"The MQL once served a purpose: signaling that a contact had shown enough interest to warrant sales follow-up. But in today's complex B2B environment, its flaws are impossible to ignore: It's individual-based: An MQL might be a junior analyst, not a decision-maker. It overlooks buying committees: Enterprise deals often involve 8-12 stakeholders, not one. It prioritizes volume over quality. Thousands of MQLs may never convert, wasting sales time. It erodes trust: When SDRs chase leads that don't buy, confidence in marketing collapses."
"Entire budgets, campaigns and reporting cadences built around producing as many as possible, with targets backed into based on volume. The result was marketing teams churning out thousands through brute force and spamming. But MQLs are not revenue. They are proxies: single contacts who often lack intent, budget or authority. Marketing leaders know this, and sales leaders know it too. Yet many CFOs and CEOs still insist on judging marketing by a metric they also realize doesn't tie to annual recurring revenue (ARR)."
Marketing has been measured by the marketing-qualified lead (MQL), driving budgets and campaigns to maximize volume. MQLs function as proxies and often capture single, low-authority contacts lacking intent, budget or decision power. High MQL volume prioritizes activity over outcome, wastes sales resources and erodes trust between teams. The required shift centers on proving value through collaborative meeting creation, improved pipeline conversion and demonstrable ARR impact. The transition demands stakeholder management, choice of outcome-oriented metrics and operationalizing a go-to-market motion that aligns marketing, sales and finance into one revenue-focused team.
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