Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL)
An MQL, or Marketing Qualified Lead, is a prospect that marketing has evaluated and determined to be sufficiently well-matched to the target customer profile and sufficiently engaged to warrant a conversation with the sales team. MQL is a stage in the lead lifecycle that sits between a raw lead (someone who has simply provided contact information) and an SQL (Sales Qualified Lead, someone who has been confirmed by sales as a viable opportunity).
The criteria for MQL status typically combine fit signals (does the contact’s profile match the ideal customer profile?) and engagement signals (have they demonstrated meaningful interest through content engagement, email behaviour, or website activity?). A contact at the right company in the right role who has attended a webinar and visited the pricing page multiple times is a stronger MQL candidate than one who simply downloaded a top-of-funnel guide once. The MQL designation is usually assigned automatically by a lead scoring model when a contact reaches a defined threshold.
For B2B marketing teams, the MQL definition is one of the most important agreements to establish with the sales team. If marketing sends too many poorly qualified leads as MQLs, sales loses trust in the designation and ignores it. If the bar is set too high, too few leads make it to sales and pipeline suffers. The right calibration is empirical: review your historical MQL-to-opportunity conversion rate and adjust the scoring threshold to optimise for the conversion rate that makes the programme commercially effective.
What is the difference between an MQL and an SQL?
An MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead) is designated by marketing based on fit and engagement signals, typically through a lead scoring model. It means marketing believes the lead is worth a sales conversation. An SQL (Sales Qualified Lead) is designated by sales after direct engagement with the prospect, confirming that they have the budget, authority, need, and timeline to be a viable opportunity. MQL is a marketing assessment; SQL is a sales assessment. The transition from MQL to SQL is the critical handoff moment in the B2B revenue funnel.
How do you define MQL criteria?
MQL criteria should be defined jointly by marketing and sales based on what actually predicts conversion. Start by analysing historical data: which contact attributes (industry, company size, job title) and which engagement behaviours (pages visited, content downloaded, emails clicked) are most common among contacts who eventually became customers? Use this analysis to define the profile and behaviour thresholds that characterise a genuinely promising lead. Review and refine the criteria regularly as you accumulate more sales outcome data.
What should happen when a lead reaches MQL status?
When a lead is designated as an MQL, a defined process should kick in: typically a notification to the assigned sales representative, a task or activity created in the CRM, and potentially an automated email from the sales rep to the prospect. The speed of follow-up is critical: MQLs contacted within hours of reaching qualification are significantly more likely to engage than those followed up days later. The handoff process should be documented, tested, and measured by tracking the MQL-to-SQL conversion rate.