Lead score with decay: Fit points, intent points that halve over time, and the day a lead drops below the line
A lead score that sales believes separates who the lead is (fit) from what they did (intent), and lets intent fade. Enter the fit points, the intent points earned, the days since the last engagement, the half-life of intent and the score that makes a marketing qualified lead. The calculator returns today's score and how many days the lead has before it falls below the line.
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- Take the Market Desk
- Inputs
- Example inputs, yours to replace
Lead score with decay calculator
Worked example, with the default inputs
Today the lead scores 54.4: 30 for fit and 24.4 left of 40 intent points. It is above the threshold of 50 for about 4 more days without new engagement.
score = fit + intent × 0.5^(days ÷ half-life)
days left above the line = half-life × log2(intent ÷ (threshold − fit)) − days
How it is worked out
score = fit + intent × 0.5^(days ÷ half-life)days left above the line = half-life × log2(intent ÷ (threshold − fit)) − days
- fit
- points for who the lead is: industry, size, role, region; they do not decay
- intent
- points for what the lead did: visits, downloads, replies; they halve every half-life
| Decayed intent | 40 × 0.5^(10 ÷ 14) = 24.38 |
|---|---|
| Score | 30 + 24.38 = 54.38 |
| Days left | 14 × log2(40 ÷ (50 − 30)) − 10 = 4 |
Today the lead scores 54.4: 30 for fit and 24.4 left of 40 intent points. It is above the threshold of 50 for about 4 more days without new engagement.
Where the defaults come from
No default on this calculator is a published benchmark. Each is an example input chosen so the arithmetic is easy to follow; type your own.
| Input | Default, an example input |
|---|---|
| Fit points | 30 |
| Intent points earned | 40 |
| Days since last engagement | 10 |
| Intent half-life | 14 |
| MQL threshold | 50 |
Why intent decays
A download from four months ago says little about what a buyer is doing now, yet a score that only adds points treats it the same as yesterday's pricing page visit. Halving intent on a fixed half-life keeps the score about the present, and it gives sales a reason to trust the threshold.
Pick the half-life from your own sales cycle: a fraction of the time from first engagement to opportunity. The default of 14 days is an example input, as are all the defaults here.
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