Welcome to the fifth edition of Breaking Inbound, your weekly deep-dive into inbound numbers and form-to-demo conversion rates across industries.
Now that the holidays are behind us, demo volumes have regained momentum: last week saw a 66% growth compared to the previous one. Qualification rates improved slightly, while form-to-demo conversion rates remained relatively steady.
If you’re an SMB in the data & analytics industry, or a mid-market fintech company, this week was quite the highlight for your peers 🤑
Fintech and data & analytics led the pack this week, averaging 70% form-to-demo conversion rates!
Let’s unpack the insights in detail 👇
Inbound Snapshot
Last week delivered massive volume growth, with demo requests surging 66% and qualified demos jumping 67% from the previous week. The real story, though, was maintaining quality at scale: qualification rates improved 1% to 77.8%, while form-to-demo conversion rates stayed essentially flat with just a 0.4% dip to 61.7%.
Segment Snapshot
Post-holiday demand made its comeback, with each segment handling it slightly differently. SMBs saw a 67% spike in demo volumes, and they maintained steady qualification, though meeting rates dipped modestly. Mid-market had the strongest week with 69% demo growth, paired with 2% increase in qualification and steady meeting conversion. Enterprise had a much more complex story: while demos and qualification rates improved, meeting rates went down by 12%.
Industry-wise Meeting Rates
Fintech and data & analytics companies dominated last week, converting 7 out of 10 demo requests into meetings and claiming the top two spots, sitting comfortably above the 90th percentile.
Legal & compliance, edtech, and real estate emerged as strong performers, perching safely above the 75th percentile. And developer tools had a breakthrough moment this week, with their meeting rates jumping 17% from the previous week—transformation at its peak 🤩
Healthcare and support software struggled this week; healthcare dipped 11%, while support took the hardest hit, plummeting from 65% to 49%.
Funding Stage Analysis
SMB segment
- Seed companies saw a 75% increase in demo volumes, and the highest qualification rates in SMB category at 85%. They maintained steady meeting rates at 61.8%
- Series A companies saw a 58% increase in demo volumes, but saw a 2% dip in meeting conversion rates while maintaining steady qualification rates.
- Bootstrapped companies also saw a 58% increase in demo volume, and a 4.4% improvement in qualification rates, but they saw a 7% dip in meeting conversion rates compared to the previous week.
- Series B companies saw an 85.5% increase in demo volumes. While qualification rates fell by 8%, meeting conversion rates improved by 5%.
- Series C companies saw the biggest dip in qualification rates (12% down) and meeting conversion rates (16%) compared to the previous week.
Mid-market segment
- Series B companies saw a 52% increase in demo volumes last week. But their qual rates dropped by 2%, and meeting rates saw a dip of 5.4%.
- Series A companies continued to dominate demo volumes, seeing a 120% increase from the previous week. While their qualification rates improved by 3.4%, their meeting rates dipped by 1%
- Seed companies saw the highest increase in demo volumes (123%), and improved their qualification rates by 8.7%. But their meeting rates dipped by 1.3%.
- Series C companies had a great performance last week, with demo volumes growing by 35%, qualification rates improving by 2.2%, and meeting rates jumping up by 3.2%.
- Public companies continued an 80%+ meeting rate last week as well, receiving 59% more demos and maintaining steady qualification rates
Enterprise segment
- Series C companies saw a 134% increase in demo volumes, with a slight improvement in qualification rates (1.4%), and a significant dip in meeting rates (7.4%)
- Series D companies saw a 11% dip in qualification rates last week, despite a 6x increase in demo volumes. Their meeting rates also fell by 22%.
- Series E companies saw 54% more demos, with a 1.3% increase in qualification rates. Their meeting rates also tanked by 8.3% last week
Top Performers
Fintech was last week’s champion, with a meeting conversion rate of 70.7% ✨
TL;DR
- Demand surged sharply, and quality held: demo requests jumped 66% to 32,400, with qualification rates inching 1% up to 77.8%, while meeting rates stayed broadly flat.
- Mid-market led volume growth: demos grew 69.2%, while qualification rates improved by 2% and meeting rates held steady at 59%, suggesting healthy funnel growth.
- SMBs scaled with minor dips: qualification rates stayed steady at 78.6%, but meeting conversion rates dipped by 1%.
- Enterprise continued to face headwinds in meeting rates, despite a 57% growth in demo requests and 6% improvement in qualification rates.
- FinTech and data & analytics emerged above the 90th percentile: SMB data & analytics companies had the highest meeting conversion rate of 75%, whereas mid-market fintech companies saw a 74% meeting conversion rate.
- Developer tools saw the biggest rebound this week, with a 17% improvement in form-to-demo conversion rates. Support software saw the biggest dip of 16%.
- SMB Series B companies saw the highest meeting rates (70%), whereas SMB seed companies maintained the lead in qualification rates (85%).
- Series A and seed mid-market companies exploded in demo volume (120%+), and public mid-market companies maintained an 80%+ meeting rate consistently.
The post-holiday surge is here.
Industries like developer tools just proved that it’s possible for a 17% meeting conversion rate jump, and with demos up by 66%, the question isn’t whether demand is back.
It’s whether your funnel is market-ready.
Curious what a 1% boost in conversions means for your revenue? Get the exact number here.
P.S. Our State of Inbound 2025 drops soon. Stay tuned, and follow us on LinkedIn for the latest updates ✨
Until then, keep those meetings flowing 📈
