Product-Qualified Lead (PQL)

What It Is

A PQL is a free/trial user whose in-product behavior signals readiness to buy — the PLG replacement for the marketing-qualified lead. Where an MQL is inferred from form-fills and content downloads, a PQL is grounded in observed usage: the user has experienced value and is bumping against the boundaries of the free experience.

Common PQL Signals

  • Usage thresholds — recording/storage/seat counts approaching free-tier caps
  • Collaboration intent — inviting teammates, sharing assets (a shared Loom = team intent)
  • Feature ceilings — repeatedly hitting gated features
  • Activation completed — the user has reached the "aha moment" and kept using the product

Conversion is then triggered in-product (upgrade prompt with ROI framing) at the moment the signal fires — not via a generic email blast.

How It Applies to Marketing Factory

PQL scoring is a high-value, automatable agent workflow: instrument the product events, score users against fit + usage, and trigger the right in-app or lifecycle nudge when the threshold trips. It connects PLG telemetry to the ideal-customer-profile filter (fit) and is the PLG-side equivalent of outbound lead tiering — so the factory spends "sales" effort only on users already showing intent.

Referenced from: app-marketing-factory-research