Qualification Score: prioritizing the right accounts with AI
In an Account-Based Marketing (ABM) strategy, building your list of key accounts is an essential first step.
But which of these accounts are actually ready to buy?
This is where the Qualification Score, Demandbase’s predictive score, comes in.
Using artificial intelligence, it helps you identify the most promising accounts and focus your efforts where they will have the greatest impact.
Why use a predictive score?
A good ABM strategy relies on accuracy.
But even with a well-constructed Target Account List, it’s difficult to know which accounts are most likely to become customers.
The Qualification Score solves this problem:
This score allows you to:
- 🎯 Prioritize your marketing and sales campaigns
- 🤝 Align sales with high-potential accounts
- 💰 Optimize your budgets by focusing on the most profitable opportunities
How is the Qualification Score calculated?
The Qualification Score is based on a machine learning model trained using your existing customer data.
Demandbase analyzes what characterizes your best customers, then evaluates each account according to the same criteria.
Here are the main data sources used:
| Data Type | Example | Role in Model |
|---|---|---|
| Internal (CRM & Marketing Automation) | Customers, Won Opportunities | Identify existing customer profile |
| Firmographics | size, industry, revenue, region | Define the structural “fit” of an account |
| Technographics | tools used: Marketo, Salesforce, HubSpot, etc. | Determine technological compatibility |
| Intent Data | Keywords searched on the web (ABM, marketing automation, etc.) | Measure active interest in your topics |
AI then compares these signals to those of millions of other companies in the Demandbase database to calculate the probability that an account will become a customer.
How to use the Qualification Score in Demandbase
Once calculated, the Qualification Score becomes a powerful lever for action in your Demandbase platform.
Here are some concrete uses:
1. Create smart audience segments
Filter your accounts according to their score: for example, all accounts with a score > 70.
This segment represents your “good fits” — the accounts that deserve your prospecting and nurturing efforts.
2. Prioritize your sales actions
The score is automatically pushed to your CRM.
Your sales teams can then sort their accounts according to potential and focus their prospecting on the best candidates.
3. Customize your marketing campaigns
In Marketo or any other automation tool, use the Qualification Score to tailor the message and intensity of your campaigns according to the account’s potential.
4. Analyze your performance
Compare conversion rates and revenue generated according to score ranges.
This is an excellent way to validate the relevance of your predictive model and refine your ABM strategy.
Best practices
✔️ Have at least 50 to 100 customer accounts in your CRM before launching the model (the richer the sample, the more reliable the score will be).
✔️ Retrain the model every 6 months so that the AI incorporates your new customers and trends.
✔️ Integrate the score into your CRM and marketing automation dashboards to track the progress of your accounts.
In summary
| Objective | Action | Benefit |
|---|---|---|
| Identify the right accounts | Use the Qualification Score as the main filter | Focus on high-potential accounts |
| Align marketing and sales | Synchronize the score with the CRM | Common prioritization |
| Measure performance | Analyze conversions by score range | Validate the AI model |
Our other Demandbase Tips
Build your Target Account List
🎥 Watch the demo
Check out the full video of Demandbase Tip #1 – Building Your Target Account List, where I walk you through all the steps right in the Demandbase interface.
Stop hunting for leads at random.
The success of your Account-Based Marketing (ABM) strategy starts with one simple but fundamental element: identifying the right accounts.
In this first episode of the Demandbase Tips series, I show you how to build your Target Account List (TAL) in Demandbase, step by step.
The goal: to focus your marketing and sales efforts on the companies most likely to buy.
Why the Target Account List is essential to your ABM strategy
Unlike a traditional lead management strategy, where the goal is to fill the funnel with contacts, ABM takes the opposite approach:
This approach guarantees:
- Better use of the marketing budget
- Total consistency between marketing campaigns and sales activities
- An increase in conversion rates and average deal size
Building your account list in Demandbase
Demandbase makes it easy to create and update a list of key accounts by combining your internal data with enriched external data (firmographic, technographic, predictive, and behavioral).
Here are the steps I show in the video 👆
1. Start with your existing accounts
Import your list of strategic accounts from your CRM (Salesforce, HubSpot, etc.).
This is your starting point: accounts already identified by sales.
2. Add your firmographic criteria
Define your ideal customer profile (ICP) using criteria such as:
- Industry sector
- Company size
- Revenue
- Region
These filters allow you to exclude off-target accounts and focus your efforts on high-potential markets.
3. Enrich with the Qualification Score
The Qualification Score is a predictive artificial intelligence model (I’ll explain it in the next Demandbase Tip).
It identifies accounts that most closely resemble your existing customers.
4. Overlay intent signals (Intent Data)
Add accounts that are currently actively searching for your topics.
Intent signals (Intent Data) come from analyzing keywords and content viewed by companies on the web.
5. Save and share your list
Once your list is ready:
- Save it as a dynamic list (it will update automatically).
- Share it directly with sales via the Demandbase Sales solution.
- Subscribe to this list to track the weekly progress of your accounts.
