Sales leaders need more than dashboards—they need answers. Is the team actually moving deals forward, or just hammering out emails? Where are deals stalling? Who needs help? If you’re using Outreach to manage your sales process, you’ve probably seen the piles of data it collects. But turning that into real, useful insights about your team’s performance... that’s the tricky part.
This guide is for sales managers, ops folks, and anyone who wants to see what’s working (and what’s not) using Outreach. I’ll walk you through the steps, point out what actually matters, and call out the stuff that’s mostly noise.
1. Get Your Metrics Straight Before You Dive In
Outreach ([outreach.html]) is packed with tracking and reporting features. But before you start clicking around, you should know what you’re actually trying to measure. Otherwise, you’ll end up with a bunch of nice-looking charts that don’t help anyone.
Focus on metrics that matter. Here are the ones most teams care about: - Activity metrics: Emails sent, calls made, meetings booked. Good for measuring effort, but don’t stop here. - Outcome metrics: Replies, positive responses, meetings held, pipeline created. These show progress, not just activity. - Conversion rates: How many calls turn into meetings? How many meetings become opportunities? This is where you spot bottlenecks. - Team-level vs. individual metrics: Both matter. Team stats show big-picture trends. Individual stats help with coaching.
Skip vanity metrics. Outreach tracks just about everything, but not all of it’s useful. Time spent in the tool? Not helpful. Email open rates? Meh—buyers open a lot of stuff they never act on.
Pro tip: Before you set up reports, ask your salespeople what’s actually slowing them down. Build reports that answer those questions, not just what’s easy to track.
2. Set Up Outreach So You Aren’t Chasing Bad Data
If your Outreach setup is a mess, your reports will be too. Garbage in, garbage out. Here’s what to check:
- Keep users and roles up to date. Make sure everyone’s assigned to the right team, especially if you’ve had turnover.
- Connect to your CRM (if possible). Syncing Outreach with Salesforce or HubSpot means your activity data actually lines up with your pipeline. Double-check your sync settings—bad mappings cause headaches.
- Standardize sequences and stages. If half the team is using custom sequences and the other half sticks to the defaults, it’s tough to compare performance.
- Train your team on logging activities. Outreach can capture a lot automatically, but make sure reps know how to log calls, meetings, and outcomes properly.
Don’t trust default settings. Outreach’s out-of-the-box setup is fine for starting out, but you’ll get better results if you tweak it for your own sales process.
3. Use Outreach’s Built-In Reporting—But Don’t Get Lost in It
Outreach offers a bunch of reports and dashboards. Here’s what’s worth your time, and what you can skip.
The Basics
- Team Performance Dashboard: Quick look at activities and outcomes across your team. Good for spotting who’s crushing it (and who’s not).
- Sequence Performance: See which email/call sequences are landing meetings and which are just noise. Look at reply rates and, more importantly, positive replies.
- Call and Email Analytics: Drill into call connect rates, average call length, email open/click/reply rates. Focus on replies and meetings booked, not just volume.
What Actually Matters
- Conversion Reports: These show how many activities (calls, emails) are needed to get to a meeting or opportunity. If it takes 100 calls to book one meeting, something’s up.
- Stage Movement: If your CRM is connected, track how quickly deals move through stages. Outreach can surface reps who are stuck or slow.
What to Ignore (Mostly)
- Email open rates: They’re easily inflated by spam filters and bots.
- Total activities: High numbers look impressive but don’t matter if nothing’s closing.
Pro tip: Don’t try to use every report. Pick 2–3 that matter for your team’s goals. You can always add more later.
4. Customize Reports for Your Team’s Needs
Outreach’s standard dashboards are a good start, but you’ll probably want to tweak things.
- Filter by user, team, or time range. Compare performance across different groups or periods.
- Segment by sequence or persona. See if certain approaches work better for different types of leads.
- Export data when you need more firepower. Outreach lets you export reports as CSV. If you want to slice and dice data in Excel or Google Sheets, go for it. Sometimes the built-in charts just aren’t enough.
Honest take: Outreach’s reporting is solid, but it’s not as flexible as a dedicated BI tool. If you want super-custom dashboards or to combine Outreach data with other sources, plan on exporting and doing it yourself.
5. Regularly Review Reports—And Don’t Just Look at the Numbers
Numbers don’t tell you everything. Here’s how to actually use what you find:
- Spot trends, not just blips. One bad week doesn’t mean someone’s struggling. Look for patterns—like a rep whose meetings booked have dropped for a month straight.
- Have real conversations. Use the data to guide 1-on-1s and team meetings. Ask your team what’s working, and where they’re getting stuck.
- Coach, don’t just critique. If someone’s activity is high but results are low, dig deeper. Maybe their calls are too short, or they’re targeting the wrong people.
- Celebrate wins. If a new sequence or approach is working, share it with everyone. Outreach makes it easy to see what’s working—use that to raise the bar for the whole team.
Don’t: - Use reports as a “gotcha” tool. People game the system or burn out. - Ignore context. Maybe a rep’s numbers are down because they’re working a tough patch of leads, not slacking off.
6. Automate What You Can, but Don’t Expect Magic
Outreach lets you schedule recurring reports and set up alerts. That’s handy, but don’t assume automation replaces real analysis.
- Set up weekly or monthly summary emails. Outreach can send team performance snapshots to your inbox. Saves you time.
- Use alerts for outliers. Some teams set up notifications if activity drops below a certain level. Useful for catching problems early—but don’t set the bar so high that it just becomes noise.
Warning: Automated reports are only as good as your setup. If your sequences or CRM mappings are off, you’ll just get faster at seeing bad data.
7. Iterate and Keep It Simple
Don’t try to build the perfect reporting suite from day one. Start simple: - Focus on a few key metrics. - Meet with your team regularly to talk about what you’re seeing. - Update your reports as your sales process changes.
Resist the urge to track everything—nobody looks at 30 dashboards. The goal is to help your team sell more, not drown in data.
Bottom Line
Outreach can give you real insight into your team’s performance—if you set it up thoughtfully and focus on the metrics that actually matter. Skip the vanity stats. Talk to your team. Iterate as you go. Sales is complicated enough; your reporting doesn’t have to be.