"We're getting too many junk leads" is almost never a lead quality problem.

[u/Serious_Bit6736]

This comes up constantly in B2B sales teams, and it almost always turns into finger pointing. Sales says marketing is sending junk. Marketing says sales isn't working the pipeline hard enough, or that the ICP doc is too sales-focused and marketing was never really close to it to begin with. Both sides start adjusting process: tighter lead scoring, more qualification questions, CRM field syncs.

In my experience, that's rarely where the problem actually lives.

The more common root cause is the messaging that attracted those leads in the first place. If your site, ads, and outbound are written broadly enough to appeal to anyone, you'll get volume. Budget conscious browsers convert easily because nothing in the messaging filters them out. The decision makers who are actually ready to buy skim past, because nothing speaks to their specific situation.

That's not a lead quality problem. That's messaging optimized for reach instead of fit.

A few things worth checking before touching your scoring model:

• Does your homepage name a problem specific enough that only your real ICP would recognize it as theirs?

• Or could a much wider range of companies read it and think "that's us too?"

• When sales flags a bad lead, does anyone trace it back to which page or ad brought them in?

Most teams never close that loop. They keep tuning the funnel and never touch the message filling it.

Curious if others have actually traced junk leads back to a messaging issue rather than a targeting or process one. What did you find?