• MarTech Today
  • Sections
    • Ads
    • Marketing
    • Content
    • Sales
    • Analytics
    • Management
    • Resources
    • More
    • Home
  • MarTech Today
  • Ads
  • Marketing
  • Content
  • Sales
  • Analytics
  • Mgmt
  • Resources
  • More
  • Events
  • SUBSCRIBE

MarTech Today

MarTech Today
  • Ads
  • Marketing
  • Content
  • Sales
  • Analytics
  • Management
  • Resources
  • More
  • Events
  • Newsletters
  • Home
Martech: Management

MQLs: What are they good for?

We need to change how we measure results - like marketing qualified leads - and focus on aligning our metrics to revenue.

Joe Hyland on October 17, 2019 at 2:36 pm
  • More

It’s amazing how much technology has evolved in recent years. We’ve seen unprecedented advances in smartphones, IoT, home AI assistants and more. Martech has similarly kept pace: we’ve seen the rise of AR / VR advertising, the continued growth of video, and AI and machine learning that has sharpened personalization and predictive efforts. In B2B marketing, account-based marketing (ABM) and an emphasis on aligning sales and marketing are both white hot.

But as marketing and technology has evolved at breakneck speed in both the B2C and B2B worlds, our metrics for measurement have lagged behind. More than ever, I’m asking my team: how are we measuring our impact? Is it connected to our company’s larger goals? And most importantly: if we do better on our marketing metrics, does our company increase revenue?

We must take a revenue mindset in order to gain their seat at the table. When marketers understand how their work impacts a company’s bottom line, that’s when they have the opportunity to advance their own career but also elevate marketing as a profession. No joke: with revenue comes respect. Marketers are frequently guilty of being disconnected from driving revenue. That’s often because we’re working toward outdated metrics, like conversion rates, download numbers, or video views. In other words, we’re tracking our marketing qualified leads (MQLs).

Marketers have become focused on aligning with sales teams, which is a worthy effort. But even as we’re aligning with sales, we haven’t changed how we measure our results. We’re still looking at our marketing KPIs – usually MQLs – instead of how our marketing efforts directly lead to revenue. It’s like measuring how good a football team is by how many home runs they’ve hit. 

Instead of focusing on aligning sales and marketing, let’s focus on aligning our marketing metrics to revenue. This makes marketers more vital to a business. Marketers can understand what’s truly moving the needle with prospects and adapt accordingly. If events are driving the most revenue, or whitepapers, or webinars, marketers can move in real-time to double down on these channels and see results. The end result is that marketers own more of the funnel which is an empowering and powerful shift for us.

Let’s dive deeper into the disconnect between MQLs and ROI. Hubspot found that one-third of all marketers say MQLs are the most important metric they measure. And yet, marketers that prove ROI of their efforts on average see 1.6X higher budgets than those who don’t.

MQLs, by their very nature, are internal looking. Most outside of the marketing department don’t understand what makes a lead “marketing qualified.” That’s probably a good thing, as the ones who do understand would say that MQLs are arbitrary at best, entirely irrelevant at worst. They also don’t measure ROI. Let’s say you have 10 people input their information and download a whitepaper. These 10 are MQLs according to your team’s definition. But if all 10 are individual contributors who don’t have purchasing power, they may be an MQL — but they won’t earn your business a nickel. 

MQLs were more relevant when we had less channels to engage with prospects. But now we tailor our MQLs to the marketing we are pushing on potential customers – so meeting MQL goals becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s not all our fault, as marketers have been under immense pressure to get our MQL numbers up. But the result is that a viewer who dropped off after 10 seconds of a webinar is lumped in as an MQL, just like the viewer who stayed for nearly an hour and engaged with polls throughout. Sales becomes overwhelmed with all these MQLs and doesn’t know which leads to pursue. Conversions drop and we wonder why.

Instead of looking at your MQL as a fulfillment of your channels, work back from won deals to see what channels are producing those leads. We should all develop a more nuanced view of our leads. How are they engaged? What’s the quality of engagement? What type of engagement usually signals an imminent purchase decision? This type of engagement data needs to be a part of your measurement. Then you can create your own MQL methodology that’s modern and relevant to your needs.

If you truly want to align your marketing team to revenue, focus on ROI. Revamping or moving away from MQLs is not the easy or simple solution. You could get pushback from those above and below you. After all, a CEO may be used to hearing about MQLs for years or even decades. The people you manage will have to revamp their approach to meet a different set of more revenue-focused metrics. And we marketing leaders need to start from scratch to truly understand what metrics align with ROI and revenue, and develop a new set of KPIs to measure our team’s work. All of this will take time, resources and patience. But it will also be worth it.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech Today. Staff authors are listed here.



About The Author

Joe Hyland
Joe Hyland is the CMO of the leading webinar platform company, ON24, where he is responsible for the company’s global marketing, communication and brand strategy. He has over a decade of experience creating and marketing innovative products in the enterprise and SaaS software markets. Before joining ON24, Hyland was the CMO at Taulia, the SaaS market-leading financial supply chain company. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College.

Related Topics

Channel: Martech: ManagementMarketing Strategies Column

Subscribe to receive daily martech news and expert insights. See terms.


We're listening.

Have something to say about this article? Share it with us on Facebook and Twitter.

Get the daily newsletter digital marketers rely on.
See terms.

ATTEND OUR EVENTS

Next Event: Sept. 14-15

Available On-Demand: March 2021

Available On-Demand: October 2020

×

Attend MarTech - Click Here


Learn More About Our MarTech Events

White Papers

  • Nielsen Annual Marketing Report: Era of Adaptation
  • Global Social Media Advertising Trends Among Retailers in 2021
  • 2020 Hispanic Market Report
  • Delivering Audio Success: Industry Trends in Streaming Audio & Podcast Performance
  • Ten Tips for Acquisition Email Success
See More Whitepapers

Webinars

  • Drive Customer Engagement with the Power of Personalization
  • 7 Use Cases That Prove Why You Should Implement DAM
  • Accelerate Your SEO & Content Marketing Program with 4 Key Milestones
See More Webinars

Research Reports

  • Local Marketing Solutions for Multi-Location Businesses
  • Enterprise Digital Asset Management Platforms
  • Identity Resolution Platforms
  • Customer Data Platforms
  • B2B Marketing Automation Platforms
  • Call Analytics Platforms
See More Research

On-Demand Free Training

Receive daily martech news and analysis.

Channels

  • Advertising
  • Marketing
  • Content
  • Social
  • Commerce
  • Sales
  • Analytics
  • Management
  • Home

Our Events

  • MarTech
  • SMX

Resources

  • White Papers
  • Research
  • Webinars

About

  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Privacy
  • Marketing Opportunities
  • Staff

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Newsletters
  • RSS

© 2021 Third Door Media, Inc. All rights reserved.