Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL)
An MQL is a lead whose engagement and fit signal they are more likely to become a customer, but who is not yet ready for direct sales contact.
A marketing qualified lead has shown intent — downloaded a guide, attended a webinar, visited pricing — and matches your ideal customer profile. Marketing nurtures MQLs with content and lifecycle touches until they signal sales-readiness. Defining the MQL threshold is a shared agreement between marketing and sales, usually built on lead scoring and firmographic fit.
Clean MQL definitions stop the two teams from blaming each other. When marketing passes only genuine MQLs, sales trusts the pipeline and closes faster. Tracking MQL-to-customer conversion rates also tells you which channels and content actually produce revenue, not just traffic. Gigde has generated 50,000+ leads using this kind of qualification discipline.