Understand the lead scoring tool

To prioritize the contacts, companies, and deals in your CRM, you can build custom lead scores based on record actions or properties. Scores assign values to leads so you can evaluate which contacts, companies, or deals are likely to become customers or close. When you create a lead score, it evaluates records based on criteria and sets values for a corresponding score property. You can use lead score properties in other HubSpot tools such as segments, workflows, or reports.

In this article, learn more about the types of scores you can create, how scores are calculated, and how to further customize and analyze your scores. You can also review example use cases for using scores in HubSpot tools.

Supported objects

Depending on your HubSpot subscription, you can create lead scores for the following objects:

• Contacts (Marketing Hub only): create engagement scores, fit scores, or combined engagement and fit scores. You can also create engagement or fit scores with AI (Marketing Hub Enterprise only).
• Companies (Marketing Hub or Sales Hub): create engagement scores, fit scores, or combined engagement and fit scores.
• Deals (Sales Hub only): create combined engagement and fit scores.

Types of scores

You can create the following types of lead scores:

• Engagement scores (contacts and companies only): qualify records based on their actions and interactions, such as visiting your website, subscribing to your newsletter, clicking a CTA, or opening a marketing email. Learn how to set engagement score criteria.
• Fit scores (contacts and companies only): qualify records based on their demographic information through property values, such as their age, job title, company size, or annual revenue. Learn how to set fit score criteria.
• Combined scores (contacts, companies, and deals): qualify records based on engagement criteria and fit criteria. These scores populate a combined score value that looks at both actions and demographic information, as well as individual engagement and fit scores if you also want to look at them separately. 

How scores are calculated

Scores are calculated based on the criteria you set for event and property rules in score groups. Each score must have at least one score group, but you can include multiple groups that add up to the total score. You can set a limit for the maximum total score, but can also set maximum scores for each group to weigh groups of criteria or events differently. For example, you could limit points for a group of awareness events, such as page visits, and allow more points for a group of conversion events, such as sales form submissions and meetings.

To better understand the different score limits and values:

• Score limit: the maximum number of points for the overall score. Once a record reaches the limit, no more points will be added to their score. A record's overall score is what appears as the value in the score property.
• Group limit: the maximum number of points for a specific group. Once a record reaches the group limit, no more points will be added to their score from that group. All group limits add to the overall score limit. A record's values for each group add up to their overall score. The group limit can be a whole number or include decimals.
• Criteria points: the points assigned to each individual property or event rule. Points can either be added to or subtracted from the score. In each group, the total criteria points can be below or equal to the group limit. A record's values for each rule contribute to the group score, which then contributes to the total score. The criteria points can be a whole number or include decimals.

• The overall score limit is 100.
• The Engagement with sales group limit is 60 points. The score values are 15 points for a started call, 10 points for a booked meeting, and 20 points for a completed meeting.
• The Engagement with marketing group limit is 40 points. The score values are 6 points for a CTA click, 2 points for a marketing email open, and 5 points for a marketing email link click.
• If a contact books a meeting, opens two marketing emails, and clicks three links in the emails:
  • Their Engagement with sales group score is 10 points.
  • Their Engagement with marketing group score is 19 points.
  • Their overall score (shown in the score property) is 29 points.

You can also create multiple scores per object to meet the goals of your different teams or regions. The engagement score above may be useful to sales and marketing teams tracking prospects, but your support team would need a different score to track the engagement of existing customers. Or, if your business has multiple regions, the qualities of a good fit customer may differ across each location and culture, requiring different fit scores. To keep your teams organized by the scores that apply to them, make sure to set up clear labels for each score property.

Filter criteria

To decide how records are scored, you must set filter criteria for each selected property or event in your score. Note the following about criteria in the lead scoring tool:

• Each property or event rule independently updates the score, even if the rules are in the same group. For example, in a property group, you have one property rule that adds 10 points for Industry is Hospitality and another property rule that adds 15 points for State/Region is Northeast. For this, a company does not need to meet the criteria for both of these rules to receive a score for the group.

Please note: at this time, setting criteria with AND or OR logic is not possible in the lead scoring tool. To include records that are segmented with AND or OR filters, create a list or workflow, then use list/workflow enrollment filters in your lead score.

