10 Metrics to Track SE Influence on Revenue

The solutions engineering (SE) function is such an essential part of sales, but is often overlooked, underestimated, or seen as a tactical role. In reality, SEs have the ability to empower the entire customer journey — yet they’re not tracking the right things to truly measure their impact.

To gain more influence with revenue leadership, SE leaders need to map what they’re doing to the metrics the business cares about most. For many, it starts with tracking technical wins, and calculating the percentage of technical wins versus opportunities closed/won/lost. Beyond that, there are many other ways to measure impact.

Whether your goal is to get your presales team the credit it deserves or to expand headcount in 2025, try tracking these 10 metrics to demonstrate impact on revenue.

1. Demo-to-Close Conversion Rate

Demo-to-close conversion rates can show sales how impactful presales demos are in converting leads to closed deals. According to SaaStr, a good demo conversion rate is 10-20%.

How to Track:

• Measure the percentage of deals that progress to close after a demo is delivered.
• Segment by ICP, vertical, or demo type to identify areas for improvement.

Actionable Steps:

• Improve demo alignment with ICPs to address their specific pain points. A demo library is a great way to segment your top-performing demo assets by vertical, pain point, or persona. Personalize your demos by injecting synthetic datasets targeted toward the right audience.
• Use analytics tools within your demo creation platform to track how prospects engage with demos. This is particularly useful for assets like sales leave-behinds, which can reveal how members of a buying committee interact with your demos (and can even reveal new contacts to target).

2. Pipeline Influence and Velocity

These stats track presales’ role in accelerating deals and influencing the pipeline.

Generally speaking:
Pipeline Velocity = Number of Opportunities × Average Deal Size × Win Rate /  Sales Cycle Length

But here are some ways to tie that to presales.

How to Track:

• Measure the percentage of pipeline influenced by presales activities (e.g., demos, POCs, technical discovery).
• Track the average sales cycle length for deals involving presales vs. those that don’t.

Actionable Steps:

• Standardize and optimize discovery calls to reduce delays in technical validation.
• Use automation to speed up repetitive presales tasks. For example, a demo program can help your team re-purpose and edit demo templates or inject demo environments with customized datasets.

3. Average Deal Size Growth

Presales can increase average deal size by uncovering additional customer needs and suggesting cross-sell/upsell opportunities.

How to Track:

• Measure the average deal size for opportunities involving presales.
• Analyze the percentage of deals where presales contributed to an upsell or add-on sale.

Actionable Steps:

• Train presales teams to identify cross-sell and upsell opportunities during technical discussions.
• Introduce value-based selling frameworks to ensure solution consultants highlight ROI and business outcomes.

4. Win Rate Improvement

This metric directly correlates presales efforts to closing deals.

How to Track:

• Compare win rates for deals with presales involvement to those without.
• Break this down by ICP, deal stage, or product segment for granular insights.

Actionable Steps:

• Conduct lost deal analyses to refine presales approaches and improve future outcomes.
• Build reusable assets (e.g., objection-handling templates, competitive battle cards) to address common deal blockers.

5. Expansion Revenue Impact

This KPI highlights presales’ influence on driving additional revenue from existing customers.

How to Track:

• Measure the contribution of presales to renewal and expansion deals.
• Track presales involvement in whitespace or adoption analysis to drive additional product usage.

Actionable Steps:

• Partner with customer success teams to run quarterly product adoption reviews.
• Train presales to proactively identify expansion opportunities during customer interactions.

6. POC Success Rates

POCs are often critical in high-value sales cycles, and their success directly impacts deal closure.

How to Track:

• Measure the percentage of successful POCs that lead to closed deals.
• Track the average time to complete a POC and its impact on sales velocity.

Actionable Steps:

• Establish standardized criteria for POC success and ensure alignment with customer goals.
• Use presales resources strategically to manage POC scope and avoid unnecessary complexity.

7. Lead-to-Demo Conversion Rate

This metric ensures presales teams are engaging with the most qualified leads.

How to Track:

• Monitor the percentage of leads that progress to demos and their subsequent outcomes.
• Analyze demo no-shows or disqualifications to refine lead qualification criteria.

Actionable Steps:

• Collaborate with SDRs and AEs to set mutual qualification criteria before solutions engagement.
• Use discovery templates and qualification questions to validate lead readiness.

8. Customer Retention and Renewal Rates

This KPI shows how presales efforts influence long-term customer satisfaction and retention.

How to Track:

• Monitor expansion revenue among customers who receive demos from SEs (e.g. track adoption of new features, products, or capabilities)
• Analyze adoption metrics for products tied to presales involvement.

Actionable Steps:

• Assist in onboarding by ensuring customers understand how to maximize ROI with your product.
• Conduct educational webinars or sessions for customers to explore advanced product use cases.

9. Sales Cycle Acceleration

Demonstrates presales’ ability to streamline technical evaluations and speed up the buying process.

How to Track:

• Measure time spent in specific deal stages (e.g., technical validation, POC) with presales involvement.
• Compare the sales cycle length for deals with and without presales support.

Actionable Steps:

• Build a scalable demo program and reusable POC templates to reduce time-to-delivery. For example, 79% of SEs spend more than an hour a week maintaining their demo environment, while 16% spend between 3-10 hours. On the high end, that’s a massive 21 days per year that could have been spent with prospects. Standardizing this process with a demo program can reallocate time toward more strategic work.
• Incorporate automation tools to eliminate bottlenecks in the evaluation process.

10. Engagement Metrics

These metrics can show how impactful presales activities are in engaging prospects.

How to Track:

• Use analytics tools to monitor demo engagement (e.g., time spent on specific features, questions asked during sessions). They can also reveal how members of a buying committee are navigating interactive demos.
• Track content consumption (e.g., how often demo videos, proposals, or POC documentation are accessed).

Actionable Steps:

• Build data-driven demos that focus on the most engaging features for each ICP. The more you know from previous demo analytics, the better you can refine your future assets.
• Refine follow-up materials based on prospect activity and questions during demos.

Positioning the SE role as a revenue driver

The SE role is a revenue driver. But to gain influence and secure the credit SEs deserve, solutions leaders must align their efforts with measurable business outcomes.

By tracking these 10 key metrics, you’ll not only prove presales’ impact on revenue but also uncover opportunities to accelerate deals, expand customer relationships, and optimize team efficiency. Start small, focus on the most relevant KPIs for your organization, and refine as you go. The more you quantify SE contributions, the more influence your team will have in shaping strategic decisions and growing the business.

Now is the time to move from intuition to data-driven influence. Which of these metrics will you start tracking first?

Want even more guidance for how solutions leaders can expand influence on revenue?
Get the eBook