Scoring your leads automatically with AI can help your sales team not miss the latest big fish swimming by.
Conversational AI agents like Lindy can integrate with your CRM and other sales tools to help you prioritize the leads that are actually worth something.
Read on to learn:
- What is AI lead scoring, again?
- What types of data factor into AI lead scoring
- 10 ways to use AI lead scoring
- Main benefits of AI lead scoring
- Next steps to get started
What is AI lead scoring?
AI lead scoring uses machine learning and language models to assess lead quality based on ongoing interactions like those with a chatbot or sales call.
It listens to a lead’s questions and tone — whether they sound excited or just mildly interested — as one example of a data point it learns from. But there are many more. Then, it assigns a score that shows how close they are to buying versus just browsing.
By instantly picking up on these subtle conversational cues, AI helps you zero in on hot leads while letting go of the ones unlikely to convert, ensuring you focus on prospects who truly matter.
Still unsure about how this works? Let’s do a side-by-side:
- The old-fashioned way: Traditional scoring sees someone as a “qualified lead” if they probably have money and they’ve clicked enough pages on your website to make you think they’re interested. Sure, it works, but only kind of — it’s like judging a book by its cover without actually cracking it open.
- AI lead scoring: Instead of box-checking, AI lead scoring is like sitting down with leads, picking up on their vibe, and actually hearing their needs. When a lead says, “So, can we talk about specific product features?” conversational AI recognizes the strong engagement signal, marking them as a likely interested prospect.
What data types factor into AI lead scoring?
The better your data, the easier it is for AI to tell if someone’s ready to buy or just here for a freebie.
Here’s the data that makes AI lead scoring possible:
- Behavioral data: What they’re up to online — every click, scroll, and download shows how interested they are. Are they stalking your “Pricing” page or checking out blog posts? AI can spot the difference between a casual glance and a full-on interest binge.
- Demographic details: The basics (but they still matter) — age, location, job title, all that standard stuff. Even though it’s not groundbreaking, it’s still big for figuring out if this person’s even a fit for what you’re selling.
- Firmographic data: Business stats for B2B leads — company size, industry, revenue. AI loves this info because it tells you if they’re the corporate equivalent of “your type” or just window-shopping.
- Engagement history: How into you they really are — from emails to live chats, their history with your brand shows how serious they might be. A lead who opens every email? Gold. The one who hasn’t replied in months? Maybe not.
- Social data: Are they talking about you? Likes, comments, shares; it’s the social stalking you want. If they’re active on your social channels, they might be ready to slide into the buyer’s seat.
- Purchase intent signals: Hints they’re close to buying — downloads, forms, webinar sign-ups. If they’re putting in the effort to learn more, it’s a big clue they’re almost ready to commit.
- Psychographic data: What makes them tick — values, lifestyle choices, and personal quirks. It’s like having a backstage pass to their decision-making brain.
- Predictive analytics: Peeking into the future — based on what similar leads have done before, AI guesses what they’ll do next. Three trips to the “Pricing” page in one week? That’s a neon sign that they’re ready to buy.
- Sales pipeline stage: Where they are in the journey — knowing if they’re just starting or are one step from sealing the deal helps you focus your efforts (and energy) exactly where they’re needed.
10 ways AI lead scoring can help your business
Let’s take a look at some ways AI lead scoring can help out:
- Accurately predicting prospect behavior
AI scans all those little details about your leads, like what they click, how long they stay on your site, and what content they love.
Then, AI uses machine learning algorithms to parse over all available data points like time on the site, pages visited, downloads, form submissions, and more.
Based on this trove of insights, AI can identify which leads:
- Are in the early research phase versus “ready to buy now?”
- Have a strong interest in certain products or services you offer instead of the internet equivalent of “just browsing.”
- Are likely to abandon their journey, so you focus only on those who want to move forward in the funnel.
How to use the data: Feed this behavior data into your CRM, where you can tag and segment leads according to their interest levels. This allows your team to personalize follow-ups or automatically enroll certain lead segments into targeted nurturing campaigns.
- Improving all-around customer segmentation
Basic info like company size or location is so last decade.
AI looks at what your leads actually do and care about so that you can group them in ways that make sense. Maybe one segment always clicks product demos while another prefers educational content.
