Good sales tracking is the difference between managing your pipeline and just guessing.
Sales tracking done right gives you real-time visibility into every deal, the ability to forecast revenue with confidence and the rep-level data you need to coach effectively.
Without strong, consistent tracking, you’ll face missed deals, inaccurate forecasts and decisions made on gut feelings alone.
In this guide, you’ll learn how to set up a strong tracking system. Discover exactly what to track, the tools that make it easier and the most common mistakes to avoid along the way.
Key takeaways
Sales tracking is the process of collecting, analyzing and acting on sales data to monitor pipeline health, measure team performance and forecast revenue.
There are five types of sales metrics every SMB team should understand: activity, pipeline, lead generation, revenue and productivity.
The most common sales tracking mistakes include tracking too many metrics, skipping weekly reviews and relying on manual data entry.
Use a spreadsheet for sales tracking, or centralize your pipeline in a visual, all-in-one CRM like Pipedrive.
Why sales tracking can be both a blessing and a curse
Technology should be an enabler, not a disabler.
Data management and tracking sales should not be a time-consuming and frustrating burden in your sales team’s day-to-day life. That’s why when it comes to figuring out how to track sales, choosing the right customer relationship management software (CRM) and sales tracking software that makes life easier is vital.
Your CRM software or sales tracker should take your data, arrange it effectively and analyze the information you’ve gathered to help your sales reps sell more products and services.
That said, while sales tracking software helps with data-gathering and analysis, which should theoretically make life easier, the added stress that comes from the responsibility of managing and analyzing data to optimize your performance can take its toll. The expectation of managing data effectively can seem like an added chore rather than a helpful aid.
It’s a fine line to walk, but it’s worth the effort to get it right, as the rewards far outweigh the drawbacks. Here is a basic diagram of how you can track sales through the sales process.
The 5 types of sales metrics (and what to do with them)
Sales metrics are data points that measure sales performance, gauging pipeline movement and revenue generation at individual and team levels.
They show whether you’re spending time on the right sales activities – but only if you track the right metrics.
The main categories of sales metrics are leading and lagging indicators.
Leading indicators are forward-looking metrics that predict future success. These actionable performance metrics help you predict what’s coming next.
Lagging indicators offer insight into what has already happened. They tell you about your previous performance.
The five sales metric types below break down specifically what small businesses need to measure.
Metric type | Why it’s useful + what it looks like in practice |
1. Activity metrics | Measure the inputs your reps control. Example: If a rep’s win rate drops, activity data can tell you if they’re making fewer attempts or converting attempts less effectively. |
2. Pipeline metrics | Track deal health and movement across pipeline stages. Example: If 60% of deals are dying at the proposal stage, you know you have a prospecting problem, not a process or messaging problem. |
3. Lead generation metrics | Measure the quality and volume of opportunities entering your pipeline. Example: If your team is hitting activity targets, but win rates are low, low lead quality may be to blame. |
4. Revenue metrics | Track the outcomes that leadership cares about most. Example: If tracking revenue by lead source reveals that inbound deals close 30% faster than outbound, you may look at changing how you allocate resources. |
5. Productivity metrics | Measure how efficiently your team is working. Example: If reps are spending two hours a day on manual data entry, you can implement sales automation and have reps dedicate that time to calls instead. |
Start with the metrics that are most relevant to your current stage. (For example, if you have a full pipeline but a low win rate, you need pipeline and productivity data.) As your process matures, you can set up additional tracking.
The next section goes into more detail on how to decide which metrics to prioritize and how to ensure you’re actually doing something with that sales funnel data once you have it.
How to set up a sales tracking system in 5 steps
Knowing what to track is only half the picture – the rest involves building a system your team will actually use.
These five steps tell you how.
1. Map your sales process
Before you track anything, make sure you’ve defined what qualifies a deal for each pipeline stage so every metric you track is meaningful.
Consider:
How many sales pipeline stages you need
What the entry criteria look like for each one
What a closed-lost deal looks like
Whether your process differs by deal size, product line or customer type
If you aren’t sure where to start, take your last 20 closed-won deals and work backward. Look at the steps they went through and where they spent the most time. Use this pattern as the basis for your process map.
2. Choose your tracking method
Decide whether you’ll track metrics manually or use more sophisticated software, depending on deal volume and complexity.
For most SMB sales teams or startups, a spreadsheet (Google Sheets or a sales tracking Excel template like the one we offer below) is a realistic starting point.
