What does scoring measure?

Scoring in Salesforce Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (formerly Pardot) is a numerical measure of a prospect's interest and intent. It quantifies this interest by assigning points for specific actions and behaviors the prospect undertakes. These actions, or activities, include opening an email, clicking a link, viewing a pricing page, or submitting a form. The cumulative score reflects how engaged a prospect is with the company's marketing assets, helping to identify sales-ready leads. It is based on implicit data (what they do), not explicit data (who they are).

A. This describes grading, which evaluates how well a prospect matches an ideal customer profile based on explicit, personal, or firmographic information.

B. This is too specific. While website activity contributes to a score, scoring measures a much broader range of activities beyond just time spent.

D. This incorrectly merges the concepts of scoring (activities) and grading (explicit information), which are separate and distinct lead qualification mechanisms in Pardot.

1. Salesforce Help Documentation, Pardot Scoring. "A prospect’s score is a numerical value that indicates how interested they are in your product or service. A prospect’s score can increase or decrease based on their actions." This directly confirms that scoring is based on activities.

2. Salesforce Trailhead, Lead Qualification with Pardot Unit, Pardot Lead Nurturing Module. "A score is a numerical value assigned based on a prospect’s activity... It’s an indicator of how interested or active a prospect is." This resource explicitly defines score as a measure of activity.

3. Salesforce Help Documentation, Scoring and Grading Prospects. "Scoring is based on what a prospect does, and grading is based on who a prospect is." This official distinction clarifies that scoring is about activities ("what a prospect does"), while grading relates to personal information ("who a prospect is"), invalidating options A and D.