Lead Scoring: Overview, Setup, and Sample Scoring Models

  • Updated

Lead scoring is how you turn marketing signals into a number sales can act on. It sorts prospects by their position in the funnel and tells your team which ones are worth a conversation today. Your Act-On account ships with ten common behaviours pre-scored - a reasonable starting point - but the real value comes from tuning the rules to your own sales process.

Who does this: Marketing ops owns the setup and the ongoing tuning. Sales leadership must be in the room when you rank behaviours, because they define what "sales-ready" looks like
Time needed: 60 to 90 minutes for the first pass, plus a recurring monthly or quarterly review with sales
Why this matters: A good scoring system concentrates sales attention on the prospects most likely to close. That means fewer stalled conversations, faster pipeline velocity, and cleaner handoffs between marketing and sales. A bad one wastes sales time on noise.
In plain English: You're teaching Act-On "this is what a hot lead looks like." Every click, download, or form submission adds points. When a prospect crosses the threshold you pick (we suggest 40), they're ready for sales.
Quick Reference (Advanced Users) - Click to Expand

Determine your top behaviours

Before touching Act-On, make a list of the signals that tell you a prospect is ready to buy. Ground them in your own sales process, not generic benchmarks. A few questions to start the conversation:

  • What's typically the last step of your marketing funnel before someone purchases?
  • Do you have particular content - videos, ebooks, case studies - that drives a disproportionate share of conversions?
  • Is there a contact form that signals sales should reach out immediately?

Do this exercise with sales in the room. Then rank the behaviours from most to least important. Your highest-value behaviours should get the highest point values later.

Set up your scoring rules

You can now assign point values to attributes and behaviours. When a prospect's total hits the threshold you pick (we recommend 40), treat them as sales-qualified.

  1. Go to Lists > Scoring Rules.
  2. Add values for each profile and activity rule.
  3. Update the Pick Time Period.
  4. Click Save.

There are two kinds of rule: profile-based and behaviour-based.

Profile-based rules

  1. Under the Profile section, click Add Profile Condition.
  2. Give the condition a descriptive name - for example, "High-Level Executives." This label appears on the Scoring Rules page for your own reference.
  3. Pick the field name you want to check, such as Industry or Job Title. It must match an actual field on your lists.
  4. Choose a condition like Equals or Contains and enter the values that qualify. For example, "President" or "CEO".
    • To match multiple values, separate them with semicolons: President; CEO; VP.
  5. Click Save.
  6. Back on the Scoring Rules page, enter the point value for the new condition.
Note for Salesforce Hot Prospects users: The score shown on the Hot Prospects screen does not yet factor in profile attribute scores - it still reflects behaviour scoring only. A fix is on the roadmap.

Behaviour-based rules

  1. Go to Lists > Scoring Rules.
  2. Under Activity, choose the time period of interest (or select ALL for lifetime scoring).
  3. Assign a numeric value to each activity.
    • The default list (Was sent a message, Opened, Clicked, Viewed a form, and so on) applies to generic behaviour - not to any specific asset.
    • You can also score specific messages, forms, documents, pages, or webinars - instructions below.
  4. Under the list of activities, click the drop-down labelled -- Add scoring for specific actions -- and pick an option.
  5. Select the specific assets you want to score.
  6. Click SUBMIT.
  7. Edit an existing rule with the link next to its name. Delete one with the X at the right end of the row.
  8. Hover the icon next to a rule to see a description of the selected item. Click the icon to preview it.

Remember: give the highest point values to the behaviours you ranked as most important in step 1.

Pro tip: Assign a different power of 2 (1, 2, 4, 8, 16...) to each rule. The sum of scores will then tell you exactly which behaviours a contact performed - there's only one combination that adds up to 3, 6, 10, and so on. Build a segment per combination and you can target by exact behaviour pattern.

Sample score setup

Here's an example scoring system. Update the values to fit your business - these are a starting point, not a mandate.

Marketing funnel stage by lead score:

  • Top of funnel: 0 to 10
  • Middle of funnel: 11 to 29
  • Bottom of funnel: 30 to 39
  • Marketing-qualified / Sales-ready: 40 to 60
  • Hot leads for sales: 60+

Time period: Start of buying cycle to close of sale

Target marketing-qualified lead to sales-accepted lead handoff: 40 points

Activity Score Reason
Was sent any message 0 If you send 40 messages and none are opened, that's not buying interest.
Opened any message 1 An open is nice to see, but it's not a strong buying signal on its own.
Clicked on any message 1 to 5 Clicking shows engagement, not strong intent. Tip: subtract your "Downloaded Media" score from 11 to set this. If Downloaded Media = 10, set this to 1.
Viewed a form 0 Viewing isn't intent to purchase. The prospect will already pick up points from "Visited a web page."
Submitted any form 10 Trading information for content is a strong indicator.
Downloaded any media 5 to 20 Downloading engaged content you designed for the buying journey is often a very strong indicator.
Visited any landing page 2 Typically weighted more than a general website visit. The prospect will also get points from "Visited a web page."
Visited any web page 1 How many pages should a buyer view before sales engages? Set the value so that N visits crosses your sales-ready threshold.
Clicked any social post 1 to 5 Clicking content posted through Act-On's social publish tool. Engagement, not strong intent.
Registered for any webinar 5 Good signal of interest, and hints at topic priority.
Attended any webinar 35 Showing up is close to sales-ready. Route to sales immediately.
Clicked any organic search listing 5 to 10 Clicking through from an unpaid search result. Useful but noisy.
Clicked any paid search ad 10 to 15 Clicking an AdWord. Usually a good indicator of buying intent.
Unique: Visited Pricing page 40 Typically means the prospect is ready to buy.
Unique: Submitted Contact Us form 40 Submitting a Contact Us form makes a prospect immediately qualified.

For more on the philosophy behind these numbers, see What are industry standards for lead scoring rules?

Multiple Score Sheets

Multiple Score Sheets let you create up to 4 additional scoring sheets on top of your default. Use them to tailor scoring for different teams, regions, products, customer vs prospect segments - any split where one universal scoring model isn't enough.

Note: Multiple Score Sheets are not calculated in Hot Prospects, and they don't appear in the Contact's Activity History.

Add a score sheet

The process for setting up a secondary sheet is the same as the default, with one extra step to create the sheet itself.

  1. Go to Lists > Scoring Rules.
  2. At the top right, click the blue + icon (not the blue circle + on the left).
  3. Add a Sheet Name and click Save.
  4. Follow the scoring setup steps above to populate the new sheet.

Where Multiple Score Sheets show up:

  • The Change Field Value step in automated programs and list maintenance programs, when setting the field to overall behaviour score or campaign score.
  • Query segments based on overall behaviour score or campaign score.
  • New lists built on overall behaviour score or campaign score.
  • The Change Column Value feature on list menus, when updating a field to overall behaviour score or campaign score.

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