How Lead Scoring Works: Scores, Temperature, the Lead Drawer

Updated October 10, 2026·Capturing Leads·Share on X

Not every lead deserves the same follow-up. Conference Hero scores each lead against the conference's Ideal Customer Profile as soon as it's captured or imported, and sets its temperature from that score. There is no review queue to work through: the best matches are already at the top of the list.

How a lead is scored

The AI reads what you know about the lead (job title, company, industry, company size, location, and your team's notes) and checks it against each rule in the profile. Each rule comes back as a match, a partial match, no match, or unknown. The score is then worked out the same way every time:

Fit - the share of rules the lead matches, weighted by importance. Must-haves count most. A lead that clearly misses a must-have can't score as a strong fit.
Signs of interest - things your team noted in the conversation, like "has budget this year", plus two that are checked automatically: the lead booked a meeting with you, or filled out your event form.
Target accounts - a lead from a company on the conference's target list gets 10 extra points.
Rule-outs - a lead that clearly matches an exclusion, such as a competitor, scores 10 or less.

Missing information counts as unknown and earns no points, so a badge scan with only a name and company starts low. As soon as enrichment, a note, or an edit adds more, the lead is scored again automatically.

For well-known companies the AI may use what it already knows about the company (its industry or size, for example). Those rules are marked "from AI knowledge" in the breakdown.

Temperature

The score sets the temperature:

Score	Temperature
70 to 100	Hot
40 to 69	Warm
0 to 39	Cold

The temperature always matches the score. You can't set one without the other: change the score and the temperature moves with it.

The one shortcut is at capture. On the capture page and in the iOS app you can tap Hot, Warm, or Cold while saving a lead. That sets a manual score in the band: Hot is 85, Warm is 55, Cold is 20. Skip it and the profile scores the lead.

Temperature drives who to follow up first in AI campaigns. When a lead turns Hot, your team gets a hot lead alert.

Auto, Manual, and Basic scores

A tag next to each score shows where it came from:

Auto - scored against an Ideal Customer Profile.
Manual - a teammate set the score by hand, or tapped a temperature at capture. Automatic re-scoring never changes it. On the lead's Score tab, the Auto / Manual switch shows which one is in use. In Manual, drag the slider and save to change the score again any time; the profile's suggestion is shown next to it. Switch back to Auto to use the profile's score.
Basic - the workspace has no profile yet, so the lead got a simple score from its contact details and title. Create a profile to score by fit.

Scores per conference

A lead who attends several of your conferences gets a score at each one, against that conference's profile. The Leads page shows the score from the lead's most recent conference, and each conference's Leads tab shows the score for that conference.

When leads are re-scored

Leads are scored again automatically when:

enrichment adds details like title, company size, or location
someone adds or deletes a note
the lead's details are edited, or you import a spreadsheet with more information about existing leads
the lead is added to another conference
the conference's profile changes (upcoming and live conferences only)

To re-score by hand, use Re-score now on the lead's Score tab (shown while the score is on Auto), or Re-score all leads on the conference's Ideal Customer Profile tab.

The lead drawer

Click any lead to open its drawer, the single place everything about that person lives:

Overview - name, company, title, contact details, industry, company size, location, conference, owner, score, temperature, source, and capture method, each with a label. UTM source, medium, and campaign show here for landing-page leads.
Score - the score at each conference, which rules matched and why, the signs of interest found in the notes, and the buying role (the AI fills it in when empty). Switch between Auto and Manual here.
Notes and activity - what was said, what changed, and when.
Meetings - schedule a new meeting or log one that already happened. See meetings and booking links.
Outreach - the emails sent to this lead and the drafts waiting for review. The Email button opens one window with three tabs: Write email (a blank email sent from your connected Gmail or Outlook), AI draft (describe what you want to say, and the draft lands in Write email for you to edit before sending; the AI reads the lead's notes, earlier emails and replies, meetings, company and conferences, so the draft picks up where the conversation left off), and Log past email (record an email you exchanged outside Conference Hero). The Draft with AI button under the editor takes you straight to the AI tab. The LinkedIn button works the same way with two tabs: Log message (record a LinkedIn message you sent or received) and AI draft (draft a message, copy it to LinkedIn, then log it as sent).

The drawer opens right where you are: the Leads page, a conference, Home, a research list, a company, a report, the reply inbox, or a search result. The pencil at the top opens the edit form on every page; when you save, the drawer stays open with the new details. Close it with the X, by clicking outside it, with Escape, or with your browser's Back button. While it's open, the page address ends in ?lead= and the lead's number, so you can copy the link and send it to a teammate: it opens the same lead for them. Refreshing the page keeps the lead open.

Companies open the same way

Click a company anywhere (the Companies list, a research list, the account report, a campaign's accounts, or the Company field on a lead) and it opens in the same side panel, with five tabs:

Overview: how many people you have there, hot leads, open and won pipeline, the furthest stage, last activity, the AI account snapshot, and the conferences where you met them.
People: everyone you have at the company.
Activity: everything that happened with the account. Use the chips to see it all in one timeline, or just Outreach (emails and LinkedIn messages), Meetings, or Campaigns. The buttons at the top work from any chip: Email someone, Schedule meeting, or Log a past email, call, LinkedIn message or meeting.
Tasks: open and finished tasks for the company and its people, with the open count on the tab.
Notes: notes about the account.

Change the account owner or email the whole account from the top. The ... menu next to it adds a person, copies a link to the company, or shows its people on the Leads page. Tasks and the conference list only appear in Conference Hero workspaces, and the Campaigns chip only in Campaign Hero workspaces.

Click a person and the panel switches to that lead, with Back to and the company's name at the top to return. It works the other way too: open a lead's company, then go back to the lead. Each one reopens on the tab you left. The address ends in ?company= and the company's number while a company is open, so company links can be shared as well. Old links to a company page still work and open the panel.

Delete or reassign leads in bulk

Admins see a Select button above the leads table, on the Leads page and on a conference's Leads tab. Click it, tick the leads you want (the box in the header selects the whole page), and a bar appears at the bottom of the screen:

Reassign owner - pick a teammate (or Unassigned) and click Assign. The new owner gets one notification for the batch.
Delete - moves the leads to the Deleted tab and removes their HubSpot link. Ten or more leads ask you to type the number to confirm.

Click Select again to leave select mode. Up to 200 leads can be changed at once.

The owner of a lead is the person responsible for following up. Ownership matters: AI follow-up drafts go to the lead's owner for review and send from the owner's own mailbox.