Marketing Qualified Lead
A Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) is a lead that the marketing team has judged more likely to become a customer than the average contact, based on engagement, demographic or firmographic fit, and behavioral signals. An MQL has shown enough interest to be worth passing to sales for follow-up.
MQLs are usually identified through lead scoring, where points are assigned for actions like downloading content, attending a webinar, or visiting pricing pages, combined with fit attributes such as job title, company size, or industry. When a contact crosses a defined score threshold, it is flagged as an MQL and routed to sales.
A common pitfall is treating every MQL as sales-ready: many still need nurturing, and a high MQL volume with low conversion often signals a scoring model that is too loose. MQLs typically precede a Sales Accepted Lead and then a Sales Qualified Lead in the funnel.
Last updated: 14 June 2026