Inbound marketing analytics follows source cohorts from new leads to qualification, opportunities and recorded revenue. Build a checked comparison from lead, opportunity, revenue and campaign cost exports with exact spreadsheet formulas.
Inbound marketing analytics follows new leads from their recorded source through qualification, opportunity progression and realized revenue. Build the comparison around an acquisition cohort with a fixed observation window. A source that supplies many inquiries can still deliver fewer useful sales opportunities than a smaller source.
Choose the counting unit before exporting. A contact, a form submission and a prospective account are different units. For the illustrative US industrial training company below, one lead means one new prospective business account; repeat inquiries from that account do not create more leads.
The first recorded inbound capture route assigns the cohort. Later activity stays attached to that account without moving it to a different source. This is a descriptive source assignment already present in the company's records, not a claim that the first interaction caused the sale.
Marketing and sales jointly define qualification as a confirmed business need within the company's service scope. Opportunity progression means the account has at least one accepted sales opportunity. A win means at least one opportunity closed won. Each account contributes at most once to each stage count, even if it creates several opportunities.
An opportunity counts only if the account also qualified within the window, and a win counts only if it has an eligible opportunity. Review stage exceptions separately so the funnel populations remain nested.
This account-level choice needs to appear on the report. Comparing its counts with a contact-level report would make lead quality appear to change when only the unit changed.
Use accounts first acquired during June 2026, with qualification, progression and recorded revenue measured over the first 90 days after each acquisition. A September 30, 2026 reporting cutoff lets every June account complete that window.
Outcome dates determine whether each stage falls inside the window. An account may qualify early and close after the window; its qualification counts, while its late win does not. Later revenue also stays out of this particular comparison. Keep a separate older-cohort view if the business needs to understand longer sales cycles.
Realized revenue here means revenue recorded in the supplied revenue export within the observation window, net of credits included by the stated cutoff. It is not quoted pipeline, contract bookings or cash received. Finance should approve which export column represents that measure.
Start with the new-lead register, the opportunity export and the revenue detail. Use the account key already maintained by the business. Aggregate multiple opportunity and revenue rows to that key before combining the files, then inspect duplicate and unmatched keys.
The acquisition worksheet has these columns:
| Column | Field | Content |
|---|---|---|
| A | Lead account key | Unique new prospective account |
| B | First capture route | Frozen source group |
| C | Mature observation flag | 1 when the full window is available |
| D | Qualified flag | 1 when qualified inside the window; otherwise 0 |
| E | Opportunity flag | 1 when an accepted opportunity exists inside the window |
| F | Won flag | 1 when a win exists inside the window |
| G | Recorded revenue (USD) | Net revenue inside the window, totaled to the account |
Keep blank source values in an unknown group. Resolve missing stage information before replacing blanks with zeros. A zero means the account did not reach that stage under the rule; an unavailable export means you do not yet know.
The example has 400 account rows, ending at row 401. Put source labels in J2:J4. In Excel, K2 counts mature leads for the source named in J2:
=COUNTIFS($B$2:$B$401,J2,$C$2:$C$401,1)
L2 counts qualified accounts, M2 accounts with an opportunity and N2 accounts with a win:
=COUNTIFS($B$2:$B$401,J2,$C$2:$C$401,1,$D$2:$D$401,1)
=COUNTIFS($B$2:$B$401,J2,$C$2:$C$401,1,$E$2:$E$401,1)
=COUNTIFS($B$2:$B$401,J2,$C$2:$C$401,1,$F$2:$F$401,1)
Microsoft's COUNTIFS reference explains that all specified criteria must be met. The shared maturity criterion keeps these stage counts on the same cohort base.
O2 totals recorded revenue for those accounts:
=SUMIFS($G$2:$G$401,$B$2:$B$401,J2,$C$2:$C$401,1)
Microsoft's SUMIFS reference documents summing amounts under multiple criteria. Enter the source's allocated campaign expense in P2 and fill the formulas down. Preserve the expense allocation rule so a different treatment of staff or content costs does not masquerade as improved acquisition efficiency.
