The Deals You Didn’t Close Might Be Your Biggest B2B SaaS Growth Hack

It’s the typical story of “the one who got away.” You lost that one special lead. The one you were sure would turn into a sale that would then turn into a lasting customer. You keep going through all the possible scenarios in your head about what could have possibly gone wrong. Why didn’t they ever call back? Just when you thought things were going so well, they ghosted you.

No, we’re not talking about dating, but some of the same principles apply to your marketing strategy and sales optimization.

You could spend countless hours speculating about what happened without any real answers or you could DO SOMETHING about it.

Enter a close-loss analysis. A close-lost analysis can help shed light on the gaps in your marketing strategy and better explain why a lead went dark, identify gaps in your B2B SaaS marketing efforts, spot kinks in your sales funnel, and basically, show you what’s not working in terms of your ads, targeting, and even the way your leads were labeled or not labeled in your CRM.

We recently conducted one, and boy, were we shocked at our findings.

In addition to sharing the enlightening insights we found in our analysis, we’ll define a closed lost analysis, explain why it’s important for your B2B SaaS sales optimization and marketing strategy—and basically your company’s overall success—and walk you through how to conduct one that actually yields data-driven insights you can act on.

Plenty of companies spend all their time focusing on why they won or what they did well, but what’s the point of focusing on what’s already working?

If it’s not broken, don’t fix it, obviously, but if it is, avoid the pitfall of turning a blind eye, and instead dig in. It’s the only way to turn your current failures into future successes.

What is a Closed Lost Analysis?

So, first, what exactly is a closed-loss analysis?

Basically, a closed-loss analysis uncovers why you “lost” a potential lead. It’s typically performed when an opportunity is officially closed or has been deemed lost—i.e., a customer or potential one is no longer engaging with you, in your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, for example Salesforce. It’s typically completed by the Business Development Manager (BDM) or Inside Sales representative or via a survey.

So, what do we mean by lost? We mean why someone didn’t click on the ad you thought was well targeted. Why nothing happened after that initial sales call you thought went so well. Basically, a closed-loss analysis tells you why a potential customer or sales lead didn’t do the thing you wanted them to do.

By understanding what your marketing or sales strategy is not doing well or not doing at all, you can better craft a more effective marketing strategy based on actual data-driven insights that will inform your future B2B SaaS marketing efforts. Which ultimately means more wins for everyone. 

A Step-by-Step Guide to Conducting a Closed Lost Analysis

Here are the 4 shocking discoveries we made—and the exact process you can follow to perform a closed lost analysis on your own marketing strategy.

1. Evaluate Closed Lost Lead Sources

Process: First, look at your closed lost lead sources. The key is to isolate the analysis to the lifecycle stage of the opportunity. For example, if you closed lost a ton [AM1] from a lead source, but it’s still at the “SOW review” stage, that’s not necessarily indicative of a poor fit, but instead, it’s probably something else. Maybe it’s the price or something else specific about the product. Maybe your potential buyer isn’t sure they need the product right now. That said, if you have a certain source that never makes it past the intro call stage, then it’s time to pause, dive in, and get to the root of the issue.

Discovery: For example, in our analysis, we found that sponsored content is 5x the cost of Convo Ads, but it actually has worse down-funnel performance. Action plan? [AM2] 

2. Audit Closed Lost Job Titles

Process: Next, look at your job titles. It might sound simple, but errors here can make a big difference. To make this impactful, you need to build your campaigns by the same titles you’re evaluating. So, if you put managers, directors, VPs, and C-suite in the same campaign, you can’t change spend easily or pause.

However, if you over-segment and have campaigns for each title, you’ll end up with distribution problems with your ads and inflated cost pers, which you don’t want either. The trick is to evaluate by title in the closed lost analysis, but separate managers from directors and above in the platform. By doing this, you’ll see how purchase authority impacts your win rates.

Lastly, layer title data into your employee size segments. Do managers do poorly at orgs with over 1,000 employees, but crush it for 100–200 size segment? Let that data drive your future marketing strategy and guide your sales process.

Discovery: In companies with 10–100 employees, targeting managers is 3x as wasteful as spending it on director and above titles for this segment.

3. Do a Deep Dive Into Close Lost Employee Size Segments

 Process: The backbone of all targeting on paid social, programmatic, ABM, and outbound marketing should be employee size, not revenue. The key is to understand how a particular title performs within a specific employee size range. Once you grasp that, structure your campaigns so you can easily pivot spend according to persona performance, at scale.

Discovery: In our analysis, we found out quite a bit about companies’ investment behaviors. SaaS companies with < 200 employees are not investing > $50K a month on ads. So, what are we going to do with this information? Definitely make some changes to our ad spend.

4. Analyze Closed Lost Reasons

Process: Finally, connect your “closed lost reason” back to the other segments we listed above. This will enable you to see the purchase intent of your audience and understand how your sales process is performing (whether good or bad), and identify what gaps exist in your marketing strategy.

Discovery: Turns out, labeling matters. We can’t stress enough the importance of disciplined labeling and maintaining consistency on your documentation.

Implementing Findings Across Business Functions

So, now that you have this valuable data, it’s time to make some changes! Adjust your marketing campaigns by segmenting based on job title and lead source performance. Adjust your sales team’s behavior based on your findings. Do they need to add another informal check-in with the customer?

Implement your findings across the board and make them part of your official processes, so they actually stick. 

Challenges and Common Pitfalls

We know it’s not always easy to maintain clean data and a consistent labeling process over time as the pace of business is always moving fast and as people come and go on your sales and marketing teams, but don’t get sloppy. Here are some top challenges to avoid and a few best practices to ensure you do the most with your close lost analysis data.

Top 5 Reasons You Lose a Sale

Because we’re all about helping you avoid the common pitfalls that lead to losses and win more often, here are the 5 most common reasons opportunities get lost in the marketing black hole:

1. Customer confusion. If customers are confused about what you offer and how it helps them solve their problems, they probably won’t act. Solution: Make it clear.
2. Weak call to action (CTA). If you leave potential customers without direction, or your advertising lacks a clear CTA or doesn’t have one, they won’t move forward because they don’t have a way. We can’t tell you how many times we’ve seen a catchy headline that doesn’t inspire anyone to do anything. Solution: Again, see above. Make it clear.
3. Bad timing. Sometimes, it’s simply just not the right time. This one is hard to overcome because timing is usually out of your control as a marketer. Solution: Take a look at your analysis data and tweak your sales strategy around buyer behavior.
4. Too long of a sales cycle. Are you selling a high-ticket item that requires several visits? If so, your sales cycle might be too long, and people will start looking elsewhere. Solution: Switch up your sales cycle.
5. Price. Sometimes it’s as simple as just having too high of a price tag. Solution: Sorry folks, but if this is a consistent issue, you might need to make some adjustment.
   

The bottom line: Your customers have to buy in to your product or offering before they buy it. This is why closing lost sales is so important. If you can understand why the customer isn’t buying your product, you’re in a better position to make sure these reasons don’t apply the next time around.

Best Practices

1. Be Sure The Right Person Enters Your Data

Carefully consider who enters your analysis data. When entering close lost data into your CRM system, often the person who managed the opportunity is not actually the best person to input the data. Here’s why. The salesperson handling the account may have a different perception or a biased viewpoint about what happened that’s not what actually happened.

2. Check-In With the Customer

Use this “loss” as an opportunity to check in with the customer. Get an Inside Sales rep who isn’t as close to the relationship to circle back and ask them what actually happened. This way, you get more accurate data and real customer feedback you can apply to improving your product, process, pricing strategy, and more. The real reason may be completely different from what the sales rep recorded. If you conduct this check-in in an open, conversational way, chances are, this will yield much more future leads now that you truly understand what’s going on.

It’s a second chance to get it right.

3. Hire a Marketing Ops Expert

Finally, remember what we said earlier about the importance of labeling and the risks associated with having the wrong person analyze your data? For an unbiased view, it might be helpful to hire a Marketing Ops expert to ensure your data is accurate.

Or, have someone from your internal Marketing Ops team who’s familiar enough with your customer base and product to understand the data. They just might have some original thoughts and data-driven insights that come from a fresh look at the data. 

In Summary

The bottom line is you’re not truly winning if you don’t consider why you’re losing. A closed-loss analysis can identify gaps in your sales process, show you what’s not working in your marketing strategy, and give you the data-driven insights you need to turn losses into wins and lost customers into found customers.

Not convinced? Conduct your own closed-lost analysis and prepare to be just as shocked from your findings as we were.

We dare you.

Onward and upward!