MQLs: The Traditional Lead-Based Model
A Marketing-Qualified Lead (MQL) is an individual contact who has demonstrated interest through specific behaviors: downloading content, attending webinars, or visiting pricing pages. Marketing teams score these individuals based on demographic data and engagement activities, then pass them to sales when they reach a threshold score.
The process focuses on volume. Marketing generates as many qualified individuals as possible, regardless of whether those individuals work at target accounts or have buying authority.
MQAs: The Account-Based Approach
A Marketing-Qualified Account (MQA) is an entire company or organization that shows buying signals across multiple stakeholders. Instead of scoring individual contacts, marketing evaluates account-level engagement: How many people from the company are engaging? What’s their seniority? Are multiple departments showing interest?
The qualification criteria shift from individual behavior to collective account signals. An account becomes qualified when enough stakeholders demonstrate sufficient engagement, regardless of whether any single contact would qualify as an MQL.
Why the Distinction Matters
In traditional B2B sales, one interested contact rarely drives a purchase decision. Complex sales involve buying committees of multiple people. MQLs measure individual interest. MQAs measure organizational readiness.
MQAs align marketing and sales around the same unit of measurement: accounts, not leads. This eliminates the common disconnect where marketing delivers hundreds of MQLs from low-fit companies while sales struggles to engage decision-makers at target accounts.
Practical Implications
The Bottom Line
Understanding the difference between MQLs and MQAs is not optional for B2B marketing teams running account-based strategies. This distinction determines how you allocate budget, measure success, and align with sales.
If your B2B marketing team can’t tell you the difference, we need to talk.
