If your sales team spends too much time chasing dead-end leads, you’re not alone. Lead scoring promises to help, but it only works if you set it up right — and resist the urge to make it more complicated than it needs to be. This guide is for anyone using Vanillasoft who wants practical, clear steps to start scoring leads and actually use those scores to prioritize outreach.
Let’s get into it.
1. What Lead Scoring Is (and Isn’t)
Lead scoring is just a way to assign points to prospects based on how likely they are to buy. The idea: spend your time on people who might actually say yes. That’s it. It’s not magic, and it won’t fix broken messaging or a lousy product.
What works:
- Using a handful of clear, meaningful criteria.
- Making sure your team actually sees and uses the scores in their daily workflow.
What doesn’t:
- Trying to measure everything under the sun.
- Setting it and forgetting it.
If you’re hoping lead scoring will double your close rate overnight, you’ll be disappointed. If you just want to help your team focus, you’re in the right place.
2. Planning Your Lead Scoring Criteria
Before you touch any settings, figure out what makes a lead “hot” for your business. Otherwise, you’ll just be making up numbers.
Start Simple
Ask yourself: - What behaviors or traits usually mean a lead is worth our time? - What are the red flags that almost always mean “not a fit”?
Examples of good criteria: - Job title or industry (are they decision makers?) - Company size or revenue - How many times they’ve engaged (opened emails, clicked links, answered calls) - Specific actions (requested a demo, downloaded a whitepaper)
Pro tip:
Don’t use more than 5-7 criteria to start. You’ll be tempted to add more. Don’t. You can always tweak later.
Weighting Your Criteria
Not all actions are equal. Signing up for a trial is a lot more valuable than just opening an email.
- Assign higher points to actions or traits that really move the needle.
- Assign negative points to clear disqualifiers (e.g., student emails if you only sell to enterprises).
What to ignore:
Don’t bother scoring things like “visited website” unless you can tie it to real intent. Vanity metrics muddy the waters.
3. Setting Up Lead Scoring in Vanillasoft
Now you’ve got your criteria, it’s time to build your scoring system in Vanillasoft. The interface isn’t the most modern, but it gets the job done if you know where to look.
Step 1: Log In and Navigate to Lead Scoring
- Log in to your Vanillasoft admin dashboard.
- Go to your project, then look for the Scoring or Lead Scoring tab. (Depending on your version, it might be under “Leads” or “Settings.”)
- If you don’t see it, you may not have permissions — ask your admin.
Step 2: Define Your Scoring Rules
- Click Add New Rule or similar.
- For each rule, set:
- Field or activity: What are you scoring? (e.g., “Job Title contains ‘Manager’”)
- Point value: How many points to add or subtract.
- Trigger: Is this a one-time score (like a job title) or repeatable (like every email opened)?
- Repeat for each criterion.
Tips: - Use positive numbers for good signs, negative for red flags, and zero for “meh” activities. - Be blunt. If something never leads to a sale, give it a big negative score.
Step 3: Save and Test Your Rules
- Hit Save or Apply (don’t skip this — it’s easy to forget).
- Pick a few test leads and see how the scores look. If everyone’s a 100 or a -50, your scoring is off.
- Adjust point values until the spread feels right. You want a clear difference between “hot,” “warm,” and “cold.”
What to watch out for:
If scores cluster in the middle, you’ll end up ignoring them. Make the system a little “opinionated” — if in doubt, exaggerate the differences at first.
4. Putting Lead Scores to Work
Having scores is pointless if nobody uses them. Here’s how to actually put them into action.
Step 1: Surface Scores Where They Matter
- Configure your Vanillasoft dashboard to display scores front-and-center for reps.
- Add sorting or filtering options so reps can easily see “Top 10” or “Hot Leads.”
- If possible, color-code or flag scores so cold leads don’t blend in.
Step 2: Adjust Call and Email Queues
- Use lead scores to automatically prioritize outreach queues.
- Set rules so “hot” leads get called first, or are routed to your best reps.
- For “cold” leads, consider slower follow-up or automated touches.
Pro tip:
If your team ignores the scores, ask why. Sometimes the scores are wrong. Sometimes reps just need a little nudge or a workflow tweak.
Step 3: Monitor, Learn, and Iterate
- Check weekly or monthly: Are high-scoring leads converting more?
- If not, revisit your criteria. Are you scoring the wrong things? Are reps skipping steps?
- Don’t be afraid to kill off criteria that don’t actually predict success.
Common mistake:
Treating lead scores as gospel. They’re a guide, not a law. Sales is still a human game.
5. Avoiding Lead Scoring Traps
You’ll hear a lot of advice about “advanced” lead scoring — AI, predictive models, or scoring based on every micro-interaction. Here’s what’s worth your time (and what’s not):
Worth It
- Reviewing your scores quarterly.
- Talking to your reps about what really makes a lead worth pursuing.
- Tuning your criteria as your business changes.
Not Worth It
- Obsessing over tiny behavioral signals (“clicked newsletter link at 2am”).
- Building a 20-factor scoring model — nobody uses these in real life.
- Forgetting to gut-check your scores against actual outcomes.
6. Sample Lead Scoring Setup
Just to make this concrete, here’s an example setup for a B2B SaaS company:
| Criteria | Points | |-------------------------------------|----------| | Job title contains “Director”+ | +20 | | Company size > 500 employees | +15 | | Requested demo | +40 | | Opened 2+ emails | +10 | | No business email (e.g., Gmail) | -25 | | Industry = “Education” (bad fit) | -30 |
- Leads above 40: Hot — call ASAP.
- Leads 10 to 40: Warm — nurture, but don’t ignore.
- Leads below 10: Low priority — maybe automate touches.
Don’t copy this blindly. Your scoring should reflect your actual close data and sales process.
7. Keeping It Simple (And Useful)
It’s easy to overthink lead scoring, but you’ll get more value from a basic, blunt system that everyone uses than a fancy setup nobody trusts. Start simple, listen to your reps, and don’t be afraid to tweak as you learn more.
Remember, lead scoring should save your team time — not add another layer of busywork. Keep it practical, keep it visible, and don’t chase perfection. The real win is helping your team focus on the leads that matter. Everything else is just noise.