The leads with the worst websites are your best customers

Confession: when we shipped the website-quality scorer last winter, we thought of it as a quality filter. Higher score = better lead. Below 70 = junk, deprioritise it.

Then we showed an early build to a freelance web designer we know through a Discord community for indie builders. He squinted at the column for a moment, then said: "I want the opposite". He only wanted scores below 60. He told us he sends every prospect a free 90-second Loom audit of their site, and that the worse the score, the easier the audit writes itself. The way he described his pipeline, AutoLeads is the only top-of-funnel infrastructure he runs.

Why a website quality score is the whole pitch

For most B2B sellers, the hardest part of cold outreach is finding a plausible reason for the email. "I see your site uses an outdated slider plugin" is a great reason if it's true. The trouble is verifying it across 100 prospects a week without losing your mind.

AutoLeads computes a score per business on:

• Clarity. Is there a single, obvious value proposition above the fold?
• Modernity. Are we looking at a 2024 site or a 2014 one with a carousel and a Flash-era hero?
• SSL and security basics. HTTPS, HSTS, modern TLS.
• Mobile fit. Does it actually render on a phone?
• Contact form quality. Is there a way to convert, or is it a "contact us" email link from 2008?

We send all five back as website_quality_score (0–100) plus a short website_quality_notes field. That second field is the gold. "Hero CTA below the fold, no SSL, contact form is a mailto link" — that's a personalised first sentence written for you.

How web design agencies actually run it

Three patterns we've seen settle in:

1. The "sub-70" cold audit machine

Filter every weekly batch for scores under 70. Generate a one-page Loom or PDF audit. Send it as the first cold touch. Personalisation cost: ~3 minutes per lead. Reply rates we see in the beta: 25–40 %.

2. The "refresh" wedge for existing clients

Run a campaign on businesses near your existing clients' verticals. Score sub-75 = candidates for a "refresh" package. You lead with the audit, sell the redesign. Bonus: you're not selling against Webflow templates, you're selling against a measurable score that will go up after your work ships.

3. The vertical-specific SaaS + service combo

Another agency we met through a Webflow partner intro builds templates for restaurants in major European cities. They run AutoLeads on narrow keyword + place pairs, push the sub-65 leads into a sequence offering a low-priced audit, then upsell the full redesign on the call. Same lead, three offers, one CSV. We borrowed the playbook to describe to other agency owners since, with their permission.

Anecdote: the time we ran the scorer on our own homepage

When we launched AutoLeads, our first homepage was a Tailwind UI template Tom tweaked over a weekend. We pointed our own scorer at it and it came back with a 64. The notes were brutal: "hero copy generic, contact form is an external link, no proof above the fold". All three were true. Two weekends later we rebuilt the homepage and the score moved up. Eating our own dogfood is the single best feedback loop we've had on the scoring rubric.

The point: the score isn't a vanity number. It correlates with the thing your clients actually care about — does the site sell. If you sell websites, that correlation is your entire reason to exist.

What a typical agency campaign looks like

• Tier: Growth (99 €/mo, 100 leads/month). One agency owner, one SDR, one designer is the usual team shape.
• Keywords: 2–4 verticals you have case studies in. Plumbers, dentists, bakeries, law firms — anything with a website that's usually neglected.
• Places: 3–5 cities or one country. Smaller geos win here, you want enough density to dedup useful from "we already contacted them".
• Sequence: Four touches. Loom audit. Calendly link. Case study. Final break-up. Nothing fancy.

Quick FAQ

Does the score change over time?

Yes. We re-score on subsequent encounters but never re-deliver a previously delivered lead unless you explicitly request it. If a site improved, you find out the next time the business shows up in a fresh sub-campaign.

Can I export the quality notes too?

On the way. Today the notes live in the dashboard; the public CSV export only includes the numeric score. The notes column will roll out in May.

Try it on one vertical this week

First 10 leads are free. Pick one vertical you've already shipped a website for. Run a campaign in your home city. Read the sub-70 leads on Monday. If the audits write themselves, you have a new outbound channel that prices itself per delivered lead.