Spreadsheets are free with a low barrier to entry. You can get started quickly and enjoy relatively high functionality if you don’t have many active deals.
But as you add sales reps, deals and complexity, spreadsheets will eventually break down. They require manual updates, which takes up valuable time. They also don’t connect to your other tools and systems.
A customer relationship management (CRM) system automates data capture, logging calls, emails, meetings and deal updates. You can also schedule automated follow-ups and generate sales reports without having to build your own formulas.
3. Decide which metrics matter
Instead of trying to track everything at once, select the handful of metrics that are most relevant to where your team is right now.
These metrics will depend on your current growth stage and your most urgent sales problem. The following questions can help you narrow it down:
Where are you losing revenue right now? At the top of the funnel, the middle of the pipeline or at close?
Which part of the process has the least visibility for you as a sales manager?
What question do you often have to guess the answer to?
What would be helpful to know before your next quarterly business review?
If you’d rather just jump right in, pick one or two metrics from each of the five categories covered earlier as a starting place. You can add more over time.
4. Automate data capture
Automate data capture so data gets into the system without requiring manual effort from team members.
Automate repetitive tasks like:
Gmail and calendar sync
Follow-up reminders
Deal stage updates
Lead capture and assignment, if you’re running inbound activity
The less work your reps have to do to update the system, the more likely they are to use it consistently.
5. Build a review cadence
Finally, establish a regular review schedule to ensure you’re actually using all of the great customer data you’ve collected.
Routine reviews make your sales CRM an active management resource, not just a storage container. Consider initiating three types of reviews:
Weekly pipeline reviews should cover which deals have advanced, which have stalled and which are at risk. It also looks at the best next step for everything in the pipeline. These meetings should be focused on problem-solving.
Monthly performance reviews can look at team performance. Discuss win rates, activity levels, average deal size and other long-term trends. You can also reassess the metrics you’ve been tracking and see whether any need to be tweaked.
Quarterly business reviews are the most strategic. Here, you’ll connect sales performance data to broader business goals. You can forecast revenue, consider hiring decisions and make go-to-market adjustments.
Together, these reviews create a routine that will help you proactively spot and manage pipeline issues as they arise.
Free sales tracking template
Not ready for a CRM yet? Download Pipedrive’s free sales tracking spreadsheet to start monitoring your pipeline, logging activities and tracking deals right away.
Free templates to track sales
Best sales tracking tools for SMBs
There are a number of sales tracking software solutions on the market that streamline the process of capturing, tracking and reviewing your sales data.
For SMBs, Pipedrive, Custify and Outreach are three top choices.
Tool | Best for |
Pipedrive | SMB and mid-market sales teams that want a visual, pipeline-first CRM with built-in automation and reporting. |
Custify | B2B sales teams and subscription-based businesses that want to reduce churn, automate customer success tasks and increase lifetime value. |
Outreach | Enterprise-level sales teams that already use a CRM and are looking for advanced AI to handle prospecting, deal inspection and forecasting at scale. |
1. Pipedrive
Pipedrive is designed around the sales pipeline, with capabilities like visual pipeline management and activity tracking that make it simple to understand what’s happening with your sales leads.
Use automations to reduce manual work and the sales insights and reporting and forecasting features to share updates with your team.
The Campaigns add-on lets you track social media marketing campaigns or use email marketing data for lead scoring. The mobile app also makes it easy for your team to keep data up to date from anywhere.
Here’s a look at how to get started with Pipedrive’s insights to track sales:
Best sales tracking feature: Use drag-and-drop functionality to move deals through the pipeline stages and keep sales activity current in real time.
Pricing: Starting from $14 per user/month, billed annually. 14-day free trial.
2. Custify
Custify is a customer success (CS) platform that gives B2B sales businesses a centralized view of customer data, including product usage, support tickets and billing, to help identify churn risks, growth potential and upsell opportunities.
Best sales tracking feature: The tooI offers insights by integrating with CRMs like Pipedrive and customer service software, using first-party data to populate an intuitive dashboard.
It alerts you when a customer is at risk of churning so that you can send a follow-up. It also provides workflow automation to reduce manual work and increase customer satisfaction.
Pricing: Custify offers custom pricing; reach out to their team for a quote.
3. Outreach
Outreach is a sales execution and forecasting platform that uses predictive and generative AI to automate workflows, personalize outreach and generate actionable insights.
Integrate the platform with your CRM so it can use data to analyze deal progress and predict outcomes based on past performance.
