Using a Custom Lead Scoring Model to Accurately Qualify Your Prospect's Engagement
How to map prospect engagement to your funnel and build a custom lead scoring model that weights intent, with platform-specific setup for HubSpot, Pardot, and Marketo.
Sending qualified leads to sales at the right moment is essential for closing deals. The phrase “right leads” refers to prospect fit with your business, while “right time” indicates their engagement stage and intent signals. Organizations can employ a custom lead scoring model to ensure prospects reach sales when they demonstrate sufficient engagement.
Mapping Your Funnel with Your Prospect’s Engagement
A prospect’s journey rarely follows a linear path. The goal is identifying actions that:
- Signal readiness to buy or speak with sales
- Require greater time investment or commitment
- May indicate early-stage awareness
This engagement mapping shouldn’t happen in isolation. Marketing teams should collaborate with sales to ensure nothing is overlooked. Sales can clarify which lead actions warrant outreach, such as specific eBook downloads or form submissions.
Custom Lead Scoring
Most marketing automation platforms offer default scoring structures, assigning points to various actions like form submissions and link clicks. However, default systems lack nuance—they can’t differentiate between a blog subscription form and a demo request form.
To properly qualify engagement, create automation that increases prospect scores based on specific assets or actions. The process involves assigning weight to top, middle, and bottom-of-funnel activities, with higher increments for actions demonstrating greater purchase intent.
Platform-Specific Implementation
HubSpot: Adjust scoring criteria under Settings, Properties, HubSpot Score, then add triggers like form submissions with assigned point increases.
MC Account Engagement (Pardot): Maintain default form submission scoring of 50 points or customize using Completion Actions on individual forms.
Marketo: Add flow steps to Smart Campaigns, increasing Behavior Score fields when leads submit bottom-of-funnel forms.
Conclusion
An optimized lead scoring system creates a weighted structure rewarding higher-intent actions, providing sales with reliable prioritization data alongside Ideal Customer Profile matching for better conversations, faster pipelines, and increased revenue.