14 Essential Sales Tracking Software for Actionable Insights

The spray-and-pray approach is an absolute no-no in all business activities, but especially in sales. Of course, a bit of trial and error is necessary to find your groove and what works for your market, your products, and your audience.

But why cross your fingers and hope for the best when you’ve likely got a wealth of sales data to tap into that will give you all the information you need?

Monitoring and analyzing your sales processes, pipeline, performance, and activities is the best way to optimize your strategies, and make data-driven decisions that lead to more closed-won deals.

Lucky for us sales professionals, there are tons of tools that specialize in doing just that. Sales tracking software ranges from end-to-end CRMs to niche business intelligence and proposal tracking tools.

We’ve outlined the best of the best for a host of tracking functions—let’s get to it!

What is sales tracking software?

Sales tracking software assists with monitoring, recording, and analyzing sales activities and performance. These tools are crucial for providing hard data to indicate productivity, identify trends, and assist in more accurate forecasting.

Sales tracking is a broad umbrella that covers pretty much any activity within your sales process that can be monitored. For example:

• Lead & contact management: Tracking customers and prospects
• Pipeline & deal tracking: Monitoring deals at every stage of the sales cycle
• Sales forecasting: Predicting revenue based on historical data
• Performance analytics: Analyzing team or individual productivity
• Activity logging: Recording emails, calls, meetings, etc

Depending on your sales environment and goals, you might require a sales tracking tool with broad tracking capabilities, or something a little more niche.

Which sales tracking tool do you need?

There are literally thousands of sales tracking tools, and a ton of them are really great, feature-packed platforms. The best way to approach narrowing it down is to consider what you need to track and how you can integrate a tracking tool into your existing workflow.

How we’ve created this list

Most of these tools have overlapping features, especially in the case of CRMs. We’ve categorized these to zero in on where we think the tool really shines so that you can make a decision based on your tracking needs. Perhaps you’re starting from scratch, looking for an all-encompassing CRM, or you may be looking to integrate a more niche tool into your existing tool stack—we’ve got you covered.

End-to-end CRM systems

It’s highly unlikely that any sales professional needs an introduction to customer relationship management (CRM) systems. They are the pièce de résistance of most sales tech stacks.

A good CRM has a wide reach, tracking granular activities throughout your entire sales funnel. It really is recommended that businesses of all sizes use a CRM to track sales activities and improve customer relationships.

1. Hubspot

Let’s start with one of the CRM giants, Hubspot. If you’ve never heard of Hubspot then you missed the viral LinkedIn Hubspot traffic-drop saga, or you’ve been living under a marketing rock.

Hubspot is a great option for mid-sized teams that are looking for something user-friendly yet feature-packed. It offers all your standard tracking features—contact management, email tracking, deal pipelines—as well as some nifty automation.

We use Hubspot at Qwilr and find it the ideal solution for our sales and go-to-market teams.

Keep in mind that the plans can get pretty pricey as your business grows and has limited customization options compared to Salesforce.

Notable features

• A free tier with core CRM functionalities
• Contact & deal management with customizable pipelines
• Email tracking and automation
• Sales automation (meeting scheduler, live chat, chatbot)
• Robust integration with marketing & customer service tools

2. Salesforce

And then there’s the Big Daddy of CRMs, with a dizzying array of features and deep customization options. This is an enterprise-grade CRM and is not worth the hassle or price tag for mid-sized and smaller companies.

With advanced AI analytics and tracking, it is ideal for larger sales teams who will reap the benefits of the steep learning curve.

A powerful CRM comes with the downside of a cluttered UI that can be overwhelming, especially for newbies. But if you’re ready to dive into the Salesforce world, you won’t be disappointed.

Notable features:

• Highly customizable CRM with enterprise-grade capabilities
• AI-powered insights with Einstein Analytics
• Lead, opportunity, and pipeline management
• Robust reporting and forecasting
• Extensive third-party integrations via AppExchange

Sales pipeline and deal tracking

It’s all in the name—these tools focus on tracking deals and sales opportunities throughout your pipeline. How can sales reps prioritize leads if they don’t know where they’re at? (Figuratively, of course. We don’t recommend a Baby Reindeer approach to sales)

Tracking deals and understanding where prospects are in the buying process helps sales professionals to better manage their sales cycles and provides a structured, visual approach to doing so.

