Reporting on "Unqualified / Disqualified" MQLs

[Kjohns01]

Hi there,

We currently use HubSpot's default lifecycle stages to manage leads as they move through the sales and marketing process. 

What is the best way to report on leads that marketing has deemed to be an MQL but sales has deemed the lead to be unqualified?

Should we be using the lead status "unqualified" and keeping the lead lifecycle stage as "MQL"? Or should we be manually changing the lead lifecycle stage to "blank"? 

Any advice is greatly appreciated. 

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

Hi @Kjohns01,

By most definitions, a marketing qualified lead is a contact that the marketing team has qualified as ready for the sales team, mostly due to their engagement with marketing content. In my opinion, this engagement cannot be taken back. I would not bump a contact back to the lead lifecycle stage but this comes down to personal/team preference.

Another reason why I wouldn't do this is if your marketing team is measured by MQLs generated. If you move these contacts back to lead, it's as if they were never generated to begin with. It would look like marketing generated fewer contacts.

The Lead status property is meant to be used for sales qualified leads (see here). Nothing breaks if you use it outside of SQLs, so yes, using either Lead status or creating a custom property for this (e.g. Disqualification reason) would work.

Hope this helps!