What is a marketing qualified lead (MQL)?
A marketing qualified lead (MQL) is a lead marketing judges ready for sales attention, based on fit and engagement. Gartner defines it as a potential customer reviewed by marketing that meets the criteria to be passed to sales. Typically a person responds to a campaign, a score rises with their profile and activity, and at an agreed point the lead goes to a seller or a development rep.
Why it matters to a revenue leader
The MQL is where marketing and sales agree, or argue, about what a good lead looks like. Forrester has criticized MQL-centered processes: its waterfall benchmarks show that lead-centric processes convert less than 1% of inquiries into closed deals, and it notes that B2B purchases are made by buying groups. For a revenue leader, MQL volume is a weak measure on its own; what matters is how many MQLs become accepted opportunities and revenue. In services, a request for a quote is usually worth far more than a downloaded guide, and the MQL definition should reflect that.
Example
Fictitious numbersA mechanical services company's marketing team reports 400 MQLs in a quarter. Sellers accept 120 and turn 30 into qualified opportunities. Most of the 30 came from quote and site walk requests, while most of the rejected leads came from content downloads. Marketing and sales rewrite the definition together the next quarter.
"Of last quarter's MQLs, how many became opportunities, and what did those leads have in common?"
Sources
- Marketing-Qualified Lead (MQL) (Gartner Sales Glossary) checked 9 Oct 2026
- The Revenue Process Alignment Series, Part 1: The End Of MQLs (Forrester) checked 9 Oct 2026