September 4, 2025
Article
Lead Scoring is Broken. Let's Fix It with the FIT Loop.
Ever had two leads that looked identical on paper? Lead A is a Director at a 500-person tech company. Lead B holds the exact same title at a similar firm. Both download your new e-book.
Lead A ghosts you after one email. Lead B signs a contract in three weeks.
What went wrong? Your lead scoring model probably told you they were equally "hot." It saw their Fit (right company, right title) and their Intent (downloaded content), but it completely missed the most critical piece: Timing. Lead A was just browsing. Lead B had a budget meeting scheduled for Friday.
This is the classic lead scoring trap. We build these complex systems to chase a number, but we forget what the number is supposed to represent: a human ready to have a conversation. It's time to stop treating lead scoring like a math problem and start treating it like a conversation starter.
That’s why I’ve started thinking about it as the FIT Loop: a simple, repeatable cycle of asking three questions:
Fit: Is this the right kind of person from the right kind of company?
Intent: Are they showing genuine interest in solving a problem we can fix?
Timing: What signals suggest they need to solve that problem now?
This isn't about throwing out your old model. It's about organizing it around this loop to make it dynamic, intuitive, and actually useful for your sales team. Let's walk through 10 practices, framed by the FIT Loop, that turn your scoring from a guessing game into a predictable growth engine.
Pillar 1: FIT (Is this the right lead?)
This is your foundation. Before you measure a single click, you need to know if you're even talking to the right person. Get this wrong, and the rest is a waste of time.
1. Score the Account, Not Just the Lead
A junior manager from your dream account is more valuable than a CEO from a company that can never buy. Stop focusing solely on individual titles and start scoring based on firmographics—company size, industry, revenue, and tech stack. This ensures you prioritize leads from businesses that match your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).
Why it matters: It aligns your entire team around pursuing the right companies, not just the right titles.
2. Use Negative Scoring to Filter Noise
Your sales team’s time is your most precious resource. Protect it. Create negative scoring rules to automatically disqualify obvious non-fits. A student using a .edu email? A known competitor? Someone who visits your careers page? Deduct points aggressively.
Why it matters: It keeps the pipeline clean by removing distractions before they ever reach a sales rep.
3. Let Sales Define the "Perfect Fit"
Marketing shouldn't build the ICP in a vacuum. The sales team knows what a "good" lead feels like in a real conversation. Sit down with them and map out the exact titles, departments, and company profiles that consistently lead to closed deals. Their gut feelings are your best data source.
Why it matters: This builds a model based on real-world outcomes, not just marketing assumptions.
Pillar 2: INTENT (Are they showing interest?)
Once you've established fit, you can start measuring engagement. But not all actions are created equal. Intent is about separating idle curiosity from active evaluation.
4. Weight High-Value Actions Heavily
Someone reading a blog post is curious. Someone binge-watching a product demo video or visiting your pricing page three times in a week is evaluating. Assign significantly more points to bottom-of-the-funnel actions. These are the digital hand-raisers telling you they have a real problem.
Why it matters: It separates the "learners" from the "buyers," focusing sales on those actively considering a purchase.
5. Reward Recent, Repeated Engagement
A single action is a blip. A pattern is a story. A lead who downloads three case studies on the same topic in one week is sending a much stronger signal than someone who downloaded one e-book six months ago. Build rules that reward clusters of related activity within a short time frame.
Why it matters: It prioritizes leads who are in an active research phase right now.
6. Track "Hidden" Buying Signals
Intent isn't just on your website. Is someone from a target account suddenly following your execs on LinkedIn? Did they post a question on Reddit about a problem your product solves? These are powerful, off-site intent signals. While harder to automate, they are gold for sales reps looking for an opening.
Why it matters: It gives you a 360-degree view of a buyer's journey, not just the parts that happen on your turf.
Pillar 3: TIMING (Are they ready now?)
This is the missing link in most lead scoring models. Fit and Intent are useless if the timing is wrong. Timing signals turn a "good" lead into a "right now" lead.
