Guide to

Predictive Lead Scoring

Table of Contents

What Is Predictive Lead Scoring?

Path To Predictive Intelligence

How Predictive Models Are Built

13

Getting Buy-in On Predictive

19

Predictive Playbooks

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i

What Is Predictive Lead

Scoring?
Predictive lead scoring is an automated, data-driven way for
businesses to determine which prospects are most likely to
convert, and which are going to have the biggest revenue impact. Its always-on optimization. Scores can be used to filter out bad leads, prioritize follow up eorts, measure
marketing eectiveness, and extract more value out of your
nurture database.

Predictive Lead
Scoring

Marketing automation systems like Eloqua, Marketo,

and Pardot support lead scoring. In fact, most Infer customers are already using one of those three applications. So how is Infers Predictive Lead Scoring dierent?

#1 External
Signals

With nothing more than an email address, Infer can go

out and grab thousands of signals about the individual
and the organization they work for. Things like relevant
job postings, employee count, patent filings, social
presence, website trac, and even the technology vendors they use.

#2 Deep Data
Science

With traditional lead scoring, like that found in

Marketing Automation systems, you manually define
point values. Obviously this breaks down when youre
talking about hundreds or thousands of attributes.
With the Infer approach, nothing is done manually. We
use the most advanced predictive intelligence and machine learning algorithms available. Therefore, you can
have confidence your lead scoring is statistically
proven to be accurate.

#3 Automated
Execution

Because predictive lead scoring taps into thousands of

external signals, the lead can be scored the instant it is
created. This allows you to route it down the right path
and get a jump on your competition. Also, it means
that you can re-score leads even if they arent active
on your website, which enables you to light up the
best leads in your nurture database.

#4 Automated
Optimization

Infer is able to automatically adjust to new signals and

changing business dynamics. The model retrains itself
learning from new closed deals improving its accuracy.
This is helpful in changing business environments. For
example, you might introduce new products, change
your pricing, or see new competitive pressure. Infer is
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constantly monitoring the data and proactively recommending ways to increase revenue.

Aligning Effort
with Impact

Below is one simple way of thinking about the impact

of predictive lead scoring. When we first build a model
and present the results, it is very common to see that
the top 30% of leads account for the vast majority of
the pipeline (green bars) and the bottom 70% of leads
have very little pipeline impact.
Infer also provides advanced analytics to measure
sales eort. This is tracked by looking at the phone
calls being logged and emails being sent out by sales
reps. While most companies are using Marketing
Automation, theyre still spending lots of cycles on
leads that arent going to convert. That makes sense. If
you dont have confidence in your scoring, the safe bet
is to leave no stone unturned.

Before Infer

After Infer

When we turn on Infer, something magical happens.

There is an instant change in behavior across all your
reps. All of a sudden your eort is almost perfectly
aligned with impact.

The reduced eort on low scoring leads can be shifted

into more profitable endeavors. Maybe thats doubling
down on their top scoring leads and following up more
aggressively. Or maybe Marketing is able to use Infer
to find new sources of good leads.
The result you want to see is an increase in average
deal size and conversion rate. And for marketers you
want to increase your pace of innovation and drive
down your cost per good lead.

Path to
Predictive Intelligence
As your organization grows, it naturally progresses towards
greater data sophistication, which increases the eciency at
which you can operate. In sales and marketing, we typically
see five levels of CRM & MA maturity. This chapter describes
each level so you can assess where are you today, and
where do you want to be?

Map Your
Journey

As you can see, there is a natural progression from

group contact management through to predictive
intelligence. At each stage customer insight grows and
automation increases. Companies that achieve level
four and beyond are able to work with much greater efficiencies than companies stuck at lower levels.

This chapter takes you through the journey that most

companies follow.

Level 1
Group Contact
Management

Once you have a shared database with all of your customers and prospects, you can pull lists and view activity history. This helps your organization reduce operational ineciencies, but doesnt usually produce deep
insight into who your best customers are.

Level 2
Sales
Automation

By deploying an automation system like Salesforce,

you can standardize your processes and capture transactional data. This allows you to report on the status of
your leads and opportunities, and begin to identify
trends across your customer base by looking at converted vs. archived leads and wins vs. losses. However
at this stage, your insight is limited to the data that
your reps collect.

