A marketing qualified lead (MQL) is a contact who has met a threshold of fit and engagement criteria defined by the marketing team, indicating sufficient likelihood to purchase that the lead should be passed to sales for follow-up.
MQL thresholds combine two types of criteria. Fit criteria assess whether the contact belongs to the target market: job title, seniority, company size, industry, and geography. Engagement criteria assess whether the contact has taken actions that signal intent: visiting the pricing page, downloading a product-specific asset, attending a webinar, or starting a free trial.
The specific weights assigned to each criterion vary by company and are ideally calibrated against historical conversion data. A contact who meets fit criteria but has no engagement may be a future MQL but not yet ready for sales. A contact who is highly engaged but outside the target market is a marketing-engaged contact, not an MQL.
When a lead crosses the MQL threshold, it is typically routed to a sales development representative for qualification. The SDR's role is to confirm that the MQL also meets sales-qualified criteria: that there is a real budget, a defined need, and a decision timeline. If the SDR confirms these, the lead becomes a sales qualified lead (SQL) and is passed to an account executive.
The gap between MQL volume and SQL conversion rate is one of the most common points of friction between marketing and sales teams. When MQL criteria are too loose, sales receives high volume but low-quality leads. When criteria are too strict, sales is under-served. Aligning on criteria jointly and reviewing them quarterly against actual win data is how mature teams keep the handoff productive.
A SaaS company defines an MQL as a contact with a director-or-above title at a company with 200 or more employees who has visited the pricing page or attended a product webinar. A VP of Marketing at a 400-person software company who registers for a demo webinar meets both fit and engagement criteria and is routed to an SDR within four business hours.
Abmatic identifies accounts that are behaving like MQLs without filling out a form, surfacing anonymous high-engagement visits so sales can prioritize outreach before the contact self-selects.
Related: Intent data definition | Pipeline velocity definition