7. Decay Scores to Keep the Pipeline Fresh
Interest has a shelf life. A lead who was red-hot 90 days ago is likely cold today. Implement score decay to automatically reduce points for inactivity. This ensures your sales team isn't chasing ghosts and is always focused on fresh, active engagement.
Why it matters: It makes your CRM a reflection of current reality, not a museum of past interest.
8. Use "Urgency" Triggers for Immediate Handoff
Some actions scream "I'm ready!" A demo request, a pricing page visit followed by a chat inquiry, or a "contact sales" form submission are all critical timing signals. These actions shouldn't just add points; they should trigger immediate alerts and handoffs to the sales team.
Why it matters: It closes the gap between peak interest and sales follow-up, dramatically increasing conversion rates.
9. Align Scoring with the Sales Cycle
Does your sales cycle typically last 60 days? Then a lead who is active for three weeks and then goes silent for a month might not be cold—they might just be in an internal review phase. Calibrate your scoring and decay rules to the natural rhythm of your buyers' decision-making process.
Why it matters: It prevents you from prematurely disqualifying good-fit leads who are simply following a typical buying timeline.
10. Create a Fast Lane for Hand-Raisers
The best lead is one who tells you they're a lead. If someone explicitly asks to talk to sales, their score shouldn't matter. Bypass the entire scoring system and route them directly to a sales rep for immediate follow-up. Don't let a "low score" get in the way of a direct request for help.
Why it matters: It respects the buyer's journey and ensures you NEVER miss an opportunity with someone who is ready to buy.
A Simple Template to Get Started
Don't overcomplicate it. Start a simple spreadsheet with your team to map out the FIT Loop.
Signal | Pillar (Fit/Intent/Timing) | Reason | Next Action |
|---|---|---|---|
Job Title: VP or Director | Fit | Decision-maker authority | Add +15 points |
Industry: SaaS, FinTech | Fit | Matches our ICP | Add +10 points |
Company Size: 100-1000 | Fit | Ideal customer segment | Add +10 points |
Downloaded Case Study | Intent | Researching solutions | Add +5 points, enroll in nurture |
Visited Pricing Page | Intent / Timing | Evaluating cost | Add +20 points |
Inactive for 30 Days | Timing | Interest is fading | Subtract 15 points |
Demo Request Form | Timing | Explicit buying signal | Route to sales immediately |
The One-Page FIT Loop Checklist
Ready to put this into action? Use this checklist to guide your next team meeting.
Phase 1: Define FIT
Lock down your ICP: Get marketing and sales to agree on the non-negotiable firmographic and demographic traits of a perfect customer.
Build your negative profile: What traits immediately disqualify a lead? List them out.
Phase 2: Observe INTENT
Map the buyer's journey: List the top 5 digital actions a lead takes right before they buy.
Weight your signals: Assign high, medium, and low point values to these actions. High-value actions should be worth 3-5x more than low-value ones.
Phase 3: Confirm TIMING
Identify "Now" signals: What are the 2-3 actions that mean "call me immediately"? (e.g., Demo Request).
Set your decay rules: Agree on a timeline for inactivity (e.g., reduce score after 30 days of silence).
Phase 4: Automate & Review
Set the MQL threshold: Define the score that triggers a handoff to sales.
Automate the handoff: Build the workflow that creates the task/notification for the sales team.
Schedule a recurring review: Set a bi-weekly 30-minute meeting with sales to review lead quality and tweak the model. This is non-negotiable.
This simple, repeatable process turns lead scoring from a static, mysterious number into a dynamic conversation between marketing, sales, and your future best customers.
Feeling overwhelmed by the technical lift of setting up these workflows? That's where we come in. Primeloop specializes in building the automated GTM systems that bring frameworks like the FIT Loop to life, connecting your marketing efforts directly to sales outcomes. Visit Primeloop to see how we can build the powerful, aligned lead scoring engine your business deserves.