Here are some ways AI helps:
- Personalizing product recommendations: AI can tailor these based on previous interactions instead of just internal sales data.
- Targeting of educational content by interests: This makes prospective clients more likely to click all the way to the end of the funnel.
- Identifying segments that are most likely to adopt new products early: Some people are late adopters, and that’s all well and good. But AI can help you identify would-be clients who are ready to jump at the first opportunity of buying a product.
- Grouping leads with similar pain points and priorities: This makes you far more likely to get conversions.
- Focusing sales outreach on segments with the highest conversion potential: Don’t waste your time — AI can help you set your sights on the high rollers.
How to use the data: Integrate segmentation data into your CRM to create dynamic lists or groups. Then, you can have an ongoing view of each segment’s unique needs and interests, which is a big help for automated emails and follow-ups.
- Automating lead qualification
Set your criteria for a quality lead, and AI will automatically qualify new leads who meet the mark. Your sales team will thank you when they have more time to actually sell instead of sifting through unqualified leads.
You can implement criteria like:
- Contact information provided
- Downloads of a certain asset
- Visits to a specific page
- Completions of a form
How to use the data: Once a lead meets those conditions, their score passes a threshold you set, and they're automatically marked as qualified. Your sales reps get notifications of the new qualified leads and can immediately start engaging them.
- Nurturing those leads
AI personalizes your lead nurturing, tailoring outreach based on each lead’s engagement level so every message feels relevant and timely — no more batch and blast emails.
Here’s how AI ensures each lead feels like your #1 priority:
- AI can help you understand lead's behavior and interactions. This helps determine the content and frequency that would be most relevant for them.
- Segment leads into groups. You can target them based on their needs and interests to receive group-specific nurturing messages.
- It automatically sends personalized emails. We’re talking educational content, product demos, or other resources that match each lead's unique profile.
- AI creates follow-up messages and reminders. These interactions are tailored to the next best step for moving each lead further along the sales funnel.
How to use the data: Sync your AI insights to your CRM’s lead records, allowing your system to trigger tailored email drips or social retargeting ads.
- Updating you on leads dynamically
Leads are living, breathing potential customers. As a result, their scores need to reflect their latest interactions and interests.
AI lead scoring gives you major insights into the leads that have the highest potential to convert into customers. The AI is constantly updating lead scores based on new behaviors and interactions.
In summary, dynamic AI lead scoring:
- Provides ongoing visibility into your best leads
- Replaces manual score updating so your team can focus on selling
- Improves sales productivity by focusing outreach on high-potential leads
- Optimizes your lead funnel for maximum conversions
How to use the data: Plug this scoring data into your CRM’s dashboard to get an immediate view of top leads. For your sales reps, this means a prioritized call or email list each day.
- Telling you, "Hey, you can cross-sell or upsell here!"
AI scans customer data to find the perfect upsell or cross-sell for each loyal customer. Maybe customers who buy Product A always come back for Product C six months later.
Here are some tips to maximize the potential of this intervention:
- Start small: Test the AI on a subset of customers before rolling it out company-wide. This will allow you to refine the recommendations and AI model.
- Be selective: Only recommend the most relevant products to each customer. Too many irrelevant offers will annoy customers.
- Don’t forget to personalize: Include the customer's name and personalized details in the offer. This shows you know and understand their unique needs.
- Make it effortless: Integrate the AI recommendations directly into your sales and service workflows to minimize friction.
- Follow up proactively: After sending an AI recommendation, have your sales team follow up to answer any questions and close the deal.
- Listen to feedback: If customers reject offers, use that feedback to refine the AI model and improve future recommendations.
How to use the data: When AI identifies upsell or cross-selling chances, it can pass these recommendations directly into your CRM records. This way, your sales reps (or AI sales reps) know exactly which products to discuss with each customer based on historical buying behavior.
- Analyzing lead sources
AI evaluates the performance of various lead sources in real time, making sure that your marketing budget is aimed toward the most productive channels.
Here’s how it does it:
- Fast assessment: AI processes metrics such as click-through rates, time spent on the site, and engagements with the content to identify high-quality leads.
- Optimized marketing spending: With insights on effective channels, you can allocate resources more efficiently, focusing on sources that yield the best results.
