Deal Scoring in ActiveCampaign

A deal score is one of two types of lead scores that you can create in your ActiveCampaign account. It is used to evaluate and prioritize the quality of your deals.

What is a deal score?

A deal score is a numerical value assigned to your deals—the higher the score, the better the deal.

A single score can be comprised of one or more rules that can award or subtract points from a deal if conditions are met. For example, you can have a deal score rule that assigns 10 points if a deal is in the "In Contact With" stage and another deal score rule that adds 10 points if the lead has a certain household income level. A deal that matches both of those rules would be awarded 20 points.

Scores are created on the Manage Scoring page, and rules for your scores are made using any information 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 deal regardless of how many times it matches your rules. This is called "Static Scoring." Scores can also run each time a deal matches your rules. This is called "Dynamic Scoring" and is accomplished with an automation set to run multiple times.

Uses for Deal Scoring

Deal scoring can help your sales team focus on closing the highest-value deals and see which deals have less of a chance of closing. You can use this feature to:

• Profile leads as they move through your pipeline
  You can give any lead who enters your pipeline a deal score of 100 points, then set a rule to deduct points from that score if they are not progressing quickly enough through your stages. For instance, if you haven't heard from a lead in over 14 days, you can deduct points for every two days that your lead has not progressed. The fewer points your deal has, the less chance your sales team has of closing it. This will allow your team to focus on other high-value deals.
• Find high-value leads by summarizing lead scores
  You can create a deal score that summarizes different lead scores to identify high-value leads in your pipeline. For instance, you may want to make a deal score for a contact who engaged with your communications, who lives in a specific geographical area, and who submitted an application on your site. You can create a deal score that summarizes that information for that lead.
• Find high-value leads based on actions
  Let's say that you have an automation and know that you have a 75% chance of closing a deal with a lead if they enter that particular automation. You can create a deal score for any lead that enters that automation and notify your sales team.
• Search for deals by deal score by using a filter
  Searching deals by deal score makes it easy for your team to view high-value deals at a glance. To search for deals by deal score:
  1. Click Deals on the left menu.
  2. Click "Add Filter," then click "Deal Details."
  3. Click the name of the deal score by which to filter.
• Sort deals by score in a specific stage
  Sorting deals by a deal score in a stage lets you view deals in ascending or descending order in that specific stage. To sort deals by a score in a particular stage:
  1. Click the gear icon for the stage you wish to sort.
  2. Click "Edit Stage."
  3. Use the "Deal Sorting" dropdowns to sort your deals by deal score.

How to create a static deal score

Static deal scores are created with rules under Manage Scoring on the Contacts Overview page. These will only be applied once to a deal, regardless of how many times a deal matches your rules.

If you wish to add or subtract points each time a deal matches your rules, you will need to use an automation triggered to run multiple times and an "Adjust Score" action.

To create a static deal score:

1. Click Contacts > Scoring on the left menu.
2. Click the "Add a Score" button.
3. Click "Deal Score."
4. Click "Add New Rule."
5. Use the segment builder to create your rule. You can give your rule a title and a short description on this page.
6. When finished creating your rule, click "Active" at the top right and then click "Save."

How to add or subtract repeating point values (dynamic scoring)

Dynamic deal scores are created with automations that are set to run multiple times.

Creating a dynamic deal score lets you add or subtract points each time a specific behavior occurs. You can also set a deal score to a particular value or reset the score to 0. You'll want to ensure that you already have a deal score rule to create this automation.

In the following scenario, we will create a rule that will add 5 points to a deal score every time a lead replies to a 1:1 email. You will need to connect your email account to Deals to use this option.

1. From the Automations Overview page, click "New Automation."
2. Click "Start from scratch," then click "Continue."
3. A modal window will appear with various triggering conditions to start this automation. Click the "Replies to an email trigger" then click "Continue."
4. An "Action Options" modal will open. Click the "When a contact replies to a personal email" option.
5. Next, change the "Runs" setting to "Multiple Times." This is an important setting because it allows the automation to distribute points repeatedly 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 "CRM," then click "Adjust score."
8. In the modal window, use the dropdowns to:
   • Select the score you wish to adjust
   • If you want to add, reduce, or set a specific value to a deal score when the lead encounters this action in your automation
   • Type the number of points
9. Use the "Expires" setting to define when the points should drop off the score.
10. Select which deal will be affected and select a pipeline.
11. Click "Save."
12. Type the name of the automation into the field provided and click "Active" to turn on the automation.

Additional examples of triggers you can use to adjust a deal score:

• You can add points when a lead enters a pipeline using the "Enters a pipeline" trigger
• You can add or subtract points when a deal stage changes using the "Deal stage changes" trigger
• You can add points if a lead replies to an email using the "Replies to an email" trigger
• You can add points if a lead completes an event through the "Event is recorded" trigger

Beginning automations based on deal scores

You can trigger automations when a lead or contact reaches a specific deal score. For instance, you could create an automation that will notify your sales team to follow up with a lead once their deal reaches that score.

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. Use the dropdowns to select the score that should trigger the automation, then set the automation to run once or multiple times. 
5. Then click "Add start."