Whether you're new to Product-Led Growth or have been working on it for some time, you're likely familiar with Product Qualified Leads (PQLs). But before we dive into how to identify your PQLs in Breyta, let's make sure we're on the same page about some common terms.

Product-Led Growth (PLG) is a growth model where your product drives user acquisition, activation, and retention. Prospective buyers can explore your product on their own through a free trial, freemium plan, or demo model, without having to go through a sales rep.

Product Qualified Leads (PQLs) are people who have signed up for your product and demonstrated strong interest by taking actions that show they've experienced meaningful value. They get what your product can do for them.

Product Qualified Accounts (PQAs) are a collection of users bound together in a company, with qualification criteria similar to PQLs, but applied across an entire company.

PQL Scores combine customer fit, product engagement, and buying intent to rank potential customers. They're valuable for identifying ideal customers who are actively engaged with your freemium or lower-tiered plan and have shown intent to buy or subscribe to your product. This helps maximize the efficiency of your Sales and Growth teams by minimizing time spent on people who aren't a good fit for your product or don't see its value.

To start, you’ll need to identify the unique attributes and characteristics that make up your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). While a diverse group of users might sign-up and find success in your tool, you’ll want your team to focus their efforts on converting users who are a good customer fit. This ensures higher conversation rates, more profitable contracts, and a lower risk of churn, resulting in happier customers overall.

One way to gather the data you need to define your ICP is to use data enrichment tools like Clearbit. These tools provide automated firmographic and demographic data on people and companies by using email addresses to pull information from public sources. Additionally, you might ask questions in your signup flow that provide additional insights about new users and companies, helping you gain a better understanding of who they are and what they're looking to achieve with your product.

When defining your customer fit, consider factors like:

Next, to determine the actions you want to track to measure engagement, consider what activities indicate that a user has realized the value your product offers, such as completing in-app onboarding steps or interacting with key features in your tool. What event or set of events show signs that your user has reached the ‘aha moment’?

These activities might be:

Key engagement metrics are tricky to nail down, and require testing target or key actions to identify what common behaviors users who covert share. We recommend starting with a few key engagement events to make iteration and analysis easier.

Tracking key buying intent metrics, such as visiting your pricing page or viewing a landing page where you compare your product to a competitor, can enrich your PQL score by surfacing leads who are ready for conversion outreach.

Actions that might signify intent to convert from a freemium plan to a paid user:

Breyta offers a powerful solution for optimizing your customer acquisition strategy. By seamlessly integrating data and events across your existing tools, Breyta enables you to generate customized metrics for customer fit, product engagement, and buying intent. With these metrics, you can easily identify which leads are most likely to convert, and focus your outreach efforts accordingly.

By prioritizing the most promising leads, you can maximize the efficiency of your Sales and Growth teams, while also providing prospective buyers with a seamless and engaging user experience. This not only helps to streamline your sales funnel, but also ensures that your freemium plan users are converted into loyal, long-term customers. It's a win-win for both your team and your customers.