Lead scoring explained simply
As we covered in “TOFU, MOFU, BOFU explained simply”, a well-run middle of the funnel moves around 75% of qualified leads to the next stage. The key word in that sentence is “qualified”. Without a scoring grid, there is nothing to qualify, just a pile of contacts all handled the same way, hoping for the best.
Why not all leads are equal
A lead who matches your ideal customer exactly and visited your pricing page three times this week has nothing in common with a lead who downloaded a free guide once, a month ago, and never came back. Giving both the same sales priority means wasting your reps’ time on the second one, at the expense of the first.
And while the first one waits their turn, they compare. They call your competitors. Sometimes, they sign elsewhere.
Only 44% of B2B companies use a scoring system to prioritize their leads. Source: Landbase
Most teams run on gut feeling, or worse, work through leads in the order they arrive, with no priority at all.
The 2 families of criteria to combine
Good scoring always combines two types of signals.
Demographic and firmographic criteria first: job title, company size, industry. They answer a simple question: does this person match the type of customer you know how to serve well?
Behavioral criteria next: pages visited, emails opened, content downloaded, visit frequency. They answer another, equally important question: is this person showing active, recent interest, or did the interest stop after a single click?
Profile tells you whether someone can buy. Behavior tells you whether they are ready. A lead with a great profile but no recent activity isn’t ready. A very active lead with an off-target profile will probably never become a customer. It is the combination of both that gives you a reliable signal.
A simple grid you can build in one afternoon
You don’t need a sophisticated marketing automation tool to get started. A basic scoring grid assigns positive and negative points to a handful of chosen criteria:
| Criterion | Family | Points |
|---|---|---|
| Job title matches your target | Profile | +20 |
| Company size outside your target | Profile | -15 |
| Pricing page visited | Behavior | +15 |
| Guide downloaded | Behavior | +10 |
| No email opened in 30 days | Behavior | -10 |
| Demo request | Behavior | +30 |
These values are deliberately rough. What matters is adjusting them over time by watching which criteria actually predict a conversion in your business.
Don’t skip the negative points. Without them, your database fills up with “hot” leads that went cold months ago: someone who requested a demo in March and hasn’t opened anything since isn’t worth the same today.
The threshold that turns a lead into an MQL
Once the points are added up, a threshold decides when a lead becomes an MQL (marketing qualified lead): a lead promising enough to get more targeted marketing (focused nurturing, specific content), without being handed straight to sales.
Up to 67% of lost B2B sales are linked to poor lead qualification upstream. Source: Landbase
The threshold is different for every company and needs calibrating over time, but it exists for exactly that reason: to stop leads from being sent to sales too early, or promising leads from never surfacing because nobody defined the bar. Without a clear threshold, every lead becomes a case-by-case decision, which slows everyone down and adds a lot of subjectivity to a process that should stay measurable.
What it changes day to day
Setting up a scoring grid, even an imperfect one, immediately changes the conversation between marketing and sales. Instead of arguing on gut feeling about “is this lead worth a call”, the team has a number: adjustable, but shared. Marketing stops sending lukewarm contacts, and sales stops saying “your leads are bad”.
Our guide The Leads Machine walks through the complete scoring grid we use, with the exact thresholds that separate a simple contact from an MQL, then from an SQL ready for sales.
About the author
Sonia Barbier is the founder of Sacrebleu Marketing and brings 20 years of international experience in B2B, SaaS and product marketing. She helps B2B companies turn their content into a driver of acquisition, nurturing and conversion.
