When we got rid of all of our lead capture forms at Drift, and started making a conscious effort to put customer experience back at the center of everything we were doing, we realized that the MQL was an imperfect metric. Becoming an MQL hinges on, well — it depends. It’s different at every company, but MQLs are typically based on some combination of demographics, firmographics, and engagement. A common offshoot of the MQL, the sales-qualified lead (SQL), is basically the same thing, only there are more boxes that need to be ticked in order for sales to consider a lead qualified. Then came the product-qualified lead (PQL), which offered a promising alternative: Instead of forcing people to fill out forms in order to generate leads, why not focus on getting them to sign up for a free or freemium version of your product instead? Ultimately, however, we found that MQLs, SQLs, and PQLs all suffered from the same two issues: 1) They were slow. They ignored the on-demand, real-time pace that buyers move at these days. 2) The substance behind why people were deciding to buy was missing from the equation. Lots of data points were being gathered, but none of them offered the customer insights we actually needed. So we decided to abandon MQLs, SQLs, and PQLs in favor of a new type of lead: The conversation-qualified lead, or CQL™. But don’t worry: This isn’t just another metric that will drive a bigger wedge between marketing and sales. This one will actually make things easier. The CQL™ is a metric that both our marketers and salespeople here at Drift are rallying around.

1. Why We Switched
CQLs
to
Conversation Qualified Leads

2. “The marketing-qualified
lead is dead.”
^ That’s how Drift CEO, David Cancel, opened a
presentation he gave last year.

3. His explanation:
MQLs are holdovers from the early days of SaaS,
back when companies put themselves ahead of
their customers.

4. I mean, just look at the buying process we used to
make people go through…

5. So after we decided to get rid
of all of our lead capture
forms at Drift, we realized that
MQLs, SQLs, and PQLs were
all imperfect metrics.
And there were two key reasons why…

6. 1) MQLs, SQLs, and PQLs were too slow.
They ignored the on-demand, real-time pace
that buyers move at these days.

7. 2) The substance behind why people were
deciding to buy was missing from the equation.
Lots of data points were being gathered, but
none of them offered the customer insights we
actually needed.

8. So we decided to abandon
MQLs, SQLs, and PQLs in
favor of a new type of lead:
The conversation-qualified
lead, or CQL™.

9. What is a CQL?

10. MQL
Marketing-Qualified Lead
They took some action that shows they might be interested in buying.
SQL
Sales-Qualified Lead
Sales has confirmed it: They’re interested in buying.
PQL
Product-Qualified Lead
They tried our product? They must be interested in buying!
CQL
Conversation-Qualified Lead
We talked to them: They told us why they’re interested in
buying and what they’re trying to accomplish with our product.

11. A CQL™ is someone who has expressed intent to
buy during a one-to-one conversation with either:
A) an employee at your company, or
B) an intelligent sales assistant (bot).

12. With both types of CQL™, we use live chat to
track every conversation, so we can look back
and see which leads end up booking meetings,
becoming customers, etc.

13. In order to qualify leads
using bots, we write sales
scripts and have the bots
ask the same questions
our salespeople ask.

14. The benefit of using bots to generate CQLs?
Bots can qualify leads and book demos 24/7,
even when our sales reps are on vacation.
Just qualified another lead.
Just had a lead book a demo.

15. The CQL™ is a metric that our marketers and
salespeople here at Drift are rallying around.

16. From our account
executives (like Ally,
see left), to our VP of
Sales (Armen), to our
Director of Marketing
(Dave), everyone here
is seeing how CQLs
are transforming our
sales process.

17. 3 Reasons Your Sales
Team Will Love CQLs

18. 1) You’re creating a fastlane for your best leads.
Not only does focusing on CQLs make the buying
process simpler for your future customers, it also
compresses your team’s sales cycle.

19. Leads that come in through chat tend to have a higher velocity. So you’re
able to solve the problem or meet the needs of the request in real-time.
Think in terms of somebody coming to a website, and having a question,
and filling in a contact us form. And they’ll hear back in 24 hours, or two
days … that problem might not be there anymore. If they’re able to initiate
a conversation, so skip the form, and have a conversation in real-time,
we’re seeing that move very quickly.
-Chris Willis,
CMO, Perfecto Mobile
“
#NoForms

20. 2) Conversations > Forms
Lead capture forms are cold and static. By
investing in conversations instead, we’ve been
able to learn more about our customers while
simultaneously improving their experience.

21. We’ve gotten rid of traditional
forms on our website for the
reason that now we have so
many other ways to have
conversations with people.
Capturing someone’s email
address and relentlessly
attacking them with nurturing
campaigns doesn’t work
anymore.
-Tom Wentworth,
CMO at RapidMiner
“

22. 3) You can keep your same qualifying rules.
Switching to CQLs doesn’t mean changing the
way you work. You can keep all of your lead
qualification rules exactly the same — now
you’re just making them actionable.

23. Read the full story of why
we switched to the CQL.

24. See why thousands of businesses are using
Drift to generate CQLs and close deals faster.