Best sales tracking feature: Outreach uses AI Agents to manage deals, handle prospecting and monitor and report on potentially at-risk deals.
Pricing: Outreach offers three different packages to support different team sizes. Pricing available upon request.
Sales tracking examples: how Pipedrive does it
Once you’ve passed the point of a Google Sheets sales tracking template, Pipedrive centralizes every part of your sales tracking in one place to boost efficiency and streamline project management.
Here’s what that looks like day to day.
Prepare for your Monday morning pipeline review
A sales manager opens Pipedrive’s visual pipeline view (shown below) at the beginning of the week.
Every deal is visible by stage, value and days since last activity.
Pipedrive’s AI-driven Notifications feature flags two proposals that have been sitting untouched for 11 days. With just a glance at the dashboard, the manager now knows exactly what’s going on and can bring that information into the team call.
Never miss a follow-up
A rep completes a discovery call and logs a note. Pipedrive automatically schedules a follow-up activity for 48 hours later.
The rep receives activity reminders when it’s due, so they don’t forget.
At the end of the month, the rep’s activities performance report shows 96% follow-up completion.
Accurately forecast revenue
A head of sales needs to present a Q3 revenue projection to the CEO and uses Pipedrive’s Insights deal revenue forecast report, which shows predicted revenue as the total value of open and won deals.
The report lets the manager present a number they can actually defend.
Pipedrive in action: Sendify, a digital freight forwarder, used Pipedrive to create multiple customized pipelines and improve its sales process. The company designed each pipeline to suit its different sales approaches (inbound and outbound) so it could accurately track performance.
According to the CEO, this customization gave it “much better insights, contributing to a powerful overview of how our different sales channels are doing in terms of results”.
Common sales tracking mistakes (and how to fix them)
If you’re new to the idea of sales tracking, it’s helpful to know some of the most common mistakes small teams make so you can avoid them as you’re starting out.
Tracking too many metrics
Teams often track too many metrics, especially when they’re first starting out with activity tracking.
It might seem like you’re getting more clarity. But really, you’re going to end up in decision paralysis.
The solution: Focus on which problem you’re trying to solve right now. If your pipeline is thin, for example, lead generation and activity metrics are your priority. Pick 3–5 metrics that are hyper-relevant to your current biggest problem and, until you’ve established a solid review rhythm with those, only track those numbers.
Tracking too infrequently
On the flip side, another common issue is tracking too infrequently.
Once a month isn’t enough – if you notice a problem in a monthly review, it’s going to be too late to go back and save those deals.
The solution: Add a weekly pipeline review to your team’s calendar and make sure it happens. Staying consistent with this review is the best way to make informed decisions that will improve your sales operations.
Tracking extensive data manually
Doing manual work leaves too much room for error.
When reps log calls and update deal stages, it leaves room for human error. Logging incorrect data can create a ripple effect that spreads to inaccurate reports and poor decisions.
The solution: Implement sales automation everywhere you can. Set every data point possible to be captured automatically. With AI-powered data collection, you can feel confident you’re making data-driven decisions that will drive your business forward.
The following video shows how to set up workflow automations in Pipedrive for daily tasks by using automation templates or creating custom automations from scratch.
Framing tracking as something negative
Treating sales tracking as a “punishment”, like a way to catch underperformers, makes it difficult for reps to truly get on board with your CRM.
The solution: Talk about sales data in the context of what’s going well, not just what’s going wrong. Help your reps associate tracking with progress. Make it clear that you’re using the data to help them sell better, not to observe if they’re working hard enough.
Overlooking leading indicators
Finally, many sales teams tend to prioritize lagging indicators over leading indicators.
Leading indicators – such as activity levels, sales velocity or stage conversion rates – are extremely important because they allow you to make proactive adjustments based on what’s coming.
The solution: At least half of your regular review cadence should be focused on leading indicators. Make sure to track the activity and pipeline metrics that correlate with past closed revenue. You’ll start to recognize warning signs and head off problems before they arise.
Note: Avoiding these mistakes largely comes down to consistency. You don’t need to be perfect. Just start simple, be consistent and let the data tell you when it’s time to track more.
A small team that faithfully reviews five relevant metrics every week can outperform a larger team that’s drowning in dashboards.
Final thoughts
Meeting your sales goals depends on knowing what’s happening in your pipeline and giving yourself the time to do something about it. Done consistently, sales tracking gives you that visibility.
Start your free 14-day trial of Pipedrive and give your team the clarity they need to close more deals.
