How In-House Sales & Marketing Teams Improve Lead Quality in 2026

For many in-house sales and marketing teams, lead quality remains one of the most persistent frustrations.

Despite increased investment in digital activity, teams still experience inconsistent enquiries, leads that are difficult to qualify, and fewer sales than expected from digital activity.

What we often see is that teams are active across multiple channels, but don’t always have a clear, shared view of what’s driving qualified leads and sales (or where gaps and opportunities exist across the journey).

This article explores how in-house teams can improve lead quality by focusing on the system behind their leads, and analysing the end-to-end journey of how leads are generated, qualified and converted.

What We Mean by “Lead Quality”

Lead quality is often misunderstood.

It’s not the number of enquiries generated, the cost per lead, or reporting on clicks and impressions. A high-quality lead is one that:

Has a verified phone number and/or email address (so sales can actually make contact)
Displays genuine interest or intent to buy
Has enough context to support a meaningful sales conversation

If enquiries aren’t progressing into sales conversations, it’s a signal that something earlier in the journey needs attention, regardless of how campaigns appear to be performing.

What Happens When Lead Quality Drops

When lead quality drops, the instinct is often to look at individual channels.

Is paid search underperforming? Is social attracting the wrong audience? Is SEO driving low-intent traffic?

However, lead quality is shaped by the entire digital journey, not any single touchpoint. It’s influenced by how demand is created, how enquiries are captured, how information is passed to sales, and how follow-up happens in reality.

Where Lead Quality Can Be Lost

Across many organisations, a few consistent patterns tend to appear:

Sales and marketing insight isn’t shared consistently

Marketing and sales teams don’t always have a consistent way of sharing insight about what happens once enquiries are passed across. Sales teams have valuable insight into lead quality, while marketing teams hold data on channels and messaging. However, that information doesn’t always flow both ways. In some cases, this causes a misalignment in what a qualified lead actually looks like.

Enquiry forms don’t support qualification

Many enquiry forms are long, inconsistent across different webpages, or collect information that doesn’t clearly support lead qualification. This makes it harder for sales teams to assess and prioritise enquiries.

Enquiries generated through forms should provide sales teams enough context to understand the nature of the enquiry, and, most importantly, be contactable. In some cases, asking a simple qualifying question (such as timeframe or intent) can significantly improve how leads are handled and progressed.

Friction between enquiry and follow-up

Even when interest exists, lead quality can deteriorate if there’s friction after the enquiry. Confusing next steps, unclear messaging, or poor handover can weaken intent quickly — particularly for considered purchases where decision-making takes time.

How to Improve Lead Quality in 2026

Rather than looking for isolated fixes within the journey, teams can improve lead quality by focusing on some underlying principles:

Creating regular, structured conversations between sales and marketing about which leads convert, which don’t, and why.
Ensuring enquiries capture information that supports real sales conversations, not just reporting metrics. And they work to reduce friction between intent, enquiry, and follow-up.
Treating lead generation and conversion as one connected journey, rather than separate activities owned by different teams.

When the journey is clearer from enquiry through to follow-up, there are higher conversions from more of existing enquiries into qualified sales opportunities and revenue.

Why Shared Understanding Across Teams Matters in 2026

Many teams already have a solid understanding of these ideas and work closely with agencies and partners to deliver them.

Where teams see the biggest gains is when they also build internal capability. This is where structured training and workshops can make a meaningful difference. Bringing sales and marketing teams together with an external expert helps expand internal knowledge, improve how teams work with agencies, and get more value from reporting and insights.

This is exactly the type of challenge MAR-CO works with teams to address, helping marketing and sales teams build shared understanding, evaluate lead performance more effectively, and improve outcomes together. Through collaborative, capability-focused workshops, teams leave with practical changes they can apply immediately.

Final Thoughts

In 2026, improving lead quality is about strengthening how teams operate, align, and make decisions across the journey.

Teams that continuously improve internal capability don’t just improve lead quality; they create more consistent sales outcomes and long-term growth.

How In-House Sales & Marketing Teams Can Improve Lead Quality in 2026.