• You can filter a property rule based on the scored object or the scored object's associations. For example, in a contact score, you could score based on contact property values or associated record property values, such as the associated primary company or associated deals. For deal and company scores, event criteria are based on associated contact activity, but you can customize which associated contacts to use. Learn how to set up association criteria in property rules or event rules.
• You can filter an event rule by frequency or based on a time frame.
  • Frequency: score based on the number of times the event has occurred. You can use the operators Exactly, Between, or At least to set frequency ranges. Learn how to add a frequency to an event rule.

• • Time frame: score based on when the event occurred. You can use the operators In the last, Before, After, or In between and can filter by days, weeks, months, or years. Learn how to add a time frame to an event rule. 
• The operators you can use to filter depend on the selected property or event. When using the Contains any of operator, the way it affects the score depends on the type of score.
  • Contains any of for fit criteria: when using Contains any of for object properties, the criteria is not additive for the score. This means whether one or multiple criteria is met, the rule will add or subtract points only once. For example, if State/Region > contains any of > east, then add 15 points. If both Northeast and Southwest are met, it'll only add 15 points. 
  • Contains any of for engagement criteria: when using Contains any of for event properties, the criteria is additive for the score. This means that for each criteria met, the rule will add or subtract points each time. For example, if Forms submissions > Form name > contains any of > Contact Us, then add five points. If both Contact Us Sales and Contact Us Demo forms are submitted, it'll add five points for each, for a total of 10 points.

Score together vs. score individually

When you select multiple values for a property or event rule, you can choose to score the values together or separately. The scoring logic for these options depends on the type of score.

• Score together: set one number of points to add or subtract for all values. The way this affects the score depends on the type of criteria.
  • Score together for fit criteria: the score will be updated once when any of the values are met. For example, you want to score companies based on the State/Region property. You choose to add 15 points if the company is located in any of Northeast, Midwest, or Southeast. If a company is only in the Northeast, the score will add 15 points. If a company has locations in both Northeast and Midwest, it will still add 15 points because the score updates only once when the company matches any of the values.
  • Score together for engagement criteria: the same number of points will be added to/subtracted from the score when any of the options are met. For example, you add five points if any of the Contact Us or Newsletter forms are submitted. If the Contact Us form was submitted, the score will add five points. If both the Contact Us and Newsletter forms were submitted, the score will add 10 points because the score adds five points for both events.

• Score individually: set a unique number of points to add or subtract for each value. The way this affects the score depends on the type of criteria.
  • Score individually for fit criteria: the score will be updated for each value met, rather than once for any values met. For example, you want to score companies based on the State/Region property. You choose to add 15 points for Northeast, 10 points for Midwest, and eight points for Southeast. If a company is only in the Northeast, the score will add 15 points. If a company has locations in both the Northeast and Midwest, 25 total points will be added to the score because the values are scored individually, then added together.

• • Score individually for engagement criteria: the score will be updated for each event based on the event's assigned points. For example, you want to score based on submissions to your Contact Us form, worth five points, and Newsletter form, worth two points. If the Contact Us form was submitted, the score will add five points. If both the Contact Us and Newsletter forms were submitted, the score will add seven total points because the submission events are scored individually, then added together.

Positive and negative points

For each rule, you can choose to add or subtract points. For example:

• A contact has high engagement with your marketing content, but recently unsubscribed from your newsletter. You can add points for the marketing engagement, but subtract points for the unsubscribe.
• A company has a strong fit score based on size and industry, but they’re located in a region where your company doesn’t operate. You can add points for good fit industry and size, but subtract points for a non-operating region.

Please note: zero is the minimum score. This means that even if a record has only met criteria that subtracts points, their score will remain at zero (i.e. will not be negative).

Score decay

For engagement or combined score event groups, you can turn on score decay, which automatically reduces an individual event's score based on how long ago a scored event occurred. Score decay is independent to each event, follows linear logic, and decayed scores aggregate to the overall score value.

For example, a rule gives 10 points when a specific form is filled out. If this event's decay is set to 50% every month, then one month after the form was filled out, the 10 points from that event will be cut in half and the event now contributes 5 points to the score. The decay is based on the original event score value (i.e. 10 points). In this example, another month later, the form submission contributes 0 points to the score.

