As marketers, we pride ourselves on staying ahead of the curve; new channels, new tools, new tactics. But when it comes to how we measure success, many teams are still clinging to outdated metrics like email open rates and Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs).
Why is that?
Like shifting any established mindset, this isn’t just a change we need to lead for our clients, it’s one we need to make ourselves. It takes a strategic reset, an internal sell, and a willingness to evolve how we define marketing impact.
Because if buyer behaviour has changed – and it has – our measurement models must change too.
Why traditional MQLs are no longer fit for purpose
The problem with MQLs is simple: they’re based on shallow signals. A whitepaper download. A webinar sign-up. A few visits to your website. These interactions can suggest interest, but not necessarily intent – and they almost always focus on individuals, not accounts.
As a result, leads passed to sales can look promising on the surface, but fall flat in practice. Worse still, this individual-level view ignores the broader buying committee, misrepresents opportunity, and risks eroding trust between sales and marketing, right when tighter collaboration is most needed.
Embracing buyer intent as the new standard
Today’s smarter approach is built around real buying signals. By combining intent data, predictive analytics, and behavioural insights, marketing teams can qualify prospects with far more accuracy and nuance.
It’s about shifting from assumed interest to verified readiness – so marketing and sales can move in lockstep, not at odds with each other.
If not MQLs, then what?
While there’s no magic metric, one meaningful alternative is gaining traction: Marketing Qualified Accounts (MQAs).
Unlike MQLs, MQAs focus on the collective engagement of multiple stakeholders within a target account. This shift mirrors the complexity of real B2B buying journeys, giving teams a clearer picture of true buying intent and allowing them to prioritise the accounts that matter most.
With MQAs, marketing becomes more aligned with sales, ABM efforts become more effective, and teams can spend less time chasing leads and more time building pipelines.
And the data supports it: while traditional MQLs convert to sales-qualified leads at an average rate of 13%, MQAs achieve conversion rates of around 20% (infuse.com). That’s not just a marginal gain, it’s a measurable shift in efficiency.
That said, MQAs may not be the final word either. According to Forrester, both MQLs and MQAs fall short in delivering the actionable insights revenue teams truly need. Instead, they advocate for an opportunity-based model as the most aligned and commercially focused measurement approach (Forrester, 2022).
The operational challenge of moving beyond MQLs
Why ditching MQLs is as much a cultural shift as a tech one.
Moving away from MQLs isn’t as simple as flipping a switch – it’s a strategic and cultural shift that affects people, processes, and performance metrics. Many teams face internal resistance from stakeholders tied to legacy KPIs or systems that were built around lead volume – like measuring success based on total form fills or relying on lead scoring models that prioritise activity over intent.
In practice, evolving your measurement model means rethinking how marketing and sales are incentivised, how platforms like Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems and Marketing Automation Platforms (MAPs) are configured, and how success is reported up the chain. It also means getting comfortable with lower volumes but higher value – a mindset shift that can be commercially uncomfortable at first.
Change in management, not just technology, becomes critical. To succeed, teams need a clear narrative for internal buy-in, backed by real data, and a phased roadmap that supports capability building across the business.
What comes after MQAs? Opportunity-based measurement
Opportunities – not leads – should become your revenue north star. While MQAs represent a more realistic picture of buying intent than MQLs, they’re still a proxy. Forrester and other analysts advocate moving beyond accounts to focus on what actually drives revenue: opportunities.
An opportunity-based model looks at the signals that correlate most closely with pipeline creation and deal progression – unlike MQLs, which often rely on early-stage interactions, or MQAs, which may focus on engagement breadth but still fall short of capturing true commercial momentum. It shifts measurement away from early-stage engagement and toward qualified revenue potential. This approach better reflects today’s buying dynamics, where deal cycles are complex, committee-driven, and non-linear.
Marketing’s role evolves from generating leads to accelerating deal velocity, improving conversion rates, and supporting sales with insight that matters. That’s a very different kind of measurement, and one the C-suite can rally behind.
How intent data really works (and how to get it right)
Even though intent data isn’t a magic wand, it has become the buzzword of modern B2B marketing. But many teams don’t understand what it actually is, or how to use it effectively. Not all intent signals are created equal.
True intent data focuses on buying signals: specific behaviours that indicate a person or account is actively researching or considering a solution, such as comparing solutions on review sites, engaging with competitor content, or repeatedly visiting product-focused pages. This includes third-party data from publisher networks, review sites, and forums, as well as first-party engagement across your own digital ecosystem.
To get intent right, marketers need to:
- Clarify which signals matter and align them to stages of the buying journey
- Integrate intent data with CRM and ABM platforms
- Align marketing and sales on how to interpret and act on signals
We don’t want to drown in data, but we do need to isolate signal from noise, and use it to prioritise effort where there’s real commercial potential.
The commercial case for measurement evolution
Smarter metrics drive revenue, and help you win C-suite support. Changing your measurement model isn’t just a marketing issue, it’s a business one, with direct impact on pipeline accuracy, win rates, and strategic decision-making. And the best way to get C-suite buy-in is to show how modern metrics impact the bottom line.
MQLs often give a false sense of pipeline health. MQAs and opportunity-based models, by contrast, provide a clearer link to revenue. They help identify which accounts are heating up, which deals are stalling, and where to focus resources for maximum return.
By shifting the focus from volume to value, marketing can prove its impact more credibly. This makes it easier to secure budget, defend headcount, and align with commercial priorities. It also positions marketing as a growth engine, not just a lead machine.
Rebuilding sales and marketing alignment around new metrics
Let’s move from handoff to handshake by redefining collaboration through shared success metrics. MQLs create a binary dynamic: marketing passes a lead, sales accepts or rejects. MQAs and opportunity-based models break down that wall by focusing on shared accountability.
When both teams align around opportunity readiness or account engagement, the dynamic shifts from handoff to handshake. Teams collaborate on prioritisation, co-create messaging, and coordinate timing.
This builds trust, speeds up cycles, and delivers better buyer experiences. But it requires shared definitions, mutual goals, and a commitment to continuous optimisation, not just lead quotas.
The right metrics create the right behaviours. And the right behaviours build high-performing revenue teams.
Isn’t it time your metrics caught up with your marketing?
At onebite, we help ambitious tech brands break free from outdated thinking and build smarter strategies that drive results.
Ready to move beyond vanity metrics and rethink what really matters? Let’s talk.
Kiri Craig, Managing Partner
Kiri has been working in marketing agencies for almost 20 years, and in that time she has worked across a range of B2B and B2C sectors, from large enterprise clients to SMEs.
For the last decade, Kiri has been focused solely on B2B marketing, and as Managing Partner of onebite, Kiri draws on this experience to feed into B2B demand generation strategies for our clients and prospects, and to oversee onebite’s delivery.
At onebite, she’s curated a team of B2B demand generation specialists from the best talent on the market, helping our tech and telco clients launch, refine and amplify their brands to generate long-term revenue growth. Kiri’s passion and drive to deliver exceptional work for our clients is evident to everyone who meets her.
