MQL, HQL and BANT leads: what each tier tells your sales team.
Lead generation providers sell leads by tier, most often CQL, MQL, HQL and BANT. The names are shared across the industry, but each provider sets its own definitions, so a tier means what your contract says it means.
The common tiers
- MQL, a marketing-qualified lead: a contact who fits your target profile and has engaged with what you sent them.
- CQL and HQL: tiers between an engaged contact and a BANT lead. Each provider sets what they require, so ask for the definition in writing.
- BANT: a lead where the budget, the authority to buy, the need and the timeline have been confirmed.
- SQL, a sales-qualified lead: a lead your sales team has accepted as worth pursuing. An MQL is marketing's judgment; an SQL is sales' acceptance.
What to agree before a campaign starts
- the definition of each tier you buy
- your acceptance window
- the reason codes for rejecting a lead, and the credit for a rejected one
At LensGlass these are agreed at set-up, as your lead definition and acceptance terms.
What a tier should rest on
A tier is only as good as the evidence behind it. In a LensGlass program:
Shown by what the buyer did on the page
- the need, in the question they chose
- what they will judge the options on
- their role
- where they are in their research
Confirmed by a person, later
- the budget
- who signs
- the date
Tiers and your qualification method
Whatever method your team qualifies on, each buyer arrives with the qualifying questions answered as far as the buyer's research goes. For teams that use BANT or MEDDPICC, each question is tagged to where it sits in that method.