A lead who's shown enough interest (downloaded something, signed up for a webinar, kept coming back to the site) to be worth sales' attention, but who hasn't been vetted yet.
Scoring is usually what decides MQL status: points for specific behaviors and demographic fit, and once a lead crosses a set threshold, it qualifies. MQL sits between “anonymous visitor” and SQL, the moment marketing hands off and sales starts actually vetting for budget, authority, need, and timeline. Where this breaks down most often isn’t the definition, it’s the disagreement: marketing and sales rarely agree on exactly where that threshold should sit, and that argument alone kills more pipeline than any tooling gap.
A Signal Audit shows you where your marketing is leaking and exactly what to do about it.
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