We’re looking at two CRMs that are really good for doing this.

3. Freshsales

An intuitive AI-powered CRM, Freshworks is great for smaller teams that require deal tracking and automation features without a hefty price tag.

It includes lead scoring, built-in calling, and workflow automation as well as built-in calling and SMS features, unlike Pipedrive. If you’re focused on automating prioritization, you’ll love the AI-based deal recommendations and lead scoring.

Freshsales also offers a free plan but this does mean that all of the impressive features are gated behind paid plans.

Notable features:

• AI-powered deal scoring and lead prioritization
• Customizable sales pipelines
• Built-in phone and email tracking
• Workflow automation and appointment scheduling
• Integrates with Freshdesk for customer support

4. Pipedrive

Another very well-known CRM, Pipedrive sits in the sales pipeline tracking category because the platform has nailed pipeline management. The platform has honed in on simple, intuitive, and highly visual pipeline management.

Designed to help sales teams stay organized, it includes features like deal tracking, email integration, and workflow automation.

The automation capabilities lag behind Freshsales but the impressive array of integration options and drag-and-drop pipeline can be an all-you-need, no-frills solution for smaller teams.

Notable features:

• Intuitive drag-and-drop pipeline management
• Customizable sales stages and automation
• Email sync and tracking
• Sales forecasting and revenue tracking
• Integrates with over 300 apps

Sales forecasting

Unlike a murky crystal ball that requires a lot of deduction and wishful thinking, sales forecasting tools provide solid revenue predictions based on historical data. If the tool is a good one, it’ll also take into account market trends, scenario modeling, and pipeline activity for better accuracy.

You’ve likely been using a trusty Excel spreadsheet or current CMS for forecasting. While this is not a terrible solution, accurate forecasting is crucial for strategic decision-making, goal-setting, and resource allocation.

Psst: Have a look at our sales growth calculator to predict future revenue

5. Clari

An AI-driven revenue forecasting tool, Clari is great for mid-to-large sales and RevOps teams who work in B2B sales with complex sales cycles. It provides essential pipeline visibility alongside deal risk analysis.

The advanced AI forecasting features and CRM integrations may be overkill for small businesses without a robust CRM set-up, but give incredibly in-depth insight into pipeline health and revenue forecasting.

For a simple but powerful visual pipeline forecasting tool, Clari is a fantastic option.

Notable features:

• AI-driven revenue forecasting
• Pipeline risk analysis and deal prioritization
• Automates sales rep activity tracking
• Integrates with Salesforce, HubSpot, and BI tools

6. Aviso

Also an AI-driven revenue forecasting software, Aviso differs from Clari in that the platform zeroes in on multi-scenario forecasting and external data factors—such as market trends and rep sentiment.

Aviso requires a bit of getting used to, with a steep learning curve, but once you’ve got the hang of it the predictive risk assessment and deep AI insights are worth the grind.

If your team is engaged in complex deals that require deeper insights beyond CRM data, Aviso is the tracking sales tool for you.

Notable features:

• AI-powered deal and revenue forecasting
• Scenario modeling for sales strategy planning
• Rep performance insights and coaching recommendations
• CRM integration with Salesforce, HubSpot, and more

Quoting & proposal tracking

You send your shiny proposal out into the world and wait…and wait. Then you follow up. Then you get ghosted. Why does this always happen?!

Well, firstly your proposal could probably do with a little sprucing up—you’re not still using a PDF, are you? And then you need decent document tracking and analytics to understand when and how prospects engage with your proposals so that you can reduce friction and remove roadblocks.

Proposal tracking tools help you create impressive proposals and provide important insights into how prospects engage with those proposals. The data gathered by proposal tracking software provides sales teams with useful insights they can use to fine-tune their approach with their prospects.

7. Qwilr

Qwilr is the proposal tracking solution for over 4000 businesses across the globe. We have to toot our own horn just a bit! While Qwilr has always been a stand-out proposal software for creating interactive and on-brand sales collateral, a brand new suite of advanced proposal tracking and analytics features sets Qwilr apart from your stock standard proposal solution.

Real-time notifications, via Slack or email, keep you in the know through your buyer’s journey. You’ll be pinged when prospects view your proposal, engage with certain elements, re-engage after inactive periods, and accept and sign the proposal. You can monitor specific interactions and track the variables they’ve entered into interactive elements—such as the ROI calculator or pricing tables.

The pipeline report gives you a birds-eye view of your overall proposals’ performance, and you can zoom into one specific page with the activity timeline.

With all of these insights at your disposal, you can jump in when the acceptance process is stalled, discover friction points, remove them, and improve the entire proposal experience.

With built-in e-signature functionality and integrated quotes and payments through QwilrPay, you can start collapsing multiple steps in your sales process into one.

Up until recently, Qwilr has had limitations when it comes to uploading PDFs and Word documents for conversion. However, this is on the horizon and will be coming very soon!

Notable features:

• Web-based interactive proposals with dynamic pricing
• Built-in e-signatures and payment collection
• In-depth analytics tracking (time spent on each section)
• Real-time notifications
• Integrates with HubSpot, Salesforce, Slack, and Stripe
• 100+ professional templates
• Intuitive drag-and-drop editor and brand customization toolkit
• Automated content allows sales teams to instantly update and edit content across multiple items or accounts with a single click.

8. Proposify

We know that Qwilr isn’t the only kid on the block and we think Proposify is a worthy competitor. While the proposal tracking tool has fewer interactive features than Qwilr, it also boasts a robust analytics suite to monitor proposal engagement.

The drag-and-drop editor is easy to use and there is a large template library to get you started. The analytics features cover metrics such as average time to view, average views per proposal, view time by section, and the average length of viewing. These engagement metrics are vital for understanding how prospects received your proposal and what you can do to ensure a higher close rate.

Notable features:

• Customizable proposal templates with rich media
• E-signature and approval tracking
• Analytics to monitor proposal engagement
• Integrates with CRM and payment tools

Lead management and tracking

What is a sales pipeline without leads? While a lot of these tools on the list, especially the end-to-end CRMs, provide some sort of lead tracking features, robust lead management features are make or break for businesses that rely on inbound and outbound lead generation.

A great lead management tool will track lead sources, assign scores based on engagement, and automate outreach sequences.

We’re looking at two outstanding tools for doing just this. Zoho CRM provides powerful lead management features, while Apollo.io provides an extensive database of potential leads for prospecting.

We recommend Zoho CRM for businesses managing inbound leads and Apollo for outbound sales teams. Here’s why:

9. Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM doesn’t land in the end-to-end CRM category because of the outdated UI and comparatively limited automation. However, it is still a decent option for SMBs and shines with robust lead management and tracking features.

If you’re looking for an affordable CRM with rich features for managing leads and tracking customer interactions, this is a great option. There’s even a free plan for small teams!

Notable features:

• AI-powered lead scoring and segmentation to prioritize high-value prospects
• Multi-channel communication (email, phone, social media, live chat)
• Affordable pricing with a free plan for small teams.
• Strong integrations with the Zoho ecosystem

10. Apollo

Apollo boasts a massive B2B database of over 200 million contacts and along with the lead intelligence features it helps sales teams find, enrich, and engage potential prospects. It’s a solid choice for outbound sales teams looking for a decent prospecting tool that integrates into existing CRMs.

Access to premium data can be cost-prohibitive for smaller teams, but Apollo goes beyond traditional lead databases by offering AI-powered lead scoring, intent-based targeting, and automation tools that allow sales reps to identify high-quality prospects and reach out with personalized, multi-channel campaigns.

Notable features:

• Database of over 200M+ contacts with enrichment
• AI-powered prospecting and lead scoring
• Email automation and call tracking
• Deep integrations with CRMs like Salesforce and HubSpot

Sales analytics and reporting

Sales analytics tools collect and analyze sales data to provide insights into performance trends, team productivity, revenue forecasting, and pipeline health. We know what you’re thinking, “Don’t all of the tools on this list do that?”

To some degree, yes. But we’re looking at tools that have made data-driven insights and sales efficiency the core of their product offering. Both Gong and Tableau are amazing tools for making data-driven decisions and optimizing strategies based on real trends.

11. Gong

There’s a 1% chance that you’re working in sales and you haven’t heard about Gong. Which begs the question: Why are you not already using it? This conversation intelligence platform is driven by AI and records and analyzes your sales conversations, emails, and meetings.

It’s an essential tool in the Qwilr tech stack that is instrumental in helping us understand our ICP and improve rep performance, so we can’t help but sing its praises.

With Gong, sales reps can review conversations and uncover important insights and trends, helping to refine products and performance.

For Gong to be an effective tracking tool, it’s important that all reps get on board with using it, which may require a bit of persuasion but will definitely pay off.

Notable features:

• AI-powered conversation intelligence (analyzes sales calls & emails)
• Real-time coaching insights based on sales conversations
• Deal risk detection and pipeline analysis
• Integration with CRMs like Salesforce, HubSpot

12. Tableau

If you’re looking for advanced tracking and reporting beyond your CRM’s capabilities, Tableau is probably the tool for you. This business intelligence tool helps sales teams to visualize and analyze sales data in real-time. It’s set up with snazzy interactive dashboards that are connected to multiple data sources so that you can get a view of the whole picture.

You can connect dashboards to your CRM, databases, spreadsheets, and cloud apps—enabling you to have a complete visualization of your metrics and performance.

However, with such an advanced analytics suite, you can imagine that the learning curve is pretty steep and requires strong data management to get the most out of it.

Notable features:

• Advanced data visualization for sales reporting
• AI-powered analytics with predictive insights
• Connects to multiple data sources (CRM, spreadsheets, databases)
• Customizable dashboards for tracking KPIs

Sales activity and performance monitoring

Yes, we’re adding this here even though it’s not a conventional sales tracking tool. We believe that it really all comes down to the performance of your sales teams. You can bring in the leads and fill up the pipeline, but your reps need to be performing at their peak to close the deals.

Sales activity and performance monitoring tools help them do just that. These tracking tools monitor reps’ activities to provide insight into performance so that areas of improvement can be identified and successful initiatives enforced across the board. While software like Gong can provide conversation intelligence, these tools take it a step further by zeroing in on team engagement, performance motivation, and goal setting.

13. Salesloft

A well-known sales engagement platform, Salesloft is great for outreach and SDR teams who want to improve their prospecting efficiency.

Salesloft enables reps to create multi-channel sales cadences and to automate and track outreach activities to provide insights to optimize processes. It integrates with a few epic powerhouses on this list (Gong, Hubspot, and Salesforce) to provide deal insights and conversation intelligence.

It does require a bit of training to get the most out of the automation capabilities and has a ton of features and a steep price that may only be relevant for larger teams and companies.

Notable features:

• Sales cadence automation (emails, calls, LinkedIn outreach)
• AI-driven call analysis and coaching insights
• Pipeline and deal engagement tracking
• Integration with Salesforce, HubSpot, Gong

14. Ambition

Who doesn’t love a bit of gamification to motivate sales teams? Ambition offers just this, using leaderboards, scorecards, and coaching insights to improve performance and employee engagement.

The platform tracks both individual and team performance and assists with goal-setting and team engagement through a little healthy competition. With CRM and call tracking tool integrations, Ambition tracks rep activity (calls, emails, and meetings), providing useful insights to improve performance.

To get the most out of Ambition it’s important to have solid CRM data sets and it’s best suited for mid-to-large sales teams.

Notable features:

• Gamification of sales performance (leaderboards, contests)
• Real-time performance tracking and scorecards
• Coaching workflows with automated feedback
• Integrates with CRM and call-tracking tools