If your sales team is still chasing every new lead the same way, you’re working too hard for too little. Automated lead scoring sorts the tire-kickers from the real prospects, so your team spends time where it counts. This guide is for sales managers, ops folks, and hands-on marketers who want a real-world walkthrough for building lead scoring workflows in Spoke—without the hype or hand-waving.
Why bother with lead scoring?
Let’s be honest: most leads aren’t worth your team’s time. Maybe they just downloaded a whitepaper for a class, or they’re browsing for ideas. Automated lead scoring helps you:
- Prioritize leads that actually fit your target customer profile
- Spot high-intent signals, like repeat visits or demo requests
- Cut down on wasted follow-ups
- Give sales more confidence about who to call first
But don’t expect magic. No scoring model is flawless, and you’ll still need humans in the loop. But a good workflow gets you 80% of the way there.
Step 1: Get your data in order
Before you build anything in Spoke, check what data you actually have. Lead scoring lives and dies by good, clean data. Here’s what to look for:
- Contact info: Name, company, email, phone
- Firmographics: Company size, industry, revenue
- Behavioral data: Email opens, website visits, demo requests, webinar signups
- Source: Where the lead came from (Google Ad, event, referral, etc.)
Pro tip: If your CRM and marketing tools don’t talk to each other, fix that first. Spoke can pull from multiple sources, but garbage in means garbage out.
What to ignore
Don’t try to score on everything. A lead’s favorite color or the font they use in emails won’t help you close deals. Stick to signals that actually predict sales.
Step 2: Define what a “good lead” looks like
Don’t let the software tell you what matters. You know your business best.
- Talk to your reps: Which leads close fastest? Which ones are always a dead end?
- Check your win data: Look at the last 20 closed deals. What did those leads have in common?
- List must-haves vs. nice-to-haves: Maybe you only sell to companies with 50+ employees. Maybe certain industries never buy.
Write this down. You’ll use it to set up your scoring rules.
Example signals: - +10 points if company has >100 employees - +15 points if lead has a senior title - +20 points for requesting a demo - -10 points if email address is @gmail.com (unless you sell to consumers)
Step 3: Map your data into Spoke
Now, log into Spoke and get familiar with its data mapping.
- Connect your data sources: Most teams sync their CRM (like Salesforce or HubSpot), marketing automation, and website events.
- Map fields: Make sure Spoke can “see” the lead attributes you want to score. If something’s missing, fix it now. You can’t score what you can’t see.
Heads up: Spoke’s integrations are decent, but if you use a niche tool, you might need to work with CSV uploads or set up a Zapier bridge. Don’t get bogged down trying to automate everything on day one.
Step 4: Build your scoring rules
This is where you turn your notes from Step 2 into actual workflows.
- Go to the Lead Scoring section in Spoke.
- Start a new scoring model.
- Add criteria: For each attribute or action, assign a point value. For example:
- Job title contains “Director” or “VP” = +10 points
- Visited pricing page = +15 points
- Opened 3+ marketing emails = +5 points
- Used a personal email = -10 points
- Set thresholds: Decide what score makes a “hot,” “warm,” or “cold” lead. Keep it simple at first.
- Save and activate the model.
What works:
Simple, transparent rules. You can always get fancy later. If you’re not sure about a point value, start small. You’ll adjust as you learn.
What doesn’t:
Over-complicated models with a dozen obscure signals. If your reps don’t trust the score, they’ll ignore it.
Step 5: Automate next steps for each lead tier
Now that leads are scored, make Spoke do something useful with that score.
- Hot leads: Auto-assign to a sales rep, send a Slack alert, or trigger an outreach sequence.
- Warm leads: Drop into a nurture campaign or schedule a check-in for next week.
- Cold leads: Mark as “no action” or send to a long-term drip.
How to set this up in Spoke: - Use Spoke’s workflow builder to set up automations based on score thresholds. - Example: “If lead score > 40, create task for sales rep and send them an email summary.”
Don’t over-engineer:
Start with one or two automations per tier. Too many actions will annoy your team (and your prospects).
Step 6: Test, get feedback, and tweak
Don’t launch and forget. Here’s how to keep your workflow useful:
- Check results weekly: Are hot leads actually converting? Are reps ignoring the scores?
- Ask the team: What feels off? Are good leads being missed? Is the score easy to understand?
- Adjust scoring: Move points up or down based on what’s working. You’ll never get it perfect—but you can get it better.
Pro tip:
Document every change. It’s easy to forget why you set a rule six months ago.
What to ignore (for now)
- AI scoring “black boxes.” Some tools promise magic with AI. Maybe in the future, but if you can’t explain why a lead is “hot,” your team won’t buy in.
- Endless signals. Website heatmaps, social follows, horoscope signs—unless you see a real pattern, skip it.
- Automating every single step. Keep some human judgment in the loop, especially for big deals.
Final thoughts: Keep it simple, iterate often
You don’t need a PhD in data science to set up automated lead scoring that actually helps your sales team. Start with a model you can explain in one breath. Watch what works, and tweak as you go. Over time, your workflow will get sharper, your team will trust the scores, and you’ll spend more time selling to people who are actually ready to buy.
Less busywork. More closed deals. That’s the point.