1. Ensure the 'why' behind every metric is visible—top to bottom

Sales compensation data is only as valuable as your ability to act on it. As Jeff Piper insists, this starts by tying your analytics back to a business-level objective—whether that’s accelerating ramp time, improving win rate, or reducing spend on low-impact incentives.

Further, Jeff emphasized that simplicity and clarity are essential—especially when aligning sales comp metrics to company strategy:

“Start simple. You’re not trying to boil the ocean. Begin with a handful of core metrics that tie to the company strategy, and make sure people know what they’re looking at.”

Here's a clip of our experts on this:

From CRO to front-line rep—make sure everyone has visibility into how seller behaviors ladder up to broader business goals. Jeff highlighted a few key questions to gut-check the metrics selected for your program:

• Are we getting what we’re paying for?

• Are we overpaying or underpaying for the results we’re seeing?

• Are we spending comp dollars in the areas that truly drive impact?

Maria shared how Workiva is operationalizing this visibility at scale. They’ve built a real-time, role-based dashboard for all reps and managers—distilling 30+ possible metrics into the five that matter most in a given year. I.e.:

• Quota attainment

• Average deal size

• Win rate

• Forecast submission (ICs)

• Forecast accuracy (managers)

They’ve also added a new performance dimension: alignment to company values. Even high-performing reps are evaluated on collaboration, conduct, and team contribution—because as Maria put it: You can have a rep crushing their number, but if they’re disruptive or not aligned to our values, it creates organizational drag

Crucially, the metrics you highlight as most important should be consistent across levels—from individual contributors to CRO.

As Maria spoke to, oftentimes sales leadership are talking about metrics at leadership levels, but then realize they may be the only ones aware. With sales performance dashboards and enablement, you can ensure ICs can see where they stand and how they compare to peers every month. There are no surprises at year-end.

2. Use compensation data to find—and fix—misaligned incentives

One of the most powerful but underused applications of compensation analytics is identifying where your incentives might be driving the wrong behavior. As comp leaders, it's easy to assume a new incentive is working—but digging into initial results can surface critical misalignments.

Jeff Piper, VP of Sales Compensation & Incentives at BMC Software, shared a real-world incentive example that makes this clear. When an executive team wanted to increase deferred revenue, Jeff’s team designed a special incentive to reward sellers for long-term deals. At first, the results looked great—contract length was up, and deferred revenue hit record highs.

But a stray comment from a sales governance committee member raised a red flag about shrinking margins. A deeper dive into the data revealed the issue: the SMB sales team was giving steep discounts to close long-term deals. Many of their customers—bootstrapped startups—weren’t suited for multi-year commitments.  

The plan was driving behavior, yes—but it wasn’t the behavior the business (or the customer) actually wanted. Jeff’s team made a mid-year adjustment, excluding the SMB segment from the long-term deal incentive.

“The sellers, motivated by the comp plan we had in front of them, were essentially doing anything they could to close the deal. It was in their best interest to do so—and that was the behavior we were driving.” — Jeff Piper

Maria shared a similar story involving SPIFFS. Her team noticed mid-tier performers were earning outsize commission compared to quota attainment. Why? Because they were stacking earnings through one-off incentives rather than driving core revenue.

By analyzing the correlation between quota attainment and incentive pay, they uncovered a misalignment: reps were earning most of their commission from SPIFFS, not core bookings. The solution? Once they reallocated budget toward core plan components, compensation became more equitable and better aligned with desired selling behavior.

3. Your best performers should game the plan—design with edge-cases in mind

Sales comp leaders often view gaming the plan as a failure. But if no one is gaming it, chances are reps don’t understand it.

Instead of trying to eliminate gaming altogether, our experts recommended assuming it will happen—and designing around it. Which means involving a variety of voices early in the planning process, including field leaders, sales managers, and operations partners who can spot edge cases before the plan launches:

Maria emphasized the importance of circulating early drafts through a “field advisory council” of high-performing sellers and managers to identify potential pitfalls.

Ultimately, design comp plans with edge-case scenarios in mind. Get early feedback from frontline managers and top reps to stress test your plan before rollout.

4. Define SPIFF ROI upfront—and turn learnings into reusable plays

SPIFFs are often launched with good intentions—but too often, rolled out without clear goals, baselines, or a plan for measuring impact. A costly miss.

For sales compensation leaders, the key is simple: define what success looks like before launch—and treat every SPIFF learning outcome like a testable, repeatable play.

Maria shared two contrasting SPIFF examples that brought this to life:

In one case, the team offered extra payout to reps hitting 100% of quota in Q2. The problem? They hadn’t set an expected lift. Pre-SPIFF, 52 reps were already tracking to hit. They hoped for 60. The final number: just 48. They spent more for less impact.

On the flip side, a non-monetary March Madness pipeline contest broke company records—because the comp team put safeguards in place and had a clear success baseline in mind.

As Nabeil noted:  

“If you don’t update your playbook after a SPIFF [misfires], it’s just a cost. But if it helps you scale smarter next time, it’s an asset.”

5. Democratize analytics to enable coaching—not just reporting

Too often, comp analytics stay siloed at the leadership level. But performance management happens on the front lines.

Jeff emphasized the need to make insights accessible to frontline managers and reps—not just in year-end reviews, but in weekly coaching conversations.

"“With few exceptions, sales performance insights and analytics metrics, they should be shared across the sales organization. After leadership has had an opportunity to review everything? Why not push these things all the way down to the first-line manager level, even at the IC level? This is where the one-on-one coaching takes place. This is where the seller influence of the customer takes place. Bottom line: Whatever insights we've decided is important for the leadership to know, [it's] probably important for the rest of the organization.”  

Jeff Piper

VP Sales Compensation and Incentives, BMC Software.

At Workiva, Maria and team created a monthly, weighted performance scorecard that managers and reps can use in their 1:1s. It includes not just lagging indicators like attainment, but leading indicators like forecast quality and values alignment.

Sales comp analytics is no longer “nice to have.”  

Whether you're just getting started with quota-to-payout comparisons or rolling out org-wide performance dashboards, the message from our panel is clear:

Don’t just measure. Operationalize.

The global organizations that win will be those that close the loop between incentive design and seller performance—and use analytics as the glue that holds it all together.