If you’re leading a revenue team in an early-stage company, you’ve likely faced the same questions heading into planning cycles:
- Are we investing in the right channels?
- How do we compare to others like us?
- Is our funnel efficient, or just busy?
- Are we incentivizing the right outcomes?
The 2025 Early-Stage GTM Report, released by Mercury, with support from Stage 2 Capital and QuotaPath, tackles these questions head-on. Based on insights from 500+ startups, it benchmarks the full GTM engine, including funnel conversion rates, CAC payback, and compensation structures.
In a webinar following the report’s release, Aileen Allen (Mercury), Liz Christo (Stage 2 Capital), and Ryan Milligan (QuotaPath) discussed what this data means in practice.
Here’s what you need to know…and what to do next.
Design, track, and manage variable incentives with QuotaPath. Give your RevOps, finance, and sales teams transparency into sales compensation.
Talk to Sales1. Funnel Optimization Is the New Top-of-Funnel Obsession
First up: funnel optimization.
For years, the default move for many revenue teams has been: “We need more leads.” But the data tells a more nuanced story.
According to the report, only 38% of companies hit their revenue goals in the last 12 months, despite 68% seeing an increase in pipeline. The disconnect? Inefficiency across the funnel.
As Aileen Allen put it in the webinar:
“Startups often try to triple leads to triple revenue. But optimizing conversion at each stage of the funnel, that’s where the real leverage is.”
The report provides benchmarks across five key funnel stages: Lead → MQL → SQL → Opportunity → Closed Won. This helps GTM teams not just spot weak conversion points, but quantify the impact of improving them.
What to do:
Create a culture of monthly funnel reviews. Layer in qualitative win/loss data alongside benchmarks. And resist the urge to fix everything at once.
Instead, focus on the conversion stage that unlocks the most compounding gain.
2. Pipeline Management Is a Team Sport
Secondly, the report found that only 75% of teams hold weekly pipeline reviews, and even fewer include cross-functional stakeholders.
That’s what we call.. A big miss.
Pipeline shouldn’t just concern sales, because it serves as the connective tissue between GTM strategy and financial performance.
Ryan Milligan shared a common challenge:
“You’ll see a bloated pipeline that looks great on paper. But once you start asking, ‘Why won’t this deal close?’ you uncover a lack of rigor. Pipeline should be a truth-telling exercise.”
On the webinar, panelists emphasized separating forecast reviews (focused on near-term revenue) from pipeline progression reviews (focused on deal quality and velocity). Bringing in finance, CS, and RevOps creates stronger accountability and sharper decision-making.
What to do:
Build cross-functional reviews around the current quarter and next quarter pipeline. Use stage-to-stage conversion benchmarks to flag misaligned expectations between volume and reality.
3. RevOps Is Finally Getting the Seat It Deserves
Now let’s talk about RevOps. Give it up for RevOps!
Across the report and the webinar, one theme stood out clearly: RevOps has evolved from an admin role to a strategic operator.
According to the report, RevOps teams are now regularly leading:
- Pricing and packaging strategy
- Segmentation and ICP refinement
- Forecasting and board reporting
- Market expansion modeling
Aileen summarized the shift well:
“RevOps is the secret sauce to a successful marriage between sales and marketing, and increasingly…finance.”
That strategic role also means RevOps leaders are often the first to benchmark internal performance against external metrics. They’re the data storytellers, making the business case for funnel improvements, comp changes, and better territory design.
What to do:
Treat RevOps as a co-equal partner to sales and finance. Give them ownership of the systems, reporting, and decision enablement that drive predictable revenue.
4. CAC Payback Discipline Is Non-Negotiable
One of the most striking data points from the report: Only 25% of marketers anchor budgets to revenue growth goals. Meanwhile, nearly half of companies report CAC payback periods exceeding 18 months, which sits well outside acceptable ranges.
Here’s what good looks like, per the report’s benchmarks:
- SMB: < 6-month CAC payback
- Mid-market: < 12-month CAC payback
- Enterprise: < 18-month CAC payback
Liz Christo flagged this disconnect:
“If you’re not measuring CAC accurately, or not measuring it at all, it’s nearly impossible to fix. A long CAC payback kills your optionality.”
Many early-stage teams default to “blended CAC,” but cohort-based analysis (e.g., CAC by channel, by rep, or by customer size) offers a clearer picture of what’s working.
What to do:
Push for CAC transparency in your monthly reporting. Break it down by segment or motion (inbound vs outbound). And if you’re forecasting CAC payback above 18 months, adjust spend or pricing strategy immediately.
Try the most collaborative solution to manage, track and payout variable compensation. Calculate commissions and pay your team accurately, and on time.
Start Trial5. Compensation Plans Should Reflect Your North Star Metric
Lastly, up is one of the more sobering stats in the report…
39% of revenue leaders admit their comp plans are not aligned with business goals.
That misalignment leads to sandbagging, overspending, or worse: teams optimizing for outcomes that don’t advance the business.
But a shift is underway.
“We’re seeing teams comping everyone, AEs, BDRs, CS, even product, on a unified company metric like Gross Revenue Retention,” said Ryan. “It creates focus.”
The report highlights a trend toward simpler comp plans, with fewer levers and clearer line-of-sight to revenue or efficiency goals. Multi-year deal bonuses, retention-based kickers, and profitability accelerators are being used to reward durable growth.
What to do:
Audit your comp plan through the lens of your North Star: is it aligned with revenue quality, not just quantity? Then give reps visibility into how their actions influence their earnings and company performance.
From Benchmarks to Action
All this to say, that GTM strategy is evolving.
Early-stage companies are maturing faster. The margin for inefficiency is shrinking. And revenue teams are held to the same rigor as product or finance teams.
While the 2025 GTM Report gives you the benchmarks, it’s your job is to turn that data into direction.
“It’s not about copying what the top quartile is doing,” said Aileen. “It’s about knowing where you are, and making better decisions every quarter.”
Want help aligning your comp strategy to your revenue goals? Talk to our team about how we help revenue teams build efficient, motivating compensation plans.
