In business, companies face the challenge of sorting through a lot of potential customers — or leads — and figuring out which ones are most likely to buy.
Some are ready to purchase, while others are just exploring. This can be a big challenge because you want to focus your efforts on the ones who are likely to become paying customers.
That’s where lead scoring software comes in. Businesses use lead scoring software to sort and rank leads, pinpointing those with the highest potential for conversion.
This not only allows sales and marketing teams to focus their efforts on the most promising opportunities but also addresses a critical challenge faced by businesses.
According to a recent survey, 33.3% of businesses believe inadequate insights into their audience is their biggest hurdle in lead generation as shown:
In this article, we’ll explore lead scoring software’s importance and some of the leading solutions in 2023.
Here’s what we’ll cover in this review:
- What is lead scoring software?
- Benefits of lead scoring software
- KPIs for monitoring success
- Key features of a good lead scoring platform
- Top lead scoring solutions in 2023
- Summary
What is lead scoring software?
For modern businesses, lead scoring software plays a very important role in identifying promising prospects.
Lead scoring starts with data collection that involves gathering lead information from various sources like website visitors, email interactions, and social media channels of your business.
Additionally, lead scoring software allows your sales teams to rank and prioritize these captured leads. By using predefined algorithms like demographics, job titles, and company size, you can assess how well a lead aligns with your ideal customer profile.
As a testament to its growing importance, the global lead-scoring software market is anticipated to generate around $5 billion by 2031.
Benefits of lead scoring software
Lead scoring solutions bring a range of benefits, making them an indispensable asset for businesses today.
It allows you to prioritize leads based on their likelihood to convert, effectively increasing the conversion rate.
This is because sales reps can focus their efforts on leads that have demonstrated a higher level of interest and engagement, saving precious time and resources.
Furthermore, lead scoring promotes better collaboration between sales and marketing teams.
It gives them a common framework for evaluating lead quality, ensuring that both departments are aligned in their efforts.
In fact, a survey by HubSpot revealed that 43% of salespeople believe sales and marketing alignment has helped them deliver better results:
The software’s ability to assign scores to leads based on various criteria leads to more targeted marketing campaigns.
This, in turn, improves the overall effectiveness of your marketing strategies.
By helping you identify and prioritize hot leads, lead scoring improves the entire sales process.
It reduces the time wasted on pursuing unqualified leads and allows for a more refined sales cycle.
KPIs for monitoring success
To effectively gauge the success of your lead scoring efforts, you’ll need to keep a close eye on these KPIs:
- Conversion Rate: Measure the percentage of leads that make the leap from potential customers to paying clients.
- Lead to Opportunity Ratio: Evaluate how well leads progress through the sales funnel, ensuring that no promising opportunities are lost.
- Revenue Generated from Scored Leads: Assess the direct financial impact of your lead scoring efforts.
- Lead Engagement Metrics: Track how actively leads are engaging with your brand.
- MQL to SQL Ratio: Keep an eye on the marketing-qualified leads (MQL) to sales-qualified leads (SQL) ratio to ensure that your leads are converting effectively.
Key features of a good lead scoring platform
When choosing a reliable management software, keep an eye out for these features:
- Integration with CRM: This ensures your lead scoring is well-aligned with your broader customer relationship management and marketing efforts.
- Live Display of Lead Scoring Data: Real-time access to lead scoring data allows your teams to make quick and informed decisions.
- Customizable Scoring Model: The ability to tailor your scoring model to your unique business requirements and adapt it as needed.
- Supports Ongoing Optimization: A strong platform supports continuous improvement by using machine learning capabilities to enhance your lead scoring over time.
Top lead scoring solutions in 2023
Here are our top choices for the best lead scoring software:
1. Pecan AI
Pecan AI’s lead scoring solution smoothly generates predictive insights, allowing businesses to make well-informed decisions.
By integrating with CRM systems, Pecan helps you prioritize leads effectively while ensuring you don’t spend resources on prospects that are unlikely to convert.
Key Features
- Continuous Model Updates: Pecan provides real-time model updates, keeping your data current and lead scores accurate.
- Machine Learning: Machine learning to categorize customers by their position in the sales pipeline.
- Seamless Integrations: You can integrate various data sources and systems such as Firebase, Salesforce, IBM, Google Big Query and Oracle
- Predictive Capabilities: Users can ask business problems in the form of predictive questions to get actionable insights.
- Intuitive Data Dashboard: Easy-to-use data dashboard that quickly interprets data and makes continuous model adjustments.
- Data Security: Pecan AI prioritizes data security with robust measures and regular assessments.