How to use the data: Hook up those AI insights with your CRM to flag high-performing lead sources. You can then use budgets a bit more strategically, funneling resources into channels that consistently bring in quality leads.
- Detecting and reacting to lead drop-off points
AI pinpoints stages in the sales process where leads commonly lose interest or disengage, allowing for proactive adjustments to the sales strategy.
How? AI identifies drop-off points where leads typically disengage during the sales process. Based on these insights, you can tweak your messaging, improve follow-up processes, and provide additional resources to keep leads engaged.}
How to use the data: Sync drop-off insights with your CRM workflows to trigger specific follow-ups or nudges when leads are at risk of falling out of the funnel.
- Prioritizing leads through sentiment analysis
You can use sentiment analysis software or high-level conversational AI to assess the tone and intent of communications from potential leads.
How does this help?
- Gauging sentiment: AI reviews emails, chat interactions, and social media posts to determine the mood of leads (positive, neutral, or negative).
- Prioritizing follow-up actions: Leads showing strong interest or urgency are always the priority — you want timely and engaged responses.
- Tailoring responses: Getting a grip on lead sentiment helps tailor responses to individual needs, improving outreach effectiveness.
How to use the data: By linking sentiment data to your CRM, your sales team can adjust their tone based on the lead’s mood.
- Integrating IoT and social data for comprehensive scoring
AI also integrates data from Internet of Things (IoT) devices and social media interactions into the lead-scoring model.
This gives you a comprehensive overview of lead engagement and potential with:
- AI data integration combines IoT and social media data with traditional metrics to enhance lead scoring.
- This bird’s eye view integration offers a fuller picture of lead behavior, such as product usage patterns and social media interests.
- Accurate scoring models incorporate diverse data sources to improve the accuracy of lead scoring, ensuring focus on the most promising prospects.
How to use the data: Feed this social and IoT data directly into your CRM to enrich each lead’s profile. This complete picture lets your team understand what each lead likes and what they tend to do.
Benefits of AI lead scoring
There’s a lot to love about AI lead scoring.
Let’s take a look:
- Massive efficiency gains: AI can automatically score new leads almost instantaneously based on their online behavior and interactions. No more wasting hours manually researching and evaluating each lead.
- Accurate as all get out: Solid artificial intelligence has access to huge amounts of data that it uses to determine the attributes of your ideal customers. It can then compare new leads to these attributes to determine the best matches. This data-driven approach is far more accurate than humans guessing based on limited information. The result? Your sales team spends time on leads that are most likely to convert.
- Grows when you need it to: AI lead scoring systems can handle huge volumes of data and scale as your business grows. Whether you have 100 new leads a day or 100,000, AI can go over all of them without breaking a sweat. Your sales and marketing teams are equipped to handle growth without needing to add significant resources.
Summing up
We’re sure that was a lot of AI lead-scoring goodness to digest.
First, start with one area that needs improvement, like lead qualification or nurturing. Then, implement a smart AI solution just for that and let it work its high-tech magic.
Once you see great results, you'll be hooked and ready to let AI loose on every corner of your sales process.
Next steps with Lindy’s AI lead scoring agents
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Lindy's AI-powered no-code agents are the ultimate solution for improving your lead scoring and boosting sales.
Check out its main features:
- Generate and qualify leads automatically: Stop wasting time on unqualified leads. Lindy automatically identifies high-potential prospects who meet your criteria so your sales team can focus on closing deals. Using its conversational AI, Lindy can assess whether leads are worth your time or not from email conversations.
- Enrich leads effectively: Lindy can help you enrich those leads, pulling information from LinkedIn or other social media to let you get ahead of the game and know them fully before you even get started.
- Effortlessly scale your outreach game: Create societies of Lindies to handle increasing lead volumes, qualify leads, and improve responses over time through shared learning. Lindies can handle virtually any task under the sun while working collaboratively as a team.
- Gain valuable insights: Understand what drives your leads, identify drop-off points, and optimize your sales process by connecting Lindy with sales tools.
- Connect with your favorite apps: Connect Lindy with a plethora of applications, including CRMs, email marketing platforms, and more. You can integrate data analysis platforms like Salesforce to feed these insights into Lindy.
- Build your Lindy your way: Easily create and customize your chatbot to match your brand's unique voice and style, with no coding required.
