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Using Lead Validation with CRM Lead Scoring Rules

In most CRMs, lead scoring is used to determine the viability and likelihood that a lead will become a paying customer. Generally, lead scores are a sum of points assigned to a lead based on a series of actions they have taken, like visiting a product page, completing a form or requesting a demo. Positive and negative points are assigned to actions that your business has deemed important in the sales process. The lead score is meant to help your Sales team identify which leads are likely to buy at that time.

Most CRMs overlook a key area when scoring a lead, the accuracy of the lead’s contact details. By using a lead validation tool, your contact records can be verified and corrected, while each element of their contact record can be scored for accuracy.  These validation scores provide insight into the ‘realness’ of the lead and also provide an excellent set of data points to create additional lead scoring rules.

A Little About Lead Validation

A lead validation service, like Lead Validation – International enables your business to perform multi-point verification on contact records against hundreds of authoritative data sources. The service helps ensure leads are genuine, so your sales and marketing teams can confidently work with prospects that have the most potential to close. With Lead Validation – International, each of the main contact record elements; name, email, address, phone and IP address are validated and scored individually for both certainty and quality. The elements are also cross-validated with each other to provide a composite quality and certainty score.

Using the resulting scores from each of the elements and the overall composite score, you can create a set of scoring rules in your CRM focused on the accuracy of the lead information captured.

Using Lead Validation Scoring Rules in your CRM

Name:

Name validation checks against a global database of millions of names, returns the common gender for the name and identifies vulgar, celebrity, dictionary-derived, and garbage names, and also provides an overall Name Certainty and Quality rating. These ratings can be simply translated into Lead Scores in your CRM. Here are a few examples of rules that can be created from the results:

Example CERTAINTY QUALITY CRM Scoring
Jane Doe 50 Accept Add 5 points
Donald Duck 1 Reject Subtract 10 points
Service Objects 80 Accept Add 8 points

Address:

Within Lead Validation, addresses are verified and corrected to each country’s postal address format. Like Name Validation, Certainty and Quality ratings are returned and can be used to create scoring rules:

Example CERTAINTY QUALITY CRM Scoring
Unit 102 1175B Stephen St, Yarraville,

VIC, 3013, Australia

100 Accept Add 10 points
123 Main Street, Suite 100,

Anytown, 10001, USA

0 Reject Subtract 30 points
138 West Canon Perdido St, Suite D

Santa Barbara, CA 93101

80 Accept Add 10 points *

*This address was corrected, with the missing Suite number appended.

Email:

Email addresses are validated and corrected, along with clear indicators if the email is attached to potential spam traps, honeypots and known spammers. Using the simple Certainty and Quality scores, you can generate a number of scoring rules that are focused on specific needs, like determining if a lead is a good fit for a nurture email campaign.

Example CERTAINTY QUALITY CRM Scoring
franz.fink@hotmail.com 80 Accept Add 5 points (free email)
sh*t@yahoo.com 20 Reject Subtract 40 points (vulgar)
mcaraty@groupe-cogep.fr 80 Accept Add 25 points (company domain)

Phone:

Validated phone numbers, their Certainty and Quality scores, and some of the additional data points are excellent elements to use for scoring rules. Here are several examples:

Example Type CERTAINTY QUALITY CRM Scoring
33248681411 Residential 100 Accept Add 10 points
8059631700 Business 100 Accept Add 30 points
8052522016 Wireless 80 Accept Add 8 points

IP Address:

IP addresses are used to determine the location and device type the lead is using and flag proxies and malicious IP addresses.  It can also be used to flag compliance concerns and fraud.

Example Note Code CERTAINTY QUALITY CRM Scoring
79.194.91.107 In GDPR 80 Accept Add 10 points (GDPR flag)
70.184.40.66 Proxy 0 Reject Subtract 20 points
88.150.157.117 Malicious IP 0 Reject Subtract 50 points
70.197.2.76 Verizon Wireless 95 Accept Add 10 points

Overall Scores:

Cross-validating each of the main contact details against one another allows us to determine the overall quality of each lead. For example, a lead may enter an address in the United States but their IP address says they are in Belarus, resulting in poor Quality and Certainty scores. The service also determines if the lead is a business or consumer lead. These overall scores can be used in place of the individual ones above or in conjunction with them.

Example Type CERTAINTY QUALITY CRM Scoring
Service Objects Business 80 Accept Add 80 points
Frank Finz Consumer 35 Reject Subtract 5 points
Bullhorn Business 0 Reject Subtract 50 points
Geoff Grow Consumer 95 Accept Add 95 points

Summary

Whether you capture the full details of your leads or just their name and email address, a lead validation service provides new criteria to create lead scoring rules, ensuring your teams are dealing with highly qualified consumers with real contact information.

Want to see how lead validation can work with your CRM? Contact us and we would be happy to show you.