Best practices
👉 Update your list every quarter: remove inactive accounts and add those showing new signs of intent.
👉 Always work in tandem with sales to validate the relevance of accounts.
👉 Combine firmographics + predictive + intent data for comprehensive targeting.
In summary
| Step | Objective | Data source |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Import your existing accounts | Start with your CRM database | Salesforce, HubSpot |
| 2. Add firmographic filters | Define your ICP | Internal + external data |
| 3. Use the Qualification Score | Identify “lookalike” accounts | Demandbase AI |
| 4. Add intent signals | Detect accounts actively searching | Demandbase Intent Data |
| 5. Share and track | Align sales and marketing | Demandbase + CRM |
Our other Demandbase Tips
2025: Why Your Lead Gen Strategy Is No Longer Enough (and How Account-Based Marketing Can Restart Your Growth)
For over a decade, B2B marketing teams have invested heavily in marketing automation platforms such as Marketo, Pardot, or Hubspot. They built strong lead generation and demand generation strategies: inbound campaigns, nurturing, scoring, digital events…
These efforts were essential. They structured modern marketing and created volume.
But in 2025, many organizations are hitting a growth ceiling:
- declining open and click rates,
- lower-quality leads,
- longer sales cycles,
- and stagnant advertising ROI despite rising budgets.
👉 What you’ve done so far was necessary. But it’s no longer sufficient to sustain growth.
Why Your Demand Generation Campaigns Are Flatlining in 2025
The B2B Playbook Has Changed
The B2B marketing playbook of the 2010s no longer works. As Jon Miller, CMO of Demandbase, explains in his “new B2B marketing playbook,” buyers behave differently today — and what worked yesterday won’t help you grow tomorrow (read the full article here).
95% of Your Market Is Not Buying Today
According to the 95:5 Rule by John Dawes (Ehrenberg-Bass Institute), at any given time only 5% of your market is in active buying mode.
Result: without effective targeting of those 5%, you waste 95% of your lead generation budget. And you burn out your audience’s patience in the process.
80% of Buyers Choose a Brand They Already Know
Research from Bain & Company on the “Day One List” shows that nearly 80% of B2B buyers choose a brand they already know when they enter a buying cycle. In other words: if you’re not visible before demand emerges, you may never even get invited to the table.
Consequences for Your Campaigns
- Your forms capture buyers far too late — often after they’ve already made up their mind.
- You target individuals, while buying groups of 6–10 people actually make the decision.
- Your ad budget funds impressions that don’t reach the right accounts or the right personas.
Why Lead Generation Alone No Longer Works
A Useful but Incomplete Approach
Lead generation helped structure B2B marketing. But in 2025, it falls short for three main reasons:
- It only captures the very end of the journey — when someone finally raises their hand.
- It isolates individuals, while decisions are made collectively.
- It wastes budget by casting too wide a net without prioritizing high-potential accounts.
The “All Leads” Trap
Focusing only on leads is like trying to fill a leaky bucket: lots of effort with little impact on actual pipeline or revenue.
The Alternative: Account-Based Advertising
Target Strategic Accounts, Not the Masses
Account-Based Advertising (ABA), powered by Demandbase, flips the script:
- Target strategic accounts defined jointly with sales,
- Reach the right roles and personas within each buying group,
- Adapt messaging to the buyer journey stage: awareness, engagement, MQA, opportunity.
Optimize Every Impression
Unlike consumer-focused DSPs, Demandbase optimizes each ad impression based on intent signals and the buyer’s profile.
Measure What Really Matters
ABA doesn’t stop at clicks. It measures account progression through the buying cycle, opportunities created, and revenue influenced.
👉 The result: less waste, more pipeline.
How to Reinvent Your Advertising Budget in 2025
Start Small, Scale Smart
- Top of Funnel: modest budgets, designed to test and initiate engagement.
- Mid/Bottom of Funnel: higher investments, as accounts are mature and closer to pipeline.
Prioritize by Tiers and Deal Size
- Tier 3: test campaigns.
- Tier 2: mid-level budgets.
- Tier 1: maximum investment in strategic accounts with high ACV.
Keep a Reserve for “Burst Campaigns”
- Product launches, major events, end-of-quarter pushes.
- Best practice: set aside around $10,000 per burst campaign.
Measure the Right KPIs
- Retire CPC and CTR as final success metrics.
- Focus on:
- % of strategic accounts reached,
- engagement from target accounts,
- opportunities created,
- revenue influenced.
Conclusion
Your marketing automation and lead generation strategy was necessary. But in 2025, it’s no longer sufficient.
To break through the ceiling and return to growth, you need to evolve toward an Account-Based GTM strategy where advertising, content, sales, and marketing align on the same accounts.
Account-Based Advertising is the first concrete step: a lever to turn your ad budget into measurable pipeline and tangible revenue.
👉 At Merlin/Leonard, we help companies shift from lead generation to an account-based approach that’s more effective, more strategic, and aligned with their sales teams.