MQLs Are Dead. AI Killed the Lead Score

“Lead scoring is the adult coloring book of demand gen. It feels productive, but changes nothing.” – A frustrated CRO

The Play:
Marketers still chase MQLs. Sales doesn’t care.

Why?
Because downloading a whitepaper doesn’t mean someone wants to buy.

Now we’ve got AI. You can score what people actually do, not what they fill out.

Time to kill off those old lead score models that don’t drive real revenue.

The Framework:
Real behavior beats form fills.

Step 1: Map the Journey
Watch what buyers actually do.
Look for stuff like revisits, scrolling the pricing page, or checking your competitors.

Step 2: Train the AI
Use AI to spot what real buyers do before they convert.
Then tag new leads when they act the same way.

Step 3: Trigger the Right Play
Route leads based on what they’re really doing.
Not on some random score.

Use Case:
One SaaS team ditched lead scores.
They used Clearbit, MadKudu, and GPT.
They filtered by real-time behavior and CRM data.
Their demo-to-close rate? Doubled.

Tools + Prompts

Tools:
Clearbit
MadKudu
Zapier

Prompt:
“Based on these behaviors [list], score lead intent 1 to 10 and suggest the next best action.”

CTA:
Reply with “KILL SCORE” and I’ll send you my AI intent model template.

One smart move. Done in under 2 minutes.

-Fatmir

PS:
MQLs didn’t die.
They were just never that good.