Short version: LeadSifter is a reader, not an oracle. Its job is to find every line item in a letting that names one of your products, and to be honest about how strong each match is. On that job it is more thorough than a person reading by hand, because it never gets tired on page 140.
How we measure it
Before a new state goes live, we hand-read a full letting the slow way, build the list of projects that call for a test supplier's products, and compare it to what LeadSifter produced. We track two numbers:
- Misses: projects that had the product and didn't get a lead. These are the ones that cost you money, so they're the number we care about most.
- Over-calls: leads that scored higher than a person would have scored them. Annoying, cheap to ignore, and the reasoning line makes them easy to spot.
We repeat the check on a sample of proposals every month, because DOTs change document formats without telling anyone.
A lead's reasoning line always quotes the item and quantity it found. If the reasoning doesn't convince you, the score shouldn't either.
Where misses come from
When LeadSifter misses something, it's almost always one of three things:
| Cause | What it looks like | What we do |
|---|---|---|
| Scanned plan sheets | Quantities only in an image of a table, no text layer | OCR with a second pass on tables; flagged for review when confidence is low |
| Unusual item names | Your product under a name you've never used, e.g. Select Crushed Material |
Keyword review during onboarding and quarterly after |
| Late addenda | Quantities added two days before letting | Addenda re-read daily; the lead is re-sent marked Updated |
What a 3 is telling you
A 5 means the schedule of items names your product, in quantity, by a DOT item number you've told us about. A 4 is a strong match with less volume or a less direct item. A 3 means there's a real line item but it's small relative to the job, or it's a close cousin of what you sell. We send 3s because the call is yours to make; we don't send 1s and 2s because they'd waste your morning.
If you think a score is wrong
Reply to the email and say so. Scores are tuned per company, and a two-line reply is usually enough for us to adjust your keywords the same day.