top Customer Acquisition KPIs & Benchmark |
| Addiction Treatment |
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| Aerospace & Aviation |
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| Automotive |
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| B2B SaaS |
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| Biotech |
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| Business Insurance |
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| Construction |
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| Cybersecurity |
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| eCommerce |
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| Engineering |
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| Entertainment |
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| Environmental Services |
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| Financial Services |
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| Fintech |
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| Healthcare |
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| Higher Education |
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| Hotels & Hospitality |
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| HVAC |
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| Industrial IOT |
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| IT & Managed Services |
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| Legal Services |
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| Manufacturing |
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| Oil & Gas |
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| PCB Design & Manufacturing |
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| Pharmaceutical |
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| Real Estate |
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| Software Development |
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| Solar |
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| Staffing & Recruiting |
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| Transportation & Logistics |
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After you’ve settled on the KPIs that are most relevant for your business, the next step is to create a plan for tracking them. The table below list each KPI and a recommended frequency with which to track it (monthly, quarterly, or annually):
| KPI | Monthly | Quarterly | Annually |
| Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) | ✔️ | ||
| Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) | ✔️ | ||
| LTV to CAC Ratio | ✔️ | ||
| Cost Per Lead | ✔️ | ||
| Annual Churn | ✔️ | ||
| Lead to Win Rate | ✔️ | ||
| Visitor to Lead Conversion Rate | ✔️ | ||
| Website Visitors | ✔️ |
Improving Your Customer Acquisition KPIs
Deciding which KPIs to track and comparing your results to benchmarks is the foundation of a successful B2B customer acquisition framework. Afterwards, the work shifts to knowing how to adjust your strategy based on performance. The day-to-day of doing so is complicated, and requires the ability to identify underperforming pieces of your content strategy and marketing team.
For that reason, many companies choose to outsource customer acquisition to an experienced firm while they set up their in-house processes. Our agency specializes in long-term customer acquisition via thought leadership and SEO. If you’re interested in exploring a partnership with us, you can reach out here.
Evan Bailyn is a bestselling author and award-winning speaker on the subjects of SEO and thought leadership. Contact Evan here.
