B2B sales teams live and die by their leads. If you’re tired of chasing dead ends and want your reps focused on real opportunities, you need a lead scoring model that actually works—not just a bunch of feel-good numbers. This guide’s for sales managers, operations folks, or anyone tasked with making sense of the noise in a pipeline.
We’ll walk through building a lead scoring model in Getaia that’s simple, realistic, and gives your team a shot at winning more deals. No fluff, no “AI-powered magic”—just what you need to get the job done.
Step 1: Get Clear on What a “Good Lead” Actually Means
Before you even log into Getaia, get your team on the same page about what makes a lead worth chasing. This is the step most people botch, rushing into the tool and hoping for a miracle.
What to do:
- Grab your sales team (yes, the actual reps) and ask:
- Which closed/won deals do they wish they had more of?
- What early signs do they notice that a lead will go nowhere?
- Get specific. “Big company” is vague. “More than 500 employees in the tech sector, using Salesforce” is useful.
- Look at your last 6–12 months of won and lost deals. Are there patterns in:
- Industry?
- Company size?
- Job title of decision-maker?
- Website behavior or engagement?
- Geography?
- Ignore “vanity” signals—like someone downloading a whitepaper. Only count what’s actually led to revenue.
Pro tip: Sales and marketing almost always disagree here. Force the conversation. Your scoring model is only as good as your definition of “good.”
Step 2: Map Out the Data You Actually Have
Lead scoring is only as strong as your data. If you dream up a perfect model that relies on info you don’t collect, it’s useless.
What to do:
- Make a list of all the data points you can reliably get for leads in Getaia.
- Firmographics (company size, industry)
- Contact info (job titles, seniority)
- Engagement (email opens, site visits)
- Source/campaign info
- Double-check what’s always filled in, what’s spotty, and what’s missing completely.
- Decide what’s “must-have” versus “nice-to-have.” If you only have a field for “industry” 20% of the time, don’t build your whole score around it.
Don’t: Try to “fix” your data before building a model. Start simple with what’s there—otherwise you’ll never launch.
Step 3: Set Up Your Lead Scoring Criteria in Getaia
Now you’re ready to get your hands dirty. Log into Getaia and go to the Lead Scoring section. Here’s how to actually set up your model:
1. Choose Your Scoring Model Type
Most B2B teams start with a points-based model:
- Assign positive points for things you want (e.g., right industry, senior job title).
- Assign negative points for things you don’t (e.g., student, personal email address).
Some tools push you toward fancy machine learning models. Unless you have tons of clean data and a data scientist on staff, stick with points-based. It’s transparent and easy to adjust.
2. Define the Criteria
Pick 5–7 signals, maximum. Any more and you’ll overcomplicate things. Examples:
-
Firmographic:
+10 if company size > 250 employees
+7 if industry = “SaaS”
-5 if industry = “Education” (if you never close these) -
Contact:
+10 if job title = “VP” or “Director”
-5 if title = “Intern” -
Engagement:
+5 if opened marketing email
+10 if visited pricing page
-10 if no activity in 30 days
3. Set the Point Values
Don’t overthink it. Start with round numbers. You can always tune later.
Mistakes to avoid: - Giving everything 5 points. You want some things to matter more. - Assigning points to activities that don’t actually signal intent (like clicking any random blog post).
4. Build the Rules in Getaia
- Use Getaia’s rule builder to set up each criterion.
- Double-check the logic—ANDs and ORs get messy fast.
- Test with a few sample leads to see if the scores make sense.
Step 4: Define What Happens When a Lead Hits a Score
A scoring model is useless if nobody acts on it. Decide upfront what a “hot” score means for your team.
What to do:
- Set thresholds:
- Example: 70+ points = “Sales Qualified Lead” (SQL)
- Under 40 = “Keep nurturing”
- Tell reps what to do when a lead passes a threshold. Auto-assign, send alert, or just drop into a view?
- Set up notifications, workflows, or pipeline stages in Getaia so nothing slips through the cracks.
Reality check:
Don’t expect your reps to hunt for good leads in a dashboard. The system should flag them and hand them off automatically.
Step 5: Test Your Model With Real Leads
Don’t trust a model until it’s run against your actual data.
What to do:
- Pull a batch of recently closed/won and lost leads.
- Run them through your new scoring rules in Getaia.
- Do the “good” leads score high? Are the duds getting low numbers?
- Show results to the sales team—do the scores pass their sniff test?
If you see weird results (“junk” leads scoring high, dream accounts scoring low), adjust your point values or criteria. Don’t be afraid to drop signals that aren’t adding value.
Step 6: Monitor, Tweak, and Keep It Simple
No model is perfect out of the gate. The only thing worse than not having lead scoring is having a bad model everyone ignores.
What to do:
- Review your top-scoring leads and conversion rates every month.
- Ask your reps if the scores are helping them work smarter—or just creating noise.
- Remove criteria that aren’t predictive. Add new ones only if you’re sure they matter.
- Resist the urge to make the model too complex. If you need a cheat sheet to explain it, you’ve gone too far.
Pro tip:
If your reps are still ignoring high-scoring leads, your model isn’t tuned—or your definition of “good lead” is off. Fix that before adding more bells and whistles.
What to Ignore (At Least for Now)
- AI-powered scoring: Unless you’ve got thousands of leads and airtight data, these tools mostly add confusion.
- Overly granular signals: Tracking every click or scroll on your site just dilutes what matters.
- One-size-fits-all templates: Every B2B org is different. Your best leads don’t look like everyone else’s.
Keep It Simple and Iterate
Lead scoring isn’t magic—it’s just a filter to help your team focus. The best models are clear, simple, and get better over time. Don’t worry about perfection. Launch something basic in Getaia, watch how it works, and improve as you go.
The real win? Getting your team to trust the scores, chase the right leads, and stop wasting time on the rest. That’s what makes a lead scoring model worth it.