Why Email Engagement Alone Fails in Lead Scoring

We analyzed 2+ million email sends and discovered something that will make most email marketers uncomfortable. Engagement segments aren't the be-all-end-all everyone pretends they are. They're used often because they're easy to run, which is exactly why they miss entire batches of customers. Just look at the data - it's not even 80/20, it's 90/10 on engagement-to-action because most email activity gets labeled as "low engagement." Opens without clicks. Minimal interaction signals. These are the sacred metrics everyone obsesses over right now. The reality is engagement segments are actually a combination of an awareness campaign + deliverability tool masquerading as a conversion strategy. It's like running meta awareness ads exclusively. It's also why RFM analysis existed to begin with - someone realized engagement alone wasn't cutting it. When you segment purely on engagement, you're looking at the wrong behavioral signals. RFM analysis tried to fix this by examining purchase patterns, but it still groups people together who have fundamentally different motivations which means it misses a lot. Like it or not, AI predicting behaviors helps here a ton. But the uncomfortable truth is your high-engagement segments might already be maxed out, while your ignored profiles contain untapped buyers. Whether you use Raleon's AI segments to overcome this, or spend manual time with RFM analysis... you should be demanding more than just engagement segments from your team or agency.

We have a long-standing idea in B2B that increased depth and breadth of marketing activity is the proxy for intent, but it's got some major problems when it meets the reality of consumer behavior and data. For example, when it comes to content, it's a logical assumption that more content consumption makes for a more educated prospect, with a stronger perception of our brand, and a higher propensity to purchase. We extend this to advertising, where we assume that frequency of ad consumption is what makes people more interested, and more ready to buy. And we're increasingly applying the same logic to content subscribers, assuming that the goal is to convert readers to subscribers, and subscribers into pipeline. Everything is levels of consumption progression towards conversion. We then put those highly engaged people into a priority group, assuming this is where the buyers will come, and concentrating marketing on them while neglecting the others. And, as was brilliantly laid out in Dale W. Harrison's latest newsletter, we are notorious for false negatives - relegating actually interested buyers because of our own made up measurement of their intent. This happens with retargeting pools, lead nurturing programs, and labels like Marketing Engaged Lead (MEL), where we put all of our effort into moving these people farther through an engagement journey and jettisoning those who we've decided are not interested. The trouble is this isn't supported by data, and is in fact heavily refuted in the success outcomes of lead scoring. Even in the sales data for the strongest brands like Coca Cola, where affinity is extremely high, it turns out that sales comes as much from occasional and infrequent buyers as the die-hard users. Were these brands to only focus their marketing on those who are heavy fans and buyers, they would make much less of an impact than trying to reach the ones who will choose to buy on occasion. The same logic applies to marketing in B2B. The goal isn't to deepen the engagement with a small group, but to reach as many as possible, and do so with regularity so that you maintain a position in their mind. Marketing is non-linear, and when we build programs around progression towards an end state, the truth is that we're actually just wasting budget on faulty logic.

If I could wave a wand, what's one metric I'd remove from all Marketing and Sales reporting? 𝗘𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗹 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗻𝘀. There are still too many companies that: 1. Use email opens as lead scoring criteria 2. Use email opens to gauge intent and define the success of marketing campaigns 3. Consider email opens as segmentation criteria for further outreach Why is this an issue? Most of your email opens are bots –  HubSpot defines this as: 𝘉𝘰𝘵 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘪𝘯 𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘪𝘭 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘺𝘱𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘴𝘦𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘴𝘰𝘧𝘵𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘢 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘱𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘵'𝘴 (𝘰𝘳 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘤𝘵'𝘴) 𝘪𝘯𝘣𝘰𝘹. 𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘴𝘦𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘴𝘰𝘧𝘵𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘪𝘭 𝘢𝘯𝘥, 𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺, 𝘦𝘯𝘨𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 (𝘪𝘧 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘭) 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘬𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘪𝘭, 𝘧𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘵. Email opens are a faulty metric and have been for some time now. Talk to any sales pro on this platform, and they'll tell you they run off opens on all outbound emails – they are only concerned with the reply rate. Now most outbound sales tools allow you to turn off opens – but marketing software has lagged, and currently, HubSpot doesn't give you that option. So what to measure instead? For marketing, although not perfect – clicks will be your best option making sure to filter multiple clicks at the point of sending. A bigger piece of the puzzle is not looking at anything email related in a vacuum; how you segment your audience by account, decision maker, etc., should be grouped in cohorts so you can see the breadth of their engagement. Moral of the story – tread lightly when making any assumption or decision based on opens. #emailmarketing #hubspot #b2bmarketing

Lead scoring is killing your pipeline. And nobody wants to admit it. We spend weeks tweaking scoring models. Assign points to page views. Build complex logic in our CRMs. But here’s what no one tells you: High intent doesn’t live in a spreadsheet. It shows up in the conversation—not in the clicks. I’ve seen marketing teams disqualify real buyers because they didn’t hit the right thresholds. • No demo booked? Must not be ready. • Didn’t open the nurture email? Disengaged. • Didn’t hit the lead score? Not a priority. Wrong. Some of your best buyers are the quiet ones. The ones asking deep questions in Slack groups. The ones lurking on Reddit threads. The ones reading everything—but never clicking. We’ve optimized ourselves into blindness. Instead of scoring leads, we should be scoring signals. • Context > clicks • Questions > form fills • Conversations > downloads Stop worshipping the dashboard. Start listening to the buyer. Disagree? Let’s debate it. Agree? Hit follow—I say what others won’t.

Your Lead Scoring Might Be Leading You Up the Garden Path… Lead scoring should help sales teams focus on the best opportunities. But more often than not, it’s doing the exact opposite. Why? Because so many businesses rely on page views, email clicks, and form submissions to decide who’s 'qualified' Shocking revelation: just because someone downloads a whitepaper from your website, it doesn’t mean they’re ready to buy from you. If your sales team is constantly saying, "These MQLs are rubbish", chances are, it’s not their fault and it’s your scoring model. A few things that will help: 🚀 Prioritise leads with actual buying intent e.g. demo requests, pricing page visits, and direct replies - this doesn't have to be done through a lead score. ⚡ Talk to your sales team – if they’re ignoring so-called 'qualified' leads, ask them why? They know what a good prospect looks like. 🔁 Keep tweaking – don't ‘set and forget’ - if you haven’t adjusted it in months, it’s probably wrong. 🥡 The big takeaway? If your lead scoring isn’t helping both marketing and sales win, it’s just more noise in your CRM. #RevOps #LeadScoring #SalesEnablement #HubSpot