B2B sales pipeline conversion rates: Belkins’ data

If you run B2B sales, you’ve probably asked if your pipeline conversion rates are good enough. The existing data online doesn’t help as they are outdated, vague, or mixed with B2C. As a company that runs hundreds of outbound campaigns for clients yearly, we track our conversions obsessively. 

Our key sales pipeline conversion rates are:

• Opportunity to appointment scheduled: 99.83%
• Appointment to discovery call held: 48.19%
• Discovery to ICP/DD trial: 36.41%
• ICP/DD trial to closed won: 16.04%

This post will give you more insight into our pipeline conversion rates and best practices for keeping the numbers high.

B2B sales pipeline conversion rates by pipeline stage

Our sales pipeline stages comprise 11 stages, but we will focus on those where prospects must complete an action before progressing. The stages are opportunity created, appointment scheduled, discovery calls held, demo (ICP/due diligence trial), and closed won. 

Incidentally, these are key stages in most B2B sales pipelines, so adapting our numbers to your pipeline stages shouldn't be a hassle. Here are our stage-by-stage pipeline conversion rates.

Opportunity-to-appointment-scheduled conversion rate

At Belkins, we don’t log a contact as a deal or opportunity until we’ve booked an appointment with them. This suggests that our opportunity-to-appointment-scheduled conversion rate should be 100%. However, it’s 99.83%.

This disparity exists because our business development representative (BDR) team sometimes disqualifies leads upon closer examination. For instance, inbound leads can schedule appointments with us using the “Book a call” link on our website. But before our sales executives (SEs) take this call, our BDRs manually vet and cancel appointments with poor-fit prospects.

How we maximize the opportunity-to-appointment conversion rate

Have a well-defined ICP (ideal customer profile) and lead qualification criteria. Beyond defining our ICP based on commonalities in our closed-won deals, we score leads and do manual BDR lead qualification. This lets us prioritize prospects with high conversion potential. 

Adopt omnichannel outreach. It takes an average of 62 touches across 3 or more channels to close a deal. This implies high odds of getting undesirable results with single-channel outreach. Using an omnichannel strategy that involves cold emails, intent-based calling, LinkedIn, paid ads, and SMS helps us get more conversions.

Automate with tools like Chili Piper and Calendly. Chili Piper helps us instantly qualify inbound leads, book meetings, and route them to the appropriate sales rep. With Chili Piper, we’ve had a 50% increase in our lead-to-appointment conversion rate. For Calendly, prospects can choose a meeting time from our options.

Follow up persistently. According to our B2B cold email response rates study, the average cold email response rate is 5%. However, one follow-up boosts responses by 49%. A second adds another 3%, but a third drops response rates by 30%.

Appointment-to-disco conversion rate

“Disco” is short for “discovery call.” “Was on disco” is the number of scheduled appointments we held. Our appointment-to-disco conversion rate is 48.19%. We close 3.6% of deals that reach this stage. 

How we improve the appointment-to-discovery-call conversion rate

Send confirmations to minimize no-shows. Tools like Calendly and HubSpot let you send automated email and text reminders to prospects. But we recommend you keep reminders smart. Yuriy Boyko, Belkins’ head of account management, says:

Also include a note that prompts attendees to reschedule if they’re unavailable.

No-show recovery. No-shows are unavoidable, and our SEs mark the deal as such when one happens. This automatically assigns the deal to a BDR who works to reengage the prospect and book a new meeting. Our head of sales operations, Julia Sorokovikova, said:

Share the meeting agenda. Prospects will likely show up when they know what’s in it for them. Send a brief pre-call email outlining the meeting’s purpose, structure, and duration. Then invite them to bring their priorities to the table by asking, “Is there anything you’d like to add or change?”

Was-on-disco-to-ICP/DD trial conversion rate

As a service-based company, we don’t do demos. Our sales process replaces the demo stage with ICP/DD (due diligence) analysis and an ICP/DD trial. Here, we present prospects with a bespoke service package based on our analysis of their needs (as revealed on the discovery call), target market, total addressable market (TAM), etc. 

Our was-on-disco-to-ICP/DD trial conversion rate is 36.41%, and 6.29% of the deals that reach this stage end up closed won.

How we maximize the was-on-disco-to-ICP/DD trial conversion rate

Adjust your approach based on buyer type (inbound vs. outbound). Outbound leads are typically cold and skeptical since they didn’t ask to talk. If you rush in and hit them with questions, they could disengage. Inbound leads are usually warm and eager for a demo but reluctant to dig into their pain. Tailoring your discovery strategy to both mindsets avoids the risk of derailing the conversation before it even starts.

Thaw cold outbound buyers by proving your value, relevance, or credibility. Start by acknowledging the dynamic. “Since I reached out, I bet you’d prefer to hear what we’re seeing in the market.” Then share a brief pain narrative about trends, challenges, and gaps their peers face. Don’t pitch. Just frame the problem. 

