You've probably got leads with scores of 400+ sitting in your CRM whilst your sales team chases prospects with scores of 20 who actually close deals. Sound familiar?
At Forbidden, we've seen countless businesses make the same fundamental mistakes with HubSpot's lead scoring system. The good news? HubSpot's completely overhauled their approach in 2025, and frankly, it's about time. The bad news? If you're still using the old system after 31st August 2025, you're officially living in the past.
This isn't your typical "how-to" guide filled with generic advice. We're going to tell you exactly what's wrong with traditional lead scoring, why HubSpot's new approach is a game-changer, and most importantly, how to implement a system that actually drives revenue for your business.
Here's an uncomfortable truth: 77% of companies using lead scoring see higher ROI, yet 34% of salespeople still say lead qualification is their biggest challenge. That's not a coincidence – it's a symptom of broken systems.
The traditional approach treats all leads like they're cut from the same cloth. A marketing manager downloading your whitepaper gets the same treatment as a CEO requesting a demo. Your system assigns arbitrary points based on outdated assumptions, and before you know it, you're drowning in false positives whilst genuine opportunities slip through the cracks.
Most businesses use the same scoring model for SME prospects and enterprise accounts. This is like using the same sales pitch for a corner shop and Tesco - it simply doesn't work.
Opening three emails doesn't equal buying intent. Yet countless businesses weight these low-value actions as they're meaningful indicators of purchase readiness.
Your scoring model from 2022 is about as relevant as a fax machine. Buyer behaviour evolves, market conditions change, yet most businesses set their scoring criteria and forget about them.
This tracks behavioural signals that indicate buying intent. Website visits, content downloads, email interactions – the actions that suggest they're actively considering a purchase.
Why is this separation brilliant? Because it prevents the classic scenario where a highly engaged competitor (high engagement, terrible fit) gets prioritised over a perfect-fit prospect who's early in their research phase (low engagement, excellent fit).
Most guides stop at explaining HubSpot's features. We're going to show you how to think strategically about lead scoring implementation.
We've developed a framework that goes beyond HubSpot's standard approach. Instead of just looking at fit and engagement, we add a third dimension: Revenue Velocity. This considers:
This creates a three-dimensional scoring model that prioritises leads not just on fit and engagement, but on their potential to generate revenue quickly.
One area where most businesses completely cock up their lead scoring is decay rates. HubSpot's new system allows you to automatically reduce scores over time, but here's the thing: most businesses get the timing completely wrong.
The standard advice? Set decay at 60 days. That's fine if you're selling coffee machines, but utterly useless if you're in the enterprise software space where sales cycles stretch to 18 months.
Our Approach: Set decay rates based on your actual sales cycle data, not generic best practices. If your average sales cycle is 9 months, don't start decaying scores until month 4. But here's the clever bit – use different decay rates for different types of engagement:
Before building anything new, you need to understand what's broken. Export your current lead scores and map them against actual sales outcomes. We guarantee you'll find prospects who scored 300+ but never bought, whilst some of your best customers had scores below 50.
Stop with the vague "mid-market technology companies" nonsense. Get specific:
Different stakeholders behave differently. Your scoring should reflect this:
Here's where HubSpot's new system shines. You can now create workflows that:
UK Market Considerations
The UK B2B landscape has specific nuances that generic lead scoring misses:
The Automation Amplifier
HubSpot's new lead scoring system integrates beautifully with their workflow engine. You can now:
Here's something most guides won't tell you: use intent data to identify when prospects are researching your competitors. Tools like Bombora or 6sense can feed this data into HubSpot, allowing you to boost scores when prospects are in active buying mode – even if they haven't engaged with your content yet.
For enterprise prospects, individual contact scoring isn't enough. HubSpot's new company scoring feature lets you aggregate scores across multiple stakeholders. But here's the advanced play: weight different roles differently. A CFO's engagement should count more than a marketing coordinator's, regardless of activity level.
Instead of using negative scoring (which HubSpot is phasing out), create exclusion lists for:
Don't over-complicate attribution. Yes, multi-touch attribution is sophisticated, but if you can't act on the data, it's pointless. Start with simple first-touch and last-touch models, then evolve.
Spending weeks debating whether your MQL threshold should be 50 or 75 points is missing the forest for the trees. Pick a number, measure results, adjust accordingly. Perfection is the enemy of progress.
Your lead scoring model isn't a piece of software you install and ignore. Market conditions change, buyer behaviour evolves, your product offering develops. Review and adjust quarterly, not annually.
Forget vanity metrics like "leads scored" or "average score". Focus on:
HubSpot's roadmap includes AI-assisted scoring that goes beyond traditional machine learning. We're talking about models that can:
But here's our prediction: the businesses that succeed won't be those with the most sophisticated technology, but those that understand their customers deeply enough to configure that technology effectively.
Lead scoring isn't a "nice-to-have" marketing automation feature – it's a competitive necessity. With HubSpot's new system, you finally have the tools to build something that actually works.
The question isn't whether you need lead scoring; it's whether you're brave enough to challenge your assumptions, sophisticated enough to implement it properly, and committed enough to continuously improve it.
The new HubSpot lead scoring system launches properly in 2025, and the old system stops updating on 31st August 2025. That gives you a narrow window to migrate and optimise. Use it wisely.
Ready to revolutionise your lead scoring approach? The tools are there, the methodology is proven, and the opportunity is massive. The only question is: are you willing to do the work?
Get in touch to learn how we can help you maximise your HubSpot investment!