Contact Scoring in ActiveCampaign

A contact score is one of two types of lead scores that you can create in your ActiveCampaign account and is used to evaluate and prioritize the quality of your leads. There is not a maximum limit on score values.

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What is a contact score?

A contact score is a numerical value that is assigned to your contacts. A single score can be comprised of one or more rules that can award or subtract points from contacts if they meet your conditions. For example, if you have created a rule that assigns 10 points if a contact is in your metropolitan area and another rule that assigns 10 points if a contact has viewed your pricing information, a contact that matches both rules would have a score of 20 points.

Scores are created on the Contacts > Scoring page and rules for your scores are created using any information available to you in the segment builder. In addition, these scores can be set to expire after a period of time. There is no limit to the number of scores you can create in your account.

Scores can run once per contact regardless of how many times they match your rules. This is called Static Scoring. Scores can also run each time a contact matches your rules. This is called Dynamic Scoring and is accomplished with an automation that is set to run multiple times. Contact scores, once created, are retroactive.

Uses for Contact Scoring

One of the most popular uses of scoring is to optimize your sales process so that your sales team is always focused on the highest quality leads. Scores can also be used to:

• Identify contacts who are a good match for your product or service, but not engaged, so that you can move them into nurturing automations specifically designed to increase interest and strengthen your relationship. In this way, scoring can be useful as a benchmark for how close a particular contact is to purchasing so that you can adjust your marketing accordingly.
• Identify the interests of your contacts. You can create rules and automations that give points for visiting product pages of your website and clicking product links in your emails. When they reach a threshold score, you can begin an automation that delivers targeted follow-up with content and offers related to that product.
• Measure the engagement of new customers. For instance, in the SaaS industry, if new customers aren’t interacting with your emails and website it may be an indication that additional contact is needed so they don’t cancel. If a new customer has a low engagement score you could move them into an automation that provides helpful resources and information intended to help them get more value out of the service and pique their interest in it by reselling the benefits.
• Create a predictive model. If your scoring system is accurate, you can use the leads in your funnel to forecast revenue.
• Alter your marketing on the basis of a contact's score so that you are more aggressive with highly engaged contacts who are a great fit. A contact who is highly engaged is probably ready to make a purchase decision and you may be able to be more aggressive with the frequency you contact them. In this way, you can adapt the length of your sales cycle on the basis of a lead's behavior.

How to create a contact score

Scores created on this page will run once per contact, regardless of how many times they match your rules. If you want to add or subtract points each time a contact matches your rules, you will need to use an "Adjust a score" action in an automation that is triggered to run multiple times. Contact scores, once created, are retroactive.

To create a contact score:

1. Click Contacts > Scoring on the left menu.
2. Click the "Add New Score" button.
3. A modal window will appear and ask you which type of lead score to create. Click the "Contact score" option.
4. Give your score a descriptive name by typing it in the field provided. You'll also want to provide a description of the score in the description field.
5. Click the "Add New Rule" link to add a rule to this score.
6. The segment builder will open. Click the left-most field to display a dropdown of categories you can use to create the conditions that distribute points. For example, you may want to create a rule that gives the contact 10 points if they click on any link in any campaign. You can add additional conditions to your score by clicking "Add another condition."
7. Once you have set the conditions, click the "Save" button.
8. You'll then see a column that says "Add 10 points." You can click this line of text to modify the number of points you would like distributed.
   
   

    You can create rules that add or subtract points. You might subtract points if a contact has characteristics that are at odds with your target market. For instance, if there are countries you don't ship to, you could subtract points when a contact is in those countries.

9. Next, you'll see an expiration option. To set an expiration, click the line of text that says "Never." The "points expire" setting lets you remove the awarded points after a period of time.
   This is especially useful for engagement scoring because a contact who was highly engaged three years ago may no longer be considered engaged now. When you are scoring characteristics of your target market that are unlikely to change, having points expire "never" is probably fine.
10. When you've added and configured the rules of your score, click the "Active" button to activate the score.

Note that the score will need to be active before you can use it for dynamic scoring with automations.

How to adjust repeating point values (dynamic scoring)

Dynamic contact scores are created with automations that are set to run multiple times. Creating a dynamic contact score will allow you to add or subtract points each time a specific behavior occurs.

You can also set a contact score to a specific value, or reset the score to 0. You will want to make sure that you already have a contact score rule set up in order to create this automation.

To adjust points each time a behavior occurs you need to create an automation that runs multiple times.

1. Click Automations on the left menu.
2. Click "New Automation."
3. Click "Start from scratch" then click "Continue."
4. A modal window will appear with a variety of triggering conditions to start this automation. Each of these triggers represents a behavior you can use to add points to your score. Select the trigger you want to use to adjust the score.
5. Change the “Runs” setting of the trigger to “Multiple Times” by clicking the "Runs" dropdown and selecting “Multiple Times.” This is an important setting because it is what allows the automation to distribute points over and over each time a campaign is opened.
6. Click "Add Start."
7. The "Add new action" modal will appear. Here you can add an action that will adjust the score. Click "Contacts" then click "Adjust score."
   • Use the dropdowns to select the score you wish to adjust and if you want to add, reduce or set a specific value for the contact score when a contact encounters this step in your automation
   • Type the number of points in the field provided
   • Use the "Expires" setting to define when the points should drop off the score. If you are scoring on engagement, you might want the points to drop off after a month or two so that the score always indicates your recently engaged contacts
   • Click "Save"
8. Type the name of the automation into the field provided, and click "Active" to turn the automation on.

Examples of automation triggers you can use to adjust a contact score

• You can remove points when a contact unsubscribes from a list using the “Unsubscribes” trigger
• You can give points each time they open an email campaign using “Open/reads an email”
• You can distribute more points when they open a specific, important campaign using the “Opens/reads an email” trigger
• You can distribute points each time a web page is visited using the “Web page is visited” trigger
• You can add points when an event happens using the “Event is recorded” trigger
• You can add points when a contact forwards your email campaign to another person using the “Forwards and email” trigger
• You can add points when they submit a form with specific selections using the “Field changes” trigger
• You can add points when they click specific links in an email campaign using the “Clicks a link in email” trigger

Beginning automations based on scores

You might want automations to begin when contacts reach a certain score. For instance, you could create an automation that automatically creates a deal record, assigns the deal, and creates a task to reach out to the primary contact when a contact reaches a score of 75 points or more. You can do this with the “Score changes” trigger.

1. From the Automations overview page, click "New Automation."
2. Click the "Start from Scratch" option, then click "Continue."
3. Click the "Score Changes" trigger, then click "Continue."
4. Using the dropdowns, select which score should trigger the automation and set whether the automation should run once or multiple times. Then click "Add start."