THE LEAD
A B2B team ran their first Q2 audit last May and found a $180,000 channel that had been quietly underperforming since February.
They reallocated. Hit Q3 numbers 11% over plan.
The monthly dashboard reviews they'd been running every 4 weeks didn't catch the drift, because dashboards summarize what's happening and the audit asks whether what's happening will land you anywhere near year-end.
Most marketing teams won't run the audit. The ones that do separate the H2 forecast from the H1 wishful thinking.
This issue lays out the 6 metrics worth auditing, the 2 you can skip until Q4, the Q3 forecast trap that fools every team that doesn't catch it, and the May conversation with sales. The deeper breakdown lives at professorleads.com/blog/your-q2-reality-check with the worked compute methods, the 6 failure modes, and the FAQ.
THE 6 METRICS WORTH AUDITING
CAC trend across Q1 + Q2. Walking up means H2 is heavier than H1.
SQL-to-close by source. Quality drift shows up here before it hits CAC.
Pipeline coverage for Q3. Two compute methods. They can be 60% apart on the same pipeline.
CPR by channel (not CPL). Per-dollar revenue contribution catches what CPL hides.
Win rate on top 3 sources. Drop of 5+ points across H1 means lead-quality drift.
Sales-cycle length WoW. Lengthening cycle means top-of-funnel is shifting toward less-ready buyers.
The blog walks through how to compute each, what the threshold values are, and which of the 6 failure modes hits when you skip a metric.
THE 2 METRICS YOU CAN SKIP UNTIL Q4
Brand impressions and total leads.
Both look like progress and tell you almost nothing useful at the Q2 mark. Brand impressions affect Q3 of next year. Total leads buries the lead-quality drift that the SQL-to-close metric catches.
Audit those two in October.
THE Q3 FORECAST TRAP
A SaaS team forecasted $4.2M in Q3 pipeline using stage-weighted math.
Hit $2.7M.
Spent August wondering what changed. Nothing changed; the forecast was the bug.
The fix: source-confidence-weighted forecasting. Take the stage-weighted total and discount it by source-specific historical slip rate. The two numbers can be 60% apart on the same pipeline.
If you only audit one Q2 number this quarter, audit the source-weighted Q3 forecast. The blog walks through the compute method.
THE MAY CONVERSATION WITH SALES
There's one conversation that decides whether your Q2 audit actually changes anything.
The question, asked of the sales VP before June 1: "Of the leads we sent you in Q1, which sources felt usable when you actually called them?"
The dashboard answer says they all converted the same. The felt answer surfaces the leaks the math hides.
The blog explains what to do with the answer (CPR cross-reference, attribution-model check, fast kill candidate identification).
ONE THING TO TRY THIS WEEK
Block 3 hours. Pull Q1 + Q2 data on the 6 metrics above, by channel.
Score each channel on each metric (holding / drifting / accelerating, etc.). Channels with 4+ yellow flags are wind-down candidates.
Schedule the May conversation with sales for the same week as the audit. The two artifacts cross-reference each other.
Full breakdown: professorleads.com/blog/your-q2-reality-check
THIS WEEK ON PROFESSOR LEADS
Five new shorts.
Monday opens with the $180K Q2 audit story. Tuesday breaks down the Q3 forecast trap. Wednesday handles flat-is-down at mid-year.
Thursday walks through the halftime metaphor (you're at the half, the scoreboard is your H1 numbers, the second half is going to look different from the first). Friday closes with the May conversation with sales.
Each clip stands alone. Land on any of them cold and walk away with one usable piece of the framework.
William DeCourcy
Professor Leads
Forbes Business Development Council contributor
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