Level 3
Marketing
Automation

Bringing in a Marketing Automation solution like Marketo or Eloqua is a good next step because it allows
you to capture behavioral data from your website,
email campaigns, and social channels. This provides a
fuller picture of the customer, but the lead scoring capabilities in these systems have their limits. Most require you to manually define point values for dierent
types of behaviors. For example, if a lead clicks on an
email, thats worth 5 points, and if they download a
white paper, thats worth 10 points. Without data science to prove which signals are statistically significant
and determine the proper weightings, you often end
up with scores that your reps dont fully trust.

The other missing link with the scoring in Marketing

Automation is that it doesnt tap into external data. If
youre relying solely on the information passed
through form fills it is dicult to get an accurate
assessment of fit.

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Level 4
Predictive
Intelligence

Companies that reach level four have a huge leg up on

their competition. Theyre able to accurately predict
which prospects are likely to become great customers.
In the past, only the most sophisticated companies
achieved this kind of data maturity because it required
data scientists, a software stack, lots of external data, a
testing framework, and integration with CRM and
Marketing Automation. Today world-class predictive
scoring is available to companies of all sizes, because
companies like Infer have solved the problem end-toend with solutions that can be implemented in a matter of days.

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Level 5
Data
Scientists

While most companies will opt for predictive as a service, some companies may also have their own team of
data scientists in-house.
For example, AdRoll and Optimizely have brilliant data
scientists, but most of them are focused on product.
Building a proprietary predictive scoring model for
your own use is a bit like writing your own CRM software. It can be done, but there are economies of scale
when you tap into a service..
Infer provides an end-to-end solution, but that doesnt
mean it cant be customized. We can consume other
sources of data your organization might have, such as
application usage data. We can also make our library
of external signals available to you if you want to
model o it.

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How Predictive Models

Are Built
Once youve recognized the value of heading down the
predictive path, its important to have an understanding of
the process. Building accurate predictive models requires
seven key steps.

Step 1
Start with your
existing data

To create a predictive model, you first want to pull in

your existing data and look at historical outcomes. This
might include converted leads vs. archived leads, wins
and losses, purchase history, and additional data for
each record like company name, email address, and opportunity amount. Thats why at Infer, weve built easy
connectors for Salesforce, Eloqua, Marketo, and Pardot. The more data you have the better, and its worth
noting that systems like ours are designed to work in
environments where data is sparse or even dirty.

Step 2
Add thousands
of external
signals

The next step is to expand the data by adding external

signals about your leads and customers. For example,
with nothing more than a company name or email address, Infer can uncover all kinds of information about
the individuals and the organization they work for.
Thousands of factors like their relevant job postings,
employee count, patent filings, social presence, website trac, and even the technology vendors they use
might indicate their likelihood to buy.

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Step 3
Determine
which signals
are predictive

Step 4
Create the
optimal formal

Once you have all the available data in place, the next
step is to use machine learning to determine which signals are predictive. In some cases theyll be positively
correlated with conversion, and in some cases theyre
negative signals. You can even set up your model to
weight signals towards large deals, so you can prioritize your eorts where theyll have the biggest revenue
impact.

Advanced machine learning is used to test millions of

scenarios and produce the optimal model for your business. It will determine the precise cuto points (e.g. optimal sized customer has between 124 - 207 employees) and the proper weighting (e.g. employee count accounts for 1.7% of the overall score).

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Step 5
Test the
accuracy of
the model

When the model is complete, you should use historical

backtesting to determine how predictive it is. Visualizations like Infers can help you understand the results.
For example, a concentration of green bars on the left
side means that the model is identifying winners and
pushing them to the top of your ranked list.

Step 6
Push it live into
production

Once you have confidence in your models ability to

predict winners, its time to push the scores live into
production within your Sales and/or Marketing
Automation systems. From your reps perspective, they
should be able to login to Salesforce and now view
their leads automatically prioritized by the predictive
lead scores. To facilitate a deployment like this, Infer offers a simple AppExchange package that installs a custom field on the lead, contact, or account object. And
our pre-built connectors for Marketo, Eloqua, and Pardot allow you to use the score to trigger workflows,
route leads down specific journeys, and personalize
campaigns.
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Step 7
Measure the
results

Infers AppExchange App also provides pre-built dashboard templates for measuring the impact of
predictive scoring inside of Salesforce. You should be
able to see higher conversion rates, lower cost per
good lead, and reduced eort on bad leads. You can
adjust the filters or use the Infer score in new custom
reports.