Score decay also applies to historical data. For example, if a rule adds 2 points for a CTA click with 100% decay in 3 months, if the CTA click happened 4 months ago, the contact won't get 2 points.

AI Scores

For contact engagement and fit scores, you can create scores using AI. When you create an AI score, your contacts are evaluated to train the AI model and a score is built with recommendations based on the evaluated contacts. A minimum sample size of 50 contacts, containing 25 converted and 25 non-converted, is required to generate a score.

For example, if you set Start: Marketing Qualified Lead, End: Sales Qualified Lead, Timeframe: 30 days, the AI will identify commonalities among contacts who transitioned from Marketing Qualified Lead to Sales Qualified Lead in the past 30 days and generate a score with criteria based on the insights.

Score inclusion and exclusion lists

When you create a score, you can select which records should or should not be scored. When setting up a score, on the Contacts/Companies/Deals tab:

• If you select to score all contacts/companies/deals, you can add exclusion lists to score all records except those in the selected lists.
• If you select to score specific contacts/companies/deals, you can add inclusion lists to score only the records on the selected lists.

Learn more about selecting which records to score.

Score properties

When you build a score, a corresponding score property is created that stores the values for that score. When a score is turned on, the records will be evaluated retroactively and the score property value will be set. The property will update continuously when a records meets any of the score criteria.

During the score set up, you can customize the name of the property and how it's organized in your groups. For combined scores, three properties are created: one total score that stores the combined value from engagement and fit points, one engagement score that stores only the engagement points, and one fit score that stores only the fit points.

For example, your business sells two different services, with different engagement criteria to help decide whether a contact is a good lead. You may want to create separate engagement scores for each. In this case, you'd have two separate properties that you can use track the scores on records or in filters of views, segments, workflows, or reports.

Score thresholds

For each score, you can set up score thresholds to categorize records based on their score values. An additional threshold property is created with color-coded labels for each score range so you can quickly find good leads.

• For engagement and fit scores, the labels are High, Medium, and Low. For example you can set 70-100 as High, 40-69 as Medium, and 0-39 as Low.
• For combined scores, the labels are A1, A2, A3, B1, B2, B3, C1, C2, and C3. The letters refer to the fit score values where A is high-fit and C is low-fit. The numbers refer to engagement score values, where 1 is high engagement and 3 is low engagement. For example, a low-fit but highly engaged contact would have a value of C1.

What happens when a score is turned on or updated

Turning on a score

When a score is first turned on, records are evaluated retroactively based on their current and historical property values or actions, then a value is set for the score property. Moving forward, records' values for the score property will be continuously updated based on changes to their property values and actions.

Before turning a score on, you can also test records or preview score distribution to check if the score is assigning points properly.

Updating a score

When a score is updated, property values and actions are re-evaluated retroactively based on the changes you've made to the score, then values for the score property are updated.

If you're using the score in other tools (e.g., views, segments, workflows, reports, etc.) they may be impacted if the changes you've made affect the criteria set in these tools. To verify and update where the score property is used:

1. In your HubSpot account, navigate to Marketing > Lead Scoring.
2. In the row of the score, click the number in the Properties column.
3. Click the name of the score or threshold property for which you want to view usage.
4. In the property editor, navigate to the Used In tab.
5. If needed, click the tool to edit or remove how the property is used.

Use lead scores in HubSpot tools

Once you've turned on scores, you can use the score properties in other tools to identify, segment, and report on your leads. For example, you could:

• Create a saved view or list of all contacts with a High score according to your score thresholds.

• Create a workflow to automatically assign an owner to unworked contacts with a score over 50.

• Create a workflow to send a notification to the record owner when a deal's score goes above 75.

• Create a custom report to compare lead scores of contacts by the channel they first interacted with your business. To use lead scores in reports, use the scored object as a data source (e.g., contacts if reporting on contact lead scores) and include the score properties as fields.

Score history and performance

Once you've created and turned on scores, you can view more details and charts about a record's score history using cards on records. If your account has a Marketing Hub Enterprise subscription, you can also analyze reports that show how scores are performing and how records are being categorized into your score thresholds.

Additional resources

For instructions on how to build scores, refer to these articles:

• Manually build lead scores
• Build contact lead scores with AI (Marketing Hub Enterprise only)

If you prefer a video walkthrough, watch the Lead Scoring lesson on the HubSpot Academy.