The MQL target sales won't accept
Northwind Payroll, a mid-market HR and payroll platform with a $28,000 average contract value and a 94-day sales cycle, has six account executives. The CMO committed to the board to deliver 500 marketing-qualified leads per quarter from LinkedIn. Last quarter the team delivered 640 MQLs at a blended cost of $190 each, but the VP of Sales calls the list unusable: only 38 MQLs became SQLs, 9 closed, and AEs now work LinkedIn leads last. Finance has asked for a revised plan. The board wants 14 new logos next quarter, and sales capacity supports 22 SQLs. The current LinkedIn program runs one Lead Generation campaign with a broad job-function filter, a 30-day click window, and no CRM feedback loop. The CMO wants to know whether to defend the 500-MQL goal or change it.
1. Should Northwind keep the 500-MQL objective? Show the funnel math and recommend the objective the LinkedIn program should be optimized for.
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The 500-MQL goal is the wrong contract. Last quarter's funnel: 640 MQLs → 38 SQLs (5.9%) → 9 closed (1.4% MQL-to-close; 23.7% SQL-to-close). At those rates, 500 MQLs produce about 30 SQLs and 7 closes-half of the 14 logos the board wants. To get 14 closes at 1.4%, Northwind would need roughly 1,000 MQLs, doubling spend to about $190,000 a quarter, and sales only has capacity for 22 SQLs.
The objective should be qualified pipeline, not MQL volume. On LinkedIn that means using the Lead generation objective for content offers but adding qualifying questions and CRM scoring, and using Website conversions for demo requests. Report cost per SQL and pipeline created; keep MQLs as a leading indicator. If the platform is optimized for MQLs, it will keep buying low-friction form fills, which is exactly how the 5.9% SQL rate happened.
2. Design next quarter's campaign structure and budget allocation with a $120,000 budget. Include targeting, offers, and the weekly report.
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Budget: $120,000 for the quarter. Split 55% ($66,000) to a Website conversions campaign for demo requests, 35% ($42,000) to Lead generation for a benchmark report, and 10% ($12,000) to retargeting site visitors and video engagers.
Targeting: company size 200–2,000, job functions HR and Finance, seniority Director and above, exclude current customers and competitors; run HR and Finance as separate campaigns so messaging and forms differ.
Forms: company size, role, and timeline; remove phone. Ask 'Are you evaluating payroll or HR software in the next 6 months?' to qualify.
Weekly report: spend pacing, reach and frequency, CTR, form completion, cost per MQL, MQL-to-SQL rate, cost per SQL, SQL-to-opportunity, pipeline, and sales acceptance rate. Add a stop rule: pause any campaign above $1,500 cost per SQL after three weeks. The sales VP should agree to a 48-hour follow-up SLA so the feedback loop is not just a dashboard.
3. What does the missing CRM feedback loop cost Northwind, and what would you fix first?
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Without CRM feedback, LinkedIn optimizes to the only signal it has: form submissions. It cannot tell a student or wrong-title download from an HR director, so it keeps finding more cheap form fills. Northwind also cannot build CRM-based predictive or lookalike audiences, cannot import offline conversions, and cannot prove pipeline.
Fix in this order: (1) pass a unique lead ID and UTM or li_fat_id from the form into the CRM; (2) import SQL and closed-won stages back to LinkedIn as offline conversions; (3) change campaign optimization from leads to qualified conversions once enough volume exists; (4) add a lead score combining title, company size, and timeline. The first fix is the closed-loop handshake-without it, every other optimization is guesswork.