The Scoring Model That Promoted Everyone
Your lead scoring model gives +10 for 'Email Opened' and +15 for 'Form Filled Out.' You have 40,000 leads. Last quarter, the sales team complained that 'hot' leads (score ≥ 100) were not converting. You investigate: 3,200 leads are at 100+. Of those, 2,700 reached 100+ purely through repeated email opens (many from a single weekly newsletter), and only 500 have a form fill in the last 90 days. Your MQL threshold is 100 and leads are routed to SDRs when they hit it. The newsletter is sent weekly to the entire database. There is no score decay. There is no negative scoring. A lead who opened the newsletter 10 times over a year scores 100.
1. Diagnose why the scoring model is producing poor MQLs, referencing specific mechanics.
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Diagnosis: the model rewards volume of low-intent activity and never decays or penalizes.
- Email Opened is a weak intent signal and is cumulative. +10 per open, no cap, no decay. A weekly newsletter to the whole database guarantees opens. 10 opens over a year = 100 points = MQL. That is exactly the 2,700-lead group.
- No decay means a year-old open counts the same as yesterday's. The 500 form-fillers are buried under stale open-score leads.
- No negative scoring means unsubscribes, no-opens, and bounced engagement never reduce score, so scores only go up.
- Threshold mismatch: MQL = 100 is reachable by opens alone, so the threshold is not a gate for intent - it is a gate for tenure in the database.
Result: SDRs spend time on 2,700 low-intent leads and miss the 500 high-intent ones. The complaint is a scoring design problem, not a lead quality problem.
2. Redesign the scoring so MQLs reflect intent. Give specific point values and mechanics.
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Redesign principles: reward intent, cap volume signals, decay staleness, penalize disengagement.
Behavioral scoring:
- Form Filled Out (high-value form): +25, and cap at +50 total.
- Content download / pricing page visit: +15.
- Email Opened: +2 (down from +10), capped at +10 total lifetime. Opens are a nudge, not a signal.
- Email Clicked: +5, capped at +20.
Negative scoring:
- Unsubscribed: −50.
- No email activity in 60 days: −10 (via a scheduled batch campaign).
- Bounced: −25.
Decay: Run a scheduled smart campaign monthly that reduces behavioral score by 10% for leads with no activity in 90 days (or use a 'Score Decay' batch).
Threshold: Keep MQL at 100 but now it requires form fills + clicks, not opens. Recalibrate after 30 days by reviewing the score distribution.
Mechanics: Use Score fields (behavioral + demographic) separately so you can tune them independently. Cap rules are implemented by checking current score before adding points, or by using separate capped fields.
Validation: Before go-live, backtest against the 3,200 current 100+ leads to see how many would still qualify - expect the 2,700 open-only leads to drop well below 100.