Lead Scoring

What it actually means

Lead scoring takes two separate questions and forces them into one number: does this person match who we sell to, and are they showing signs they're ready to buy. The first question is fit. The second is intent. Most scoring models add points for both and set a threshold where marketing hands the lead to sales.

Fit criteria are the usual firmographic suspects: job title, company size, industry, revenue band. Intent criteria are behavioral: opened an email, visited a pricing page, engaged with a post, downloaded something. A lead can score high on fit and do nothing else, or score low on fit and act like they're ready to sign a contract tomorrow. The number is supposed to reconcile the two.

Why it matters when you're selling

If you carry a quota, lead scoring is the difference between calling ten people who might buy and calling the two who are actually close. Every rep has worked a list where half the "qualified" leads were VPs at the right kind of company who had never once opened an email from your brand. Fit told you they belonged on the list. Nothing told you they were paying attention. Scoring exists so you stop treating those two situations as the same lead.

The misconception

The common mistake is building a scoring model that's really just a firmographic checklist wearing a number: right title, right headcount, right industry, congratulations, 80 points, send to sales. That model will happily hand you a VP of Marketing at a 500-person SaaS company who has never engaged with a single piece of content you've published. Title and company size tell you who could buy. They don't tell you who's moving. A prospect commenting on your posts, clicking through a LinkedIn article, or spending time on a case study page is giving you a stronger signal of readiness than their job title ever will.

How it's actually measured

Real scoring models weight both sides and update as behavior accumulates: points for the firmographic match, additional points that decay or build based on content engagement, email opens, website visits, and social activity. When a lead only gives you an email address, tools that enrich the record with job title, company size, and industry fill the fit half of the equation. But the behavioral half still has to come from watching what the person does, not just who they are.