MQA
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Marketing qualified account: a company-level signal indicating buying intent across multiple contacts.
MQA (marketing qualified account) is an account-level signal that a company is showing enough buying intent to warrant sales attention. While an MQL qualifies an individual lead, an MQA qualifies an entire account. This distinction matters because B2B buying decisions are made by committees, not individuals.
MQAs are the foundation of account-based marketing. Instead of asking "did this person download a whitepaper?" you ask "are multiple people at this company engaging with our content, visiting our pricing page, and researching our category?" An MQA aggregates signals across all contacts at an account to determine readiness.
The shift from MQL to MQA reflects how B2B buying actually works. A single marketing director downloading an ebook means little. Three people from the same company visiting your website, attending your webinar, and engaging with your LinkedIn ads means the account is in-market.
Examples
An ABM program identifies accounts ready for outreach.
An account scores as MQA when: two or more contacts from the same company engage with content, the account visits the pricing page, and third-party intent data shows the account researching the category. When all three conditions are met, the account is flagged for the BDR team.
A marketing team transitions from MQL to MQA measurement.
The team stops measuring individual lead volume and starts measuring account engagement. They discover that their 500 monthly MQLs represent only 120 unique accounts, and only 40 of those accounts have multi-threaded engagement. The 40 MQAs convert to pipeline at 3x the rate of individual MQLs.
A company uses intent data to identify MQAs.
Third-party intent data shows 200 accounts actively researching the company's category. Cross-referenced with first-party data (website visits, content engagement), 45 accounts show both intent and engagement. These 45 MQAs become the priority list for the sales team.
In practice
Read more on the blog
Frequently asked questions
How is an MQA different from an MQL?
An MQL qualifies an individual person based on their actions (downloaded content, attended webinar). An MQA qualifies an entire company based on aggregated signals across multiple people. In enterprise B2B where buying committees make decisions, MQAs are more predictive of pipeline creation.
What signals indicate an account is an MQA?
Multi-threaded engagement (multiple contacts from the same account), pricing page visits, demo requests, third-party intent data showing category research, and engagement across multiple channels. The strongest signal is multiple people from the same account taking high-intent actions.
Related terms
Marketing aimed at specific target accounts rather than broad audiences. Sales and marketing collaborate to win named companies.
Signals that indicate a company is actively researching or planning to buy a solution in your category. Third-party buying signals.
Assigning numerical values to leads based on their fit and engagement to determine which ones are ready for sales follow-up.
A description of the company (not person) most likely to buy, succeed, and expand with your product. Your best-fit customer.
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