HubSpot Lead Scoring 101 - Step by Step Guide

In marketing and in sales, it's not just about piling up leads. It's about pinpointing the ones that are ripe for conversion. That’s where lead scoring comes into play—successful sales and marketing teams use this method along with marketing software like HubSpot to prioritize their efforts.

HubSpot, a robust marketing automation tool, offers a built-in lead scoring system that can help businesses prioritize their leads. However, it has limitations around leveraging all of your customer data across a range of sources. As businesses scale and start dealing with a larger volume of leads and a bigger sales team, they often need a more predictive and sophisticated scoring system like MadKudu.

In this post, we’ll walk you through how lead scoring works in HubSpot, and delve deeper into the reasons why MadKudu’s predictive analytics capabilities can take it up a notch. Even if you're a HubSpot newbie, we've got you covered.

HubSpot Lead Scoring—How Does It Work?

Lead scoring in HubSpot is a powerful feature that allows you to assign a numerical value to each of your leads based on their likelihood to convert. Its lead scoring system is based on two traits: positive attributes and negative attributes.

Positive Attributes

Positive attributes are characteristics that increase a contact's lead score. These traits can be almost anything that's tracked in HubSpot, such as contact properties, company properties, deal properties, activity properties, list memberships, form submissions, marketing emails, and more.

For example, if your product is targeted at VP-level contacts, you could add a positive attribute for certain job titles. This means that any time a contact has a job title that includes "VP" or "Vice," a certain number of points would be added to their lead score.

Negative Attributes

On the other hand, if you want to avoid leads from certain countries, you could set a negative attribute for those locations, subtracting points from contacts based in those countries.

One of the key features of HubSpot's lead scoring system is the ability to use "AND" and "OR" conditions when defining attributes. This allows you to create more complex scoring models. 

For instance, you could award points to vice presidents of companies in certain industries by using the "AND" condition. Alternatively, if you want to award points separately for industry and job title, you would use the "OR" condition.

It's important to note that the score values you set will only be awarded once per contact. For example, if you award two points for clicking a particular CTA, those points will only be awarded the first time the person clicks that CTA. If you want to award additional points for subsequent clicks, you'll need to create another score and set it for when someone clicks the CTA a certain number of times.

How To Set Up Lead Scoring In HubSpot

Setting up lead scoring in HubSpot is a straightforward process. Here's how to get set up:

1. Access the Settings: Start by logging into your HubSpot account and clicking on the settings icon in the main navigation bar.

‍

‍

2. Navigate to Properties: In the left sidebar menu, navigate to Properties.

‍

3. Select HubSpot Score: Scroll or search for the HubSpot score or a custom score property and click on the property name.

‍

‍

4. Add Criteria: Click on 'Add criteria' in the Positive or Negative sections to set criteria that will add or remove points from the score respectively. You can set a criterion and then click 'Apply filter'. You can add up to 100 filters to your score property.

‍

5. Set Score Amount: To change the number of points that are added or removed when a record meets the criteria, click the edit icon. Enter a new score amount and click 'Set'.

6. Save Your Changes: Once you've finished adding or editing criteria, click 'Save'. Once saved, all records, including those with existing scores, will be reevaluated. Scores will be updated to reflect the new criteria.

Remember, the criteria you set for scoring can be based on any data that's tracked in HubSpot, such as contact properties, company properties, deal properties, activity properties, list memberships, form submissions, marketing emails, and more. This flexibility allows you to create a scoring model that aligns with your specific business needs and goals.

However, as your business scales and you start getting a larger volume of leads, you might find that you need a more predictive scoring system.

This is where MadKudu comes in.

Scaling Your Lead Scoring with MadKudu

While HubSpot's lead scoring capabilities are ideal for smaller businesses with a manageable volume of leads, there comes a point when a more predictive solution like MadKudu becomes essential.

MadKudu is a predictive analytics platform and lead scoring software that uses artificial intelligence to analyze your sales, marketing, and product data, predicting both conversions and the best revenue opportunities. This gives you a much deeper understanding of your prospects, unlocking a more personalized and effective approach to nurturing leads.

With MadKudu, you gain:

Superior Predictive Lead Scoring, Powered by AI

While HubSpot's predictive lead scoring offers a powerful way to prioritize leads, MadKudu takes it to new heights by leveraging AI and machine learning to analyze a wider scope of data, including historical sales, customer behavior, and external data points. This creates a dynamic lead scoring model that continually evolves with new data.

HubSpot’s predictive lead scoring only incorporates HubSpot data, but MadKudu integrates with various sources to take a wider range of data into account. These include in-app activity data from platforms like Segment or Amplitude, billing data from Stripe, and more. This comprehensive approach provides a more complete picture of each lead's potential. Plus, MadKudu's transparent scoring insights help you understand the factors driving your lead scores, enabling more informed decision-making and strategy optimization.

MadKudu's Insights Combined With Your Unique Business Knowledge

MadKudu enhances your unique business knowledge with data-driven insights. Its advanced analytics and machine learning capabilities analyze vast amounts of data, surfacing patterns and trends that may not be immediately apparent. These insights, when combined with your understanding of your market, product, and customers, create a powerful synergy that enables more effective marketing and sales strategies.

This blend of your business expertise and MadKudu's predictive analytics results in a lead scoring model that is both data-driven and deeply rooted in your unique business context. The outcome is improved lead scoring, better lead prioritization, and ultimately, higher conversion rates.

Increased Customer Lifetime Value

By focusing on leads that are a good fit for your product or service, you increase the chances of acquiring customers with a high lifetime value (LTV). MadKudu’s predictive scoring identifies these potential long-term, loyal customers, not just immediate purchasers, by analyzing historical data and behavior.

This forms a model of your ideal customer, which new leads are evaluated against, making it easier to identify those most likely to contribute to a higher LTV. Moreover, by identifying high-LTV customers early in the sales process, you can tailor your marketing and sales efforts to better meet their needs and preferences.

Effortless Transition

Transitioning from HubSpot scoring to MadKudu is a straightforward process. Our support team is always here to help guide you through the process and ensure a smooth transition.

With the power of MadKudu’s AI-based predictive analytics, you can drive your business to new heights, focusing your efforts on the leads that are most likely to convert and bring the highest value to your business.

Curious to learn more? Let’s chat!