A Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) is someone who has shown enough interest in your product or service to be considered more likely to become a customer — but they’re not quite ready to talk to sales just yet.
These leads have typically taken meaningful actions, like downloading a whitepaper, signing up for a webinar, or visiting your pricing page multiple times. Based on that behavior, marketing flags them as ready for nurturing — not closing.
MQLs sit between general website visitors and Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs). They’re warm, but not hot.
Example:
Let’s say someone downloads your “2025 SaaS Growth Playbook”, then clicks through a few product pages and opens your follow-up email. These signals suggest they’re seriously exploring solutions — and qualify them as an MQL. From there, your marketing team might enroll them in a drip campaign, while keeping sales in the loop for future outreach.