All leads are not born equal. Plenty of "leads" are red herrings who, through no fault of their own, simply aren't interested in your product or service - and it's tempting to assume every website visitor is a potential customer. They're not. Job candidates checking your careers page, your own marketing team admiring their work, journalists doing research, and competitors having a nose around are all in that traffic too - not to mention genuine prospects who simply aren't ready to buy yet.
Key findings
- Lead scores are arbitrary points assigned based on what your business considers signals of genuine sales readiness.
- Scoring combines intrinsic data (job title, company size, industry) with extrinsic, behavioural data (page visits, video views, time on site).
- Negative scoring matters too - a visit to your careers page, for example, might reasonably dock points rather than add them.
Why Lead Scoring Matters
The question is how to identify and prioritise the genuine prospects so you're engaging at the right point in their buying cycle - not too early, not too late, and not at all if they were never a real prospect in the first place. Lead scoring solves this by awarding points based on what your business believes are the strongest indicators of sales readiness.
What to Score
Points can come from intrinsic, CRM-held criteria - job title, company size, industry type - or extrinsic, behavioural criteria like a specific page visit, a video view, or time spent on site. Negative scores matter just as much: a visitor checking out your careers page, for instance, might reasonably lose points rather than gain them, since that behaviour suggests something other than buying intent.
Prioritising Sales Time
Done well, lead scoring lets you focus effort on marketing-qualified leads rather than wasting time on visitors who were never going to convert - and it applies the moment a visitor becomes known to you, whether they're already in your CRM or not, letting your web and CRM tracking work together from the first interaction onwards.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are all website visitors potential leads?
No - your visitors also include job candidates checking your careers page, your own team, journalists doing research, and competitors. Lead scoring helps separate genuine prospects from this background noise.
What kinds of criteria go into a lead score?
A mix of intrinsic CRM data (job title, company size, industry) and extrinsic behavioural data (page visits, video views, time on site) - plus negative scoring for actions that suggest a visitor isn't a genuine prospect, like browsing your careers page.
Andrew Nicholson
Co-founder & CEO at Kulea. Guest lecturer in digital psychology and behavioural economics at the University of Buckingham.