Lead scoring

What is lead scoring?

Lead scoring is ranking leads by fit and behavior so sellers work the best ones first. Gartner describes it as a relative ranking of one lead against another based on buyer profile fit and behavior. Fit covers who the buyer is, such as industry, size and role. Behavior covers what they do, such as visiting pricing pages or requesting a quote.

Why it matters to a revenue leader

Sellers have limited hours, and lead scoring decides where those hours go. A wrong score is costly in both directions, because good buyers wait while sellers chase activity that signals nothing. Forrester has argued that many scoring models rest on guesses, awarding points for actions with little link to a purchase, and that signals from several people at the same account say more about buying intent than one busy individual. For a revenue leader, a scoring model earns trust only when high-scored leads close more often than low-scored ones, by a margin worth acting on.

A commercial roofing company has scored its leads for two years. When it finally compares outcomes, top-scored leads became jobs at 9% and bottom-scored leads at 7%. The score is ranking activity more than intent, and the sellers stopped trusting it long ago. Marketing and sales agree to rebuild it from the leads that did become jobs.