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Lead scoring can be incredibly helpful for getting Sales and Marketing aligned around the right prospects. But if you’re building your first score, my biggest piece of advice is: don’t overcomplicate it!
Here are a few best practices to get you started:
Start with one clear use case. What are you trying to accomplish? Maybe it’s identifying contacts ready for MQL handoff or prioritizing your best-fit companies.
Choose the right score type. Fit tells you who is a good prospect. Engagement tells you who is showing interest. A combined score helps you look at both.
Focus on meaningful signals. You don’t need dozens of criteria! Start with a handful of high-confidence fit properties and high-intent actions.
Not every action should be worth the same. A demo request should carry more weight than an email open. You can also subtract points for poor-fit signals.
Keep recency and repetition in mind. Score decay can reduce the influence of older activity, while score limits can prevent repeated behaviors from inflating a score.
Create actionable thresholds. Whether you use High/Medium/Low categories or a fit-and-engagement matrix, make sure your team knows what each threshold means.
Test before you go live. Preview how records are being scored and ask yourself: Are the people we actually want to prioritize rising to the top?
And remember: your first scoring model doesn’t have to be your final one. Start simple, learn from it, and refine as you go.
Want some help building yours? Join us for a free Small Group Coaching session, where we can work through it together in HubSpot. Sign up here!