All accounts below have a complete window. Each source is a mutually exclusive first capture route, including accounts that later interacted with other content.
| First capture route | Leads | Qualified | With opportunity | With win | Recorded revenue (USD) | Allocated expense (USD) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Search content | 120 | 48 | 24 | 8 | 48,000 | 12,000 |
| Webinar registration | 80 | 48 | 32 | 12 | 96,000 | 16,000 |
| Resource download | 200 | 40 | 20 | 5 | 25,000 | 10,000 |
| Total | 400 | 136 | 76 | 25 | 169,000 | 38,000 |
Use qualified / leads for quality, opportunity / qualified for progression, and wins / opportunity for the next stage. These are account counts at each stage, not totals of opportunity records.
| First capture route | Qualified / leads | Opportunity / qualified | Win / opportunity | Revenue / lead (USD) | Expense / lead (USD) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Search content | 40.0% | 50.0% | 33.3% | 400.00 | 100.00 |
| Webinar registration | 60.0% | 66.7% | 37.5% | 1,200.00 | 200.00 |
| Resource download | 20.0% | 50.0% | 25.0% | 125.00 | 50.00 |
| Total | 34.0% | 55.9% | 32.9% | 422.50 | 95.00 |
For the first summary row, the formulas are:
=L2/K2
=M2/L2
=N2/M2
=O2/K2
=P2/K2
Percentages use one decimal place and dollars per lead use two. Calculate from unrounded inputs. A zero denominator requires an unavailable result with an explanation rather than a fabricated conversion rate.
Resource downloads generate the largest lead count and the lowest expense per lead. Webinars produce more qualified accounts from fewer leads, and their recorded revenue per lead is higher. That supports investigating audience fit and follow-up; it does not establish that increasing webinar spend will reproduce the same outcome.
Lead counts tie to 120 + 80 + 200 = 400 unique new accounts. Qualified counts tie to 48 + 48 + 40 = 136, so the cohort's qualification rate is 136 / 400 = 34.0%. The opportunity count is 24 + 32 + 20 = 76, and wins are 8 + 12 + 5 = 25.
The revenue check is 48,000 + 96,000 + 25,000 = $169,000. Tie that to the eligible revenue rows and keep later revenue, earlier accounts and unmatched records outside the cohort in explicit reconciliation groups. Expense ties to 12,000 + 16,000 + 10,000 = $38,000; expense per lead is 38,000 / 400 = $95.00.
Marketing owns source quality and capture definitions. Sales operations owns stage dates and account deduplication. Finance owns the revenue and expense tie-outs. A disagreement about definitions should be resolved before a budget decision.
Use B2B marketing analytics for the broader business campaign comparison, and marketing research analytics for evidence about the market itself. This source-cohort table does not replace customer acquisition cost or the profitability test in marketing ROI versus ROAS.
Bring your new-lead register, opportunity outcomes, revenue detail and allocated campaign costs with the cohort window defined. Covirage maps the columns; its tools compute and check the source comparisons, and the external AI model explains the results with every figure traced to its rows. Create a free Covirage account, which takes about a minute, and bring a sample of your own data.
See Covirage for sales insights for the supporting business context.
Covirage is not affiliated with Microsoft.
Measure distinct new leads, qualified leads, leads reaching an opportunity, closed wins and recorded revenue within a fixed observation window. Traffic helps explain audience volume, but these later measures show whether that audience progresses toward a business result.
Use a written rule that sales and marketing can apply consistently, such as a relevant business need and a confirmed fit with the company's service scope. Store the qualification result and date. Changing the rule requires separating or restating the comparison.
No. Pipeline is the value of open sales opportunities under the company's reporting rules. Closed contract value is another measure. Recorded revenue comes from the revenue export for delivered goods or services and must remain a separate column.
Start with equal observation windows and show how many leads have reached each stage. Review older cohorts separately when slower sources need longer to mature. A short window can describe early progression, but it cannot establish the source's eventual value.