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18

Getting Buy-In
On Predictive
Not every company is ready to jump into a new technology
right away, so its important to think about how youll win
over any internal naysayers that dont recognize the home
run opportunity in front of you. Here are four things to keep
in mind as you consider predictive lead scoring:

Keep Pace With

The Competition

If your competition is leveraging predictive scoring and

achieving 100% lift in their win rates or conversions,
itd be irrational for you not to follow suit. Not just to
compete, but to survive. This is one of those trends
where you need to be ahead of the curve vs. lagging
behind.

Raise The
Batting Average
For All Your
Reps

To use a baseball analogy, this is an opportunity to

raise the batting average for all your reps by ensuring
theyre only swinging at strikes. If a good rep can work
100 leads a month, you want to make sure every lead
they call is a fit for the product youre selling.

Its Lead Scoring

That Actually
Works

Many people are familiar with the lead scoring found in

Marketing Automation applications. Its manually configured and largely based on human intuition. An
eBook download = +5 points. VP of Sales title =+10
points. The result is lead scoring that isnt terribly accurate. Infer is bringing the predictive power of Google
to sales and marketing. Were crawling the web and acquiring thousands of signals. And we use machine
learning to build state-of-the-art predictive models
based upon millions of simulated combinations. Finally,
lead scoring that actually works!

Dont Let
Marketing
Automation
Slow You Down

Many companies feel like theyve got to get their

Marketing Automation right before tackling predictive.
But the two can actually work great in parallel tracks.
Predictive is less risky, delivers faster time-to-value,
and its impact is more easily quantified. And because
of all the external data used in our predictive models, it
works regardless of the current state of your data.
Marketing Automation is important plumbing that
every company needs eventually, but youll also find
that predictive solves similar challenges in a more elegant way. For example filtering, prioritization, nurture,
and campaigns are all places where Infer makes a big
impact quickly.
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Its a Home
Run Initiative

Predictive scoring is low risk and low overhead, with

fast adoption and fast time-to-value. It can be deployed rapidly so you see value in less than 30 days.
All you have to do is provide access to your sales and
marketing systems, we use machine learning to build a
personalized model, and we present you with the results. If youre impressed by the accuracy and projected revenue impact, you can flip the switch and
start benefitting from predictive scoring immediately.

Predictive Scoring

Marketing Automation

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Amazing
Customer
Stories

Infers community includes some of the fastest growing companies on the planet AdRoll, Cloudera, Box,
New Relic, Nitro, Tableau, Zendesk, and many others.
This oers a terrific opportunity to learn from forwardthinking sales and marketing leaders.

*These quotes also appear in context throughout this eBook

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Predictive Playbooks
Once youve built your predictive model and tested its accuracy, the next step is to determine how to apply the scores
in order to unlock the most value. Below are a couple of the
most common use cases and some frameworks for measuring ROI.

Use Case #1
Filtering

A predictive model will identify some subset of leads

that have almost zero chance of converting. By routing
these leads around sales and straight to nurture, you
can unlock energy for more productive endeavors.

Measuring ROI

To measure the amount of eort youve freed up, you

can look at the percent of your reps tasks that were
logged against low-scoring D leads. When you turn
on predictive scoring, you should see that percentage
go down. If you multiply the delta by the total cost to
operate your inside sales team, you can identify real
cost savings.
Before

After

Impact

$0

$0

$0

% of your reps activities

logged against D leads

9%

0%

+9%

Cost of working D leads

$4,725

$0

+$4,725

Revenue from D leads

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It is worth nothing that many companies dont stop

working their C and D leads completely. They may
have a one touch policy, or have reps focus on those
leads only after theyve exhausted their A and B
leads. Any small decrease in revenue as a result of this
approach is usually tiny compared to your cost savings
from decreased eort.

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Use Case #2
Prioritization

Predictive lead scoring lets reps stack rank their leads,

so they can align their eort where it is going to have
the biggest revenue impact. This means that theyre
calling good leads faster and theyre less likely to give
up one call too soon.