Next, ask light questions like “Are you seeing this in your organization?” and “How are you tackling it today?” Once they feel understood, pass the torch. “Enough about us. Help me understand your unique challenges.” This is how you get outbound prospects to open up about their pain.

Use the “let’s go back in time” technique for warm inbound leads. If you ask an inbound lead, “What’s the biggest challenge you’re facing?” they’ll likely say, “Can you just show me the demo?” Instead, meet them where they are, as sales veteran Chris Orlob recommends. Ask questions like these: “What motivated you to reach out? What are you hoping to achieve with this? What key features are you looking for in a solution?”

After aligning on their goals, smoothly pivot: “Can I take you back for a second?” or “Sounds like your team identified a problem that led you here. Mind sharing what sparked the need?” This technique lets you explore pain without breaking the lead's excitement to dive into a solution.

Reconfirm interest. After the discovery call, ask prospects if they’re interested in moving forward. For instance, our SEs say, “Hey, are you still considering our services? If so, please fill out this form [our ICP/DD analysis form] so we can analyze your needs and offer a specific package.” 

ICP/DD-trial-to-closed-won conversion rate

Our ICP/DD-trial-to-closed-won conversion rate is 16.04%. Whether you’re a product or service company, the following tips will help maximize your demo-stage conversions.

How we maximize ICP/DD-trial-to-closed-won conversion rate

Reveal relevant features only. Don’t discuss every problem you can solve during the demo. Start your demo by revealing your solution to the prospect’s most pressing pain point.

Create a follow-up system. Time kills deals. This makes prompt follow-up vital and even more crucial for late-stage deals. We recommend building a standard follow-up system for all reps to prevent deals from falling through the cracks. Also, encourage your AEs to prioritize late-stage deals as much as possible.

Include guarantee estimates in contract offers. Upon analyzing our client’s market, our delivery team helps to estimate guarantees based on our experience with their industry. This lets the sales team offer competitive terms in the contract offer and makes us likely to win more deals from competitors.

Develop senior leader relationships. Leverage your C-level executives and department heads to connect with decision-makers. Michael Maximoff, Belkins’ co-founder, told me we sometimes run an account-based marketing (ABM) motion where Belkins’ senior leaders (including heads of marketing and sales) actively nurture relationships with points of contact and other buying committee members on LinkedIn throughout the sales journey.

B2B sales pipeline conversion rates by lead source

We have 8 sources for generating leads at Belkins. Here we highlight our top 5 highest-converting pipeline sources and their contributions to our total won deals. We also share tips for maximizing conversion for each pipeline source.

Below is a summary of our deal sources in 2023 and 2024 and the percentage contribution of each source.

The chart below shows the contribution of each of our pipeline sources to overall closed-won deals in 2023 and 2024.

Pipeline conversion rates for paid search

Google Ads is our highest source of new pipeline, generating 30.29% and 33.76% in 2023 and 2024, respectively. It also generated 32.46% and 38.51% of our closed-won deals in 2023 and 2024, respectively, making it the highest contributing lead source to our overall revenue in both years. 

Our paid search conversion rate was 5.63% in 2023 and 4.38% in 2024.

Belkins’ advice for maximizing paid search lead conversion

Hire seasoned ad specialists. In 2022, our Google Ads efforts flopped. But by 2023, after hiring 4 paid ads experts, it became our top lead gen channel. If you don’t have in-house experts, consider working with ClickRoads — a high-performance paid ads agency for B2B companies.

Maximize summer. We observed that the cost per click (CPC) drops by up to 50% after the 25th of each month, especially during summer. Why? Many companies exhaust their budgets. We capitalize on this opportunity by increasing our ad spend during summer. The result? We win deals at significantly lower costs.

Pipeline conversion rates for offline sources

Our “offline sources” refer to outbound leads. It's our second-highest source of new pipeline, generating 25.17% and 22.42% in 2023 and 2024, respectively. It also generated 21.93% and 21.12% of our closed-won deals in 2023 and 2024, respectively, making it our second-highest contributor to our overall revenue.

Our offline sources conversion rate was 4.58% in 2023 and 3.27% in 2024.

Belkins’ advice for maximizing offline sources lead conversion

Regularly review your ICP. With market conditions and buyers' priorities changing, ICP data can quickly become outdated. We recommend reviewing and verifying the accuracy of your ICP at least once a year.

Send compelling outreach emails. Most sales appointment setting emails get buried in inboxes. We avoid this by personalizing our emails and showing our unique value propositions (UVPs). We also use A/B testing to figure out which message resonates, then double down on what works.

Pipeline conversion rates for direct traffic

Direct traffic refers to leads who do not arrive from a referring site. They may have typed our URL directly into their browser or used a bookmark. It may also include leads from unknown sources.

