Marketing terms, defined plainly.

No jargon without context. Every definition here comes from the work we do installing the Marketing OS for B2B founders.

Above the Fold

Above the fold refers to the portion of a web page visible without scrolling.

A/B Testing

A/B testing compares two versions of a page, ad, or email by splitting traffic between them and measuring which performs better.

Account-Based Marketing (ABM)

Account-based marketing is a strategy that targets a defined set of high-value accounts with personalized campaigns, treating each account as a market of one.

Account Expansion

Account expansion is growing revenue within an existing customer account over time, through additional services, users, or scope.

Activation Rate

Activation rate is the percentage of new users or customers who reach a defined point of initial value, sometimes called the activation milestone.

Agency Pitch

An agency pitch is the presentation in which an agency makes its case to win a client's business, typically covering their understanding of the problem, proposed approach, team, and pricing.

AI Search Optimization

AI search optimization is the practice of making a brand and its content discoverable and citable by AI-powered search tools such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, and AI Overviews.

Annual Contract Value (ACV)

Annual contract value is the average annualized revenue of a single customer contract, normalizing deals to a one-year figure regardless of contract length.

Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR)

Annual recurring revenue is the value of recurring subscription revenue normalized to one year.

Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)

Answer engine optimization is the practice of structuring content so that AI systems such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews cite it when answering questions.

Attribution Model

An attribution model is the rule that decides how credit for a sale is divided among the marketing touches that preceded it.

Attribution Window

An attribution window is the period after a marketing touch during which a resulting conversion is credited to that touch.

Average Deal Size

Average deal size is the typical revenue value of a closed deal, calculated by dividing total revenue from deals by the number of deals.

Backlink

A backlink is a link from another website to yours.

Battle Card

A battle card is a concise sales reference that summarizes how to position against a specific competitor or objection, including their strengths, weaknesses, and the talking points that win.

Blended CAC

Blended CAC is your total customer acquisition cost across every channel combined, including organic and referral, divided by all new customers.

Bottom of Funnel (BOFU)

Bottom of funnel is the decision stage where prospects are ready to buy and choosing between final options.

Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who land on a page and leave without taking further action or visiting another page.

Brand Awareness

Brand awareness is the extent to which your target market recognizes and recalls your brand.

Brand Equity

Brand equity is the commercial value your brand adds beyond the product itself, reflected in recognition, trust, preference, and pricing power.

Brand Identity

Brand identity is the collection of visual and verbal elements that express your brand, including logo, colors, typography, imagery, and voice.

Brand Mention Tracking

Brand mention tracking is the practice of monitoring where and how often your brand is referenced across the web, including unlinked mentions.

Brand Positioning

Brand positioning is the distinct place your brand occupies in the minds of buyers relative to competitors.

Brand Strategy

Brand strategy is the long-term plan for how your company is perceived, what it stands for, and why buyers should prefer it.

Budget Allocation

Budget allocation is the decision about how marketing spend is distributed across channels, activities, and time horizons.

Burn Rate

Burn rate is the speed at which a company spends cash beyond what it earns, usually measured monthly.

Business Case

A business case is the argument that an investment will return more than it costs, expressed in financial terms the decision-maker uses.

Buyer Enablement

Buyer enablement is the practice of giving buyers the information and tools they need to make a purchase decision confidently, especially the internal case they must build to get approval.

Buyer Intent

Buyer intent is how close a prospect is to making a purchase, inferred from their behavior and the signals they give.

Buyer Journey

The buyer journey is the path a prospect travels from first recognizing a problem to making a purchase decision, typically framed as awareness, consideration, and decision.

Buyer Persona

A buyer persona is a detailed profile of a specific individual involved in a purchase, covering their role, goals, pains, and how they make decisions.

Buying Committee

A buying committee is the group of people inside a company who collectively influence and approve a purchase, typically including an economic buyer, a user, and a technical or financial gatekeeper.

Buying Group

A buying group is the set of individuals within an account who collectively influence and decide a purchase.

CAC Payback Period

CAC payback period is the number of months it takes to earn back what you spent acquiring a customer.

Case Study

A case study is a documented account of a client's problem, what you did, and the measurable result.

Category Design

Category design is the strategy of defining a new market category rather than competing inside an existing one.

Champion

A champion is the person inside a prospect's company who wants your solution and advocates for it internally.

Channel Saturation

Channel saturation is the point where additional spend in a channel produces diminishing returns, because you have already reached most of the reachable audience.

Churn Rate

Churn rate is the percentage of customers or revenue lost over a period.

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Click-through rate is the percentage of people who click a link out of those who saw it.

Client Concentration

Client concentration is the share of revenue that comes from your largest clients.

Closed-Loop Reporting

Closed-loop reporting connects marketing activity through to closed revenue by linking marketing systems with the CRM, so you can see which campaigns produced actual customers.

Cohort Analysis

Cohort analysis groups customers by a shared starting point, usually the month they were acquired, and tracks how each group behaves over time.

Cold Email

Cold email is outbound email sent to a target buyer with no prior relationship, to open a conversation.

Co-Marketing

Co-marketing is a partnership where two companies with complementary audiences collaborate on marketing, such as a joint webinar, report, or content, sharing effort and reach.

