Segmenting high-intent leads isn’t just about fiddling with filters and scoring models. If you’re using Madkudu, you probably want to skip the fluff and actually get more value out of your inbound leads—so your sales team isn’t chasing ghosts and your marketing isn’t sending VIP offers to tire kickers. This guide is for marketers, ops folks, and anyone who’s tired of “best practices” that never seem to move the needle.
Let’s get into how to actually segment high-intent leads in Madkudu workflows, what to watch for, and which “pro tips” are mostly wishful thinking.
1. Get Clear on What “High Intent” Means for You
Before you dive into the Madkudu dashboard, pause and define “high intent” for your business. Don’t just parrot what you heard on a webinar or copy Salesforce’s defaults.
Ask yourself: - Is high intent based on someone requesting a demo? Visiting your pricing page five times? Using your product in a certain way? - Do you care more about fit (right company, right person) or behavior (what they’ve done recently)? Madkudu can score both, but your workflow should prioritize what actually matters for your funnel.
Pro tip:
Write out your “high intent” definition and gut-check it with sales. If they roll their eyes, you’re probably off base.
2. Map Out the Touchpoints That Signal Intent
Madkudu is only as good as the signals you feed it. Default signals are fine as a starting point, but real results come from tailoring them.
Common, but not always useful, intent signals: - Email opens (too noisy, easy to fake) - Blog visits (unless it’s a key conversion page)
Signals that usually matter more: - Demo requests or trial signups - Repeated visits to pricing or integration pages - Product usage milestones (if you have a freemium or trial model) - Filling in high-value forms (contact sales, enterprise quote, etc.)
What to skip:
Don’t overcomplicate with dozens of micro-events. Three to five strong signals are plenty. More signals often means more noise.
3. Clean Up Your Data—Or Brace for Garbage Segments
Madkudu can ingest all sorts of data: website activity, product usage, CRM fields, and more. But it can’t magically fix bad data.
What to check: - Are form fields standardized? (e.g., is “Company” always populated, or are people typing “n/a”?) - Is your CRM up to date, or full of duplicates and junk emails? - Are activity events (like “visited pricing page”) tracked reliably in your analytics?
If your data’s a mess:
Fix the basics first. Even the fanciest workflow won’t save you if your leads are all named “Test Test.”
4. Build Segments in Madkudu—Start Simple
Time to fire up Madkudu. Don’t get distracted by every scoring knob and workflow setting.
How to build a basic high-intent segment:
1. Choose your model:
Madkudu lets you score on “fit” (are they your ideal customer?) and “behavior” (are they acting like they want to buy?). For high intent, focus on behavior, but consider fit as a filter—no point chasing a student email from a B2B lead.
2. Select your key signals:
Use the three to five intent signals you mapped earlier. Madkudu lets you weigh them and set thresholds. Don’t overthink it—start with your gut, then adjust later.
3. Set up lead grades or “buckets”:
Create at least two segments: high intent and everyone else. Some folks add a “medium intent,” but this can turn into a dumping ground—keep it simple at first.
4. Test with real leads:
Before you automate, check if your “high intent” segment is surfacing the right people. Pull a list, show it to sales, and see if it passes the sniff test.
Pro tip:
Don’t automate sales notifications or change your routing just yet. Run the segment manually for a week and see what bubbles up.
5. Automate Your Workflow—But Keep a Manual Escape Hatch
Once your segment is catching the right people, you can start building workflows. But don’t trust automation blindly.
- Start with alerts:
Have Madkudu flag high-intent leads in your CRM or send Slack alerts. See how sales reacts. - Test routing logic:
If you’re assigning leads to reps or triggering nurture emails, add a manual review step at first. Someone should sanity-check the leads before they go to sales. - Watch volume and quality:
Is your “high intent” group too big? Too small? Is sales ignoring the alerts? Tweak the criteria, not the workflow.
What to avoid:
Don’t mix scoring models or segment logic across tools (e.g., Madkudu + homegrown scoring + Salesforce rules). You’ll end up with conflicting results and confused reps.
6. Measure, Tweak, Repeat—But Don’t Chase Perfection
No segmentation model is perfect. The goal is to help sales focus, not to catch every possible buyer.
- Review performance every month:
Track how many high-intent leads convert vs. get ignored. Ask sales for feedback. Are you flagging too many “meh” leads? Missing clear buyers? - Iterate on your signals:
Drop signals that don’t correlate with closed-won deals. Add new ones as your funnel evolves. But don’t change everything at once. - Document changes:
Keep a changelog. If performance dips, you’ll know what you tweaked.
Hot take:
If your workflow needs constant tinkering to work, your “high intent” definition is probably too complicated—or your data’s still messy.
What Doesn’t Work (and What to Ignore)
- Overfitting to edge cases:
Don’t build rules for the one big deal that came out of nowhere. Focus on patterns, not unicorns. - Scoring every lead:
Not every lead needs a grade. Focus on the ones that drive revenue, not vanity metrics. - Chasing every new intent signal:
It’s tempting to add new tools or signals every quarter. Stick with what’s proven until you have a real reason to change.
Keep It Simple—And Don’t Overthink It
Segmenting high-intent leads in Madkudu isn’t about building a Rube Goldberg machine. The best teams keep their segments simple, automate slowly, and revisit what’s working every month or so. Don’t get distracted by shiny features or complex models—start with the basics, get feedback, and only add complexity when you actually need it.
You don’t need to be a data scientist or a “revenue operations guru” to see results. Just stay skeptical, keep your segments honest, and remember: a smaller, higher-quality list beats a big pile of junk every time.