Marketing-Qualified Lead (MQL)

A marketing-qualified lead (MQL) is a prospect whose engagement with your marketing — content downloads, webinar attendance, repeated site visits, email clicks — suggests enough interest that marketing hands them to sales as worth a conversation. It sits between a raw lead and a sales-qualified lead (SQL): sales accepts an MQL, verifies fit and intent, and only then promotes it to SQL. For SaaS teams the MQL definition is the contract between marketing and sales; a vague one causes sales to reject "leads" that were never ready. Why it matters: the MQL-to-SQL conversion rate reveals whether marketing is generating real pipeline or vanity volume. Practical note: define the MQL threshold jointly with sales using lead scoring, and track how many MQLs sales actually accepts. In product-led motions, the product-qualified lead — someone who hit value inside a free trial — often outperforms the marketing-qualified lead as a signal. Revisit the definition as your funnel matures.