Community-Led Growth

Community-led growth is a strategy where an engaged community of users or peers drives acquisition, retention, and advocacy.

Competitive Intelligence

Competitive intelligence is the ongoing practice of understanding competitors' positioning, pricing, strengths, and weaknesses to inform your own strategy and sales.

Competitive Moat

A competitive moat is a durable advantage that makes it hard for competitors to take your customers, such as switching costs, proprietary data, brand trust, or deep specialization.

Competitor Analysis

Competitor analysis is the structured study of your competitors' offerings, positioning, pricing, and strategy to inform your own decisions.

Compounding Channel

A compounding channel is one whose results accumulate over time and continue producing after the initial investment, such as organic search, content, community, or brand.

Consideration Stage

The consideration stage is the point in the buyer journey where a prospect has defined their problem and is actively evaluating approaches and providers.

Content Cluster

A content cluster is a group of related pages covering one topic comprehensively, organized around a central pillar page with supporting pages linked to it.

Content Distribution

Content distribution is the deliberate work of getting content in front of the right audience, as opposed to simply publishing it and hoping.

Content Repurposing

Content repurposing is adapting a single piece of content into multiple formats and channels, such as turning a guide into social posts, a video, and an email series.

Contribution Margin

Contribution margin is the revenue left from a sale after subtracting all variable costs tied to that sale.

Conversion Rate

Conversion rate is the percentage of people who take a desired action out of the total who had the opportunity.

Conversion Tracking

Conversion tracking is the technical setup that records when a visitor completes a desired action, such as submitting a form or booking a call, and ties it back to its source.

Cost of Inaction

The cost of inaction is what a buyer loses by continuing to do nothing about a problem.

Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)

Cost per acquisition is the cost to generate one defined conversion, such as a lead, signup, or sale.

Cost Per Lead (CPL)

Cost per lead is the average amount you spend to generate one lead.

Cross-Sell

A cross-sell is selling an existing customer an additional, complementary product or service alongside what they already buy.

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

Customer Acquisition Cost is the total sales and marketing spend required to win one new customer.

Customer Advocacy

Customer advocacy is the practice of turning satisfied customers into active promoters who refer, review, and vouch for you.

Customer Community

A customer community is a space where your customers connect with each other and with you, sharing problems, solutions, and experience.

Customer Health Score

A customer health score is a composite measure of how likely a customer is to renew, churn, or expand, based on signals like usage, engagement, and outcomes.

Customer Interview

A customer interview is a structured conversation with a current or prospective customer to understand their problems, decision process, and language.

Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)

Customer lifetime value is the total gross profit a customer generates across their entire relationship with you.

Customer Onboarding

Customer onboarding is the process of getting a new customer set up and to their first meaningful result.

Customer Reference

A customer reference is an existing customer willing to speak directly with a prospect about their experience.

Customer Retention

Customer retention is the practice and result of keeping existing customers over time.

Customer Segmentation

Customer segmentation is dividing your market or customer base into distinct groups with shared characteristics or needs, so you can target and serve each more precisely.

Customer Success

Customer success is the function and practice of proactively ensuring customers achieve their desired outcomes with your product or service.

Customer Testimonial

A customer testimonial is a statement from a satisfied customer endorsing your product or service.

Dark Social

Dark social refers to the influence and sharing that happens in private channels you cannot track, such as direct messages, group chats, private communities, and word of mouth.

Data Hygiene

Data hygiene is the practice of keeping marketing and CRM data accurate, complete, consistent, and free of duplicates.

Deal Desk

A deal desk is a defined process or function for reviewing and approving non-standard deals, particularly around pricing, terms, and discounts.

Deal Slippage

Deal slippage is when deals expected to close in one period push into the next, repeatedly.

Decision Stage

The decision stage is the final phase of the buyer journey, where a prospect has chosen an approach and is selecting a specific provider and finalizing terms.

Demand Capture

Demand capture is marketing that converts buyers who are already looking for a solution, such as search ads or high-intent content.

Demand Creation

Demand creation is marketing that makes buyers aware of a problem before they begin searching for a solution.

Demand Generation

Demand generation is the set of marketing activities that create awareness and interest in your product across your target market, building a future pipeline.

Differentiation

Differentiation is what makes you a meaningfully different choice, not just a better-sounding one.

Digital PR

Digital PR is the practice of earning coverage and mentions across credible publications and platforms, rather than acquiring links through outreach for their own sake.

Discounting

Discounting is reducing price to win or retain a deal.

Discovery Call

A discovery call is the first substantive sales conversation, used to understand the prospect's situation, problem, and decision process before proposing anything.

Domain Rating

Domain rating is a third-party score estimating the strength of a website's backlink profile, used as a proxy for its authority.

Economic Buyer

The economic buyer is the person with the authority to release the budget and give final approval on a purchase.

Editorial Calendar

An editorial calendar is a planned schedule of what content will be published, when, and on which channels.

Email Nurture

Email nurture is a sequence of emails that builds a relationship with a prospect over time, providing value and staying present until they are ready to buy.

Event Marketing

Event marketing uses in-person or virtual events, hosted or attended, to build relationships, generate demand, and raise brand visibility.

Evergreen Content

Evergreen content is content that stays relevant and valuable long after publication, continuing to attract traffic and leads over time.

Expansion