Measuring ROI

With that change in behavior, you should see an increased win rate amongst your A and B leads. And
you may find that your average deal size goes up, especially if youre also prioritizing leads within the top
scoring bands.
A Leads

Before

After

Impact

Monthly revenue

$1M

$1.2M

+$200k

Win rate

46%

49%

+3%

$19,500

$24,800

+$5,300

Average deal size

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Another way to measure ROI is to look at filtering and

prioritization together. Where did your unlocked eort
from low scoring leads go? Were you able to put more
energy into high-scoring A and B leads? And what
was the impact on bookings?
Filtering + Prioritization

Before

After

Impact

% of activities logged
against C & D leads

27%

9%

-18%

% of activities logged
against A & B leads

73%

91%

+18%

Bookings from C & D

leads

$250k

$180k

-$70k

Bookings from A & B leads

$1.7M

$2.1M

+$400k

Net increase in monthly

bookings

+$330k

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Use Case #3
Nurture

Do you ever wonder how much hidden potential is buried in your lead nurture pile? The truth is, many businesses have leads that slip through the cracks. Maybe
on the surface it didnt appear to be a good lead,
maybe the timing was o because they werent quite
ready to buy, or maybe your inside sales team was
spread too thin at the time the lead came in. Over the
years, who knows how many good opportunities
youve been sitting on.
With predictive scoring, you can go back and automatically research and re-score all of your leads - whether
you have 10 leads or 10 million. And since predictive
scoring leverages so much external data, you can rescore leads even if they havent been active on your
website.

Depending on the size of your database, you might surface thousands of high-scoring leads to put on specific
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journeys with special oers such as invitations to

events or 1:1 consultations. Or maybe you can carve o
one or two reps to focus on re-engaging those highscoring nurture leads.

Measuring ROI

To estimate the value of your nurture database, you

can look at how many archived leads fell into A, B, and
C buckets and place a value on them. What would you
pay per name to buy a list of A leads? Clearly your own
lead quality is better than what you can get elsewhere,
because these are people who expressed interest in
your product at some point.

# of leads
Est. value per lead
Est. value in nurture

A Leads

B Leads

C Leads

3,000

8,000

15,000

$50

$15

$5

$150k

$120k

$75k

This isnt an exact science, but it can help you determine whether or not your nurture database warrants a
dedicated sales team. And as they call down these
leads, you can begin tracking what percent convert,
how many tasks youre putting in, the average deal
size, and ultimately the revenue per task. Is it profitable
to work the leads?

Conversion rate on
archived leads
Avg. deal size for archived
leads
Avg. # of tasks
Cost per task
Pipeline per task

A Leads

B Leads

C Leads

1.9%

0.1%

0.04%

$24,800

$19,500

$8,750

$30

$30

$30

$157

$98

$35

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Once you have predictive lead scoring in place, you

will probably see diminishing returns for your nurture
database over time. The hope is that by doing a better
job of filtering and prioritization, your reps will no
longer give up on the good leads without a fight. That
said, because timing is often a factor in whether or not
a deal closes, youll still want to implement a process
for bubbling up good nurture leads and checking back
in.

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Additional Use
Cases
Campaigns

With a simple formula field on the Salesforce campaign object, marketing can begin to measure cost per
good lead. This provides an apples-to-apples comparison across campaigns.

AdWords

In AdWords you can adjust your bidding strategy to optimize for good leads rather than any old form complete. With instant feedback you can move money to
the right keywords and campaigns.

List Imports

If you purchase lists, you can often get a 48-hour out

clause written into the contract. You can be upfront
with the vendor and tell them youre going to run the
list through Infer to see how well it matches with your
target prospect. If it does well, theres a great relationship to be had. Otherwise, its probably best to know
right away and move on.

Territories

With Infer, you can objectively look at the quality of

leads and compare that to rep performance. You might
also use the Infer score to help with dividing up territories evenly.

Sales SLAs

Many companies create Sales SLAs to determine how

many phone calls and emails a prospect should get before giving up. Using the Infer score in this process
helps you dictate the right level of follow up.

Events

If youve ever seen Infers booth at a trade show, youll

be familiar with our score-o-matic. A prospect can
walk up to the booth, enter their email address, and
see how good of a fit they are for Infer. We highlight
the top 10 signals so they can see why, which creates
an educated conversation and increases conversion
rate.
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Help Write
The Predictive
Playbook

The uses cases for predictive lead scoring continue to

grow. If youve got a best practice youd like to share
or feedback on the Guide to Predictive Lead Scoring,
contact us. www.infer.com/contactus
We also have an amazing community of customers
who love to get together and learn from one another.
There are so many innovative ways that predictive
scoring can be applied. Its fun to share stories and
learn whats working.
And finally, were building our community of influencers. People who are shaping predictive scoring and
contributing to the conversation online. Weve compiled a list of data scientists and sales and marketing
thought leaders which you can find on our blog.
http://go.infer.com/influencers

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Guide to

Predictive Lead Scoring

Questions? Call us at 1-800-393-6125