- Effective Marketing Campaigns: By optimizing sales pipelines, Pecan allows you to launch targeted and personalized marketing campaigns
- Enhanced Customer Experience: The platform excels in customer segmentation and personalized outreach, contributing to an improved customer journey.
Best Fit
Pecan’s advanced features cater to businesses of all sizes looking to use AI-driven lead scoring efficiently.
Pricing
Pecan AI is accessible through various pricing plans, including Starter, Professional, and Enterprise options, all of which include free trials.
The starting price is $50 per month and provides two seats.
2. HubSpot
HubSpot’s predictive lead scoring solution takes a holistic approach to lead analysis by integrating data from the entire customer journey to evaluate leads.
Key features
- Custom Scoring System: Allows users to design up to 25 distinct scoring models, ensuring leads are rigorously assessed based on specific business scenarios and objectives.
- Adaptive Scoring: You can switch between manual and predictive lead scoring.
- Integrated Marketing: Integration into email segmentation, representative notifications, and personalized web content
- Machine Learning Capabilities: Analyzes multiple data points to qualify leads while adapting to evolving business requirements.
Best fit
HubSpot caters to small and medium businesses as well as enterprises seeking versatile lead scoring.
Pricing
Available only in the Enterprise plan for Sales Hub ($1200/month) and Marketing Hub ($3600/month).
3. Salesforce
Einstein lead scoring is an AI and ML feature built within the Salesforce CRM.
It allows businesses to take a closer look at their past leads, comparing them with incoming leads to identify commonalities.
Key features
- AI-Powered Predictions: Einstein analyzes historical lead data using AI and ML capabilities. It explores both closed-won and closed-lost opportunities.
- Real-Time Behavior: Every ten days, it refreshes organizational lead data to ensure that lead scoring remains relevant.
- Data Integration: To determine lead quality, Einstein integrates a range of data sources, including demographic information, lead sources, email interactions, and website visits.
- Lead Scoring: Dedicated lead score field to prioritize tasks for sales teams. Leads are ranked based on their similarity to past converted leads and their potential for conversion.
Best fit
Suitable for businesses already using Salesforce CRM.
Pricing
Accessible at $50 per user per month. However, it’s exclusively available with the enterprise plan ($4000/month) as an add-on for Salesforce Sales Cloud. No free trial available.
4. Keap
Keap is designed to cater to small businesses, featuring a CRM system built-in with a lead scoring component.
Key features
- Automatic Lead Scoring: Keap uses an automated system to provide an objective assessment of a prospect’s level of interest
- Scoring Customization: Users can define scoring rules that assign points to contact records based on various interactions. These include actions such as applying tags, submitting web forms, clicking on links, and opening emails.
- Ideal Score Definition: Ideal score is an indicator that a contact has met the criteria to be defined as a “hot” lead. The number of flames on a contact record directly corresponds to the percentage of ideal score points amassed.
- Real-Time Updates: The scoring system operates in the background, constantly updating scores in real-time according to predefined criteria.
Best fit
Good choice for small businesses looking to implement ideal scores and real-time lead scoring updates.
Pricing
Lead scoring is available with Keap Max only ($289/month)
5. Zoho
Zoho CRM, a versatile marketing software, specializes in generating and subsequent lead scoring from a variety of channels.
Key features
- Customizable Scoring: Customizable scoring criteria to categorize leads as hot, cold, or warm.
- Email Marketing: Businesses can use Zoho’s email marketing capabilities to execute precisely targeted and personalized email campaigns
- Task Management: Allows users to create tasks, track conversations, and access the complete history for each lead.
- Behavior-Based Scoring: Evaluation of various lead interactions, including responses to emails, website visits, and form submissions.
Best fit
Companies looking for an affordable solution for managing leads from various sources while benefiting from customizable lead scoring tools.
Pricing
The pricing ranges between $14 and $52 per month per user
Summary
Pecan AI has emerged as a leader in the domain of lead scoring solutions, outshining its counterparts in multiple aspects.
Salesforce’s Einstein, although renowned for its CRM, faces a limitation in exporting lead data beyond what is stored within the Salesforce ecosystem.
Additionally, many solutions, such as HubSpot, often operate as “black boxes,” giving limited transparency regarding the mechanism of their lead scoring predictions.
In stark contrast, Pecan AI places a strong emphasis on transparency, providing you a clear understanding of how lead scores are derived from input data, fostering trust and understanding.
Moreover, Zoho’s lead scoring solution struggles with integrating into third-party systems, particularly non-Zoho CRMs. This limitation poses a challenge for larger organizations with complex data requirements.
In comparison, Pecan AI allows for integrating data across multiple sources, ensuring that no data is left behind or disconnected.
So are you ready to overcome your sales obstacles? Pecan AI is your key to more accurate, efficient, and transparent lead scoring.