It’s our third-highest source of new pipeline, generating 13.68% and 14.04% in 2023 and 2024, respectively. It also generated 11.84% and 15.53% of our closed-won deals in 2023 and 2024, respectively, making it the third-highest contributing lead source to our overall revenue. Our direct traffic conversion rate was 4.55% in 2023 and 4.25% in 2024.

Belkins’ advice for maximizing direct traffic lead conversion

Never stop marketing. Whereas many companies kill their marketing budget when the economy is down, we invest 10% to 20% of our revenue in marketing and branding. We recognize that a strong brand is a powerful tool — once a brand owns mindshare, it's hard to unseat. Plus, the best time to win customers' attention is when other brands have gone silent. 

Build a content brand. Veteran marketer John Bonini describes a content brand as one whose content is so valuable and unique that it wins a loyal following even before they become customers. This kind of content helps build brand awareness and makes prospects likely to choose us when looking for a solution. We’ve applied this content mindset to our blog, webinars, podcast, and YouTube channel.

Foster a founder brand. A founder brand leverages the founder’s credibility and insights to build product awareness. RB2B founder, Adam Robinson, said creating one grew his company from $0 to $1 million in revenue in 16 weeks. 

Leverage employee advocacy. Employee advocacy taps into your team’s networks to expand reach, attract inbound leads, and build trust with prospects. We implement this by letting our account executives (AEs) host webinars and feature insights from in-house experts in our content. These experts then post this content on various platforms to grow our brand awareness.

Pipeline conversion rates for organic search

Organic search refers to leads who find us through search engines like Google and Bing. It generated 9.18% of our new pipeline in 2023 and 14.54% in 2024. It also generated 8.77% and 14.29% of our closed-won deals in 2023 and 2024, respectively. Our organic search conversion rate was 5.03% in 2023 and 3.78% in 2024.

Belkins’ advice for maximizing organic search lead conversion

Create actionable, expert-led content. Google still targets low-quality, unoriginal content and removes it from search results. Our recommendation? Create content that shows EEAT — experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. Beyond attracting inbound leads, your reps can share this content with prospects to nurture and close them.

Create BoFu content. Bottom-of-funnel (BoFu) content targets readers searching for a solution. It’s an opportunity to reinforce your expertise, demonstrate your uniqueness, and build your brand while answering prospect queries with nuance that AI content can’t match.

Pipeline conversion rates for referrals

Referrals generated 5.77% and 3.7% of our new pipeline in 2023 and 2024, respectively. It also generated 7.02% and 3.11% of our closed-won deals in 2023 and 2024, respectively.

Our referral conversion rate was 6.40% in 2023 and 3.23% in 2024.

Belkins’ advice for maximizing referral lead conversion

Accumulate reviews on third-party review sites. B2B buyers use review platforms like Clutch, G2, Trustpilot, and Reddit to inform their purchase decisions. That’s why we deliberately invested in building our reputation on Clutch. When we joined, most companies had just 30–40 reviews. Over time, we amassed 190+ reviews, earned the No. 1 spot on the Leaders Matrix, and turned Clutch into our top source of referral leads. We’re also listed on other review sites.

Continuous investment in article-based listings. We’re featured in articles like “Top Lead Generation Agencies” and “Top Sales Outsourcing Companies” on sites like Salespanel. After discovering that leads from these sources were even more profitable than those from Clutch, we expanded our presence to other sites, including Cognism, Kaspr.io, SaaSBoost, Snov.io, Visitor Queue, and Mailtrap.io.

Building a high-converting B2B sales pipeline with Belkins

High conversion rates in different pipeline stages are meaningless unless they translate into revenue. For instance, we recently helped a U.S.-based startup investment platform triple its lead conversion rate and drive revenue. Here's how we did it.

The client had worked with multiple vendors who delivered high lead volume but low quality. Their conversion rate never exceeded 3%, driving up customer acquisition costs (CAC) and wasting their sales team’s time on poor-fit prospects.

To turn things around, we started by intensely studying their business: industry dynamics, ICP, buyer personas, and key pain points. We audited their past sales and marketing efforts to identify gaps and opportunities. From there, we launched a tailored email outreach campaign, which evolved into a fully omnichannel strategy. Fifteen months later, here’s what we achieved:

• 346 appointments booked: 285 from email, 40 from LinkedIn, and 21 from calls
• 30 meetings per month on average
• 9% lead conversion rate (from 3% with their previous vendors)
• 13 closed-won deals, totaling about $150K in revenue
• $434K of projected revenue from deals in the pipeline
• 125% ROI to date and on track to exceed 200%, compared to the 107% to 110% industry average

If you want to generate great conversions that turn into revenue, contact Belkins today.