Common Sales Incentive Structure

What Are Sales Incentives?

Sales incentives are rewards given to salespeople on top of their base salary to recognise and motivate exceptional performance usually tied to achieving or surpassing sales targets. These rewards are most often monetary (bonuses or commissions), but can also include non-cash rewards like travel, gifts, or professional development opportunities.

A well-designed sales incentive plan motivates the right behaviours, aligns the team to business goals, and rewards effort beyond just closing the deal.

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Key Types of Sales Incentives and How to Apply Them

Here are five practical types of sales incentives you can implement with examples and guidance to help you structure your plan:

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1. Role-Specific Sales Incentives

What it is:

Tailor incentive goals to different roles in your sales team. Each role has a different function, so the incentive should reflect what success looks like in that role.

How to implement:

• Sales Development Reps (SDRs): Incentivise based on meetings booked, lead quality, or conversion rate to pipeline.
• Account Executives (AEs): Incentivise based on sales closed, revenue achieved, or deal velocity.
• Account Managers / Customer Success: Incentivise upsells, renewals, or customer satisfaction (NPS).

Practical tip:

Set clear, tiered targets (e.g., 100% of goal = base bonus, 120% = higher payout) to motivate performance beyond the quota.

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2. Split Sales Incentives

What it is:

When multiple team members contribute to closing a deal, split the incentive fairly to reflect team effort.

How to implement:

• Define roles involved (e.g. BDR, AE, Solutions Engineer).
• Assign % weights to each role based on their contribution.
• Example: 50% to AE, 30% to BDR, 20% to Sales Engineer.

Practical tip:

Use deal attribution rules in your CRM to track contributions and automate the split.

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3. Presales Incentives

What it is:

Reward team members who contribute in the early stages of the sales cycle especially important in long or complex sales processes.

How to implement:

• Incentivise qualified leads, proposals submitted, or product demos delivered.
• Apply to roles like Sales Engineers, BDRs, or consultants involved in pre-sales.

Practical tip:

Introduce “milestone bonuses” for key presales activities that correlate with deal success (e.g., “$100 for every qualified lead that converts to opportunity”).

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4. Omnichannel Sales Incentives

What it is:

Reps are engaging customers through multiple channels: email, phone, LinkedIn, events, chat, etc. This incentive type recognises all contributions across channels, not just the final sale.

How to implement:

• Use CRM and engagement tracking tools to monitor interactions.
• Define thresholds for meaningful engagement (e.g., X touches in Y days).
• Reward consistent, high-quality multichannel activity that contributes to pipeline growth.

Practical tip:

Set up “activity scores” that attribute value to touchpoints, and offer monthly rewards for top omnichannel contributors.

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5. Analytics-Based Sales Incentives

What it is:

Use data to identify the behaviours that drive successful outcomes, and tie incentives to those activities.

How to implement:

• Analyse historical sales data: what actions lead to won deals?
• Identify key behaviours (e.g., fast follow-ups, multi-threaded outreach, proposal quality).
• Set rewards for achieving those benchmarks consistently.

Practical tip:

Create a dashboard that tracks these behaviours in real-time and build your incentive program around them. This helps reps focus on high-impact actions, not just end results.

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Step-by-Step Guide to Structuring Your Sales Incentive Plan

Here’s how to put it all together:

✅ Step 1: Define Objectives

• What are you trying to achieve? (e.g. higher revenue, shorter sales cycle, better collaboration)
• Make sure objectives are aligned with business goals.

✅ Step 2: Segment Your Sales Team

• Group roles (SDRs, AEs, CSMs, SEs, etc.)
• Determine what success looks like in each group.

✅ Step 3: Choose Incentive Types

• Pick one or more of the five types depending on sales process complexity, collaboration, and data maturity.

✅ Step 4: Set Clear Metrics and Payout Structures

• Define KPIs per role
• Set performance tiers (Threshold → Target → Stretch)
• Choose payout frequency (monthly, quarterly)
• Determine payment method (cash bonus, vouchers, extra leave, etc.)

✅ Step 5: Track, Communicate, and Adjust

• Use CRM and analytics tools to track performance
• Be transparent, communicate how incentives are calculated
• Review quarterly and tweak based on business needs or feedback

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Final Thoughts

Sales incentives are not one-size-fits-all. The best plans are tailored, fair, and data-driven. They reward not just outcomes but contributions at every step of the customer journey. Whether your team sells via email, phone, Zoom, or face-to-face, a smartly structured incentive plan keeps them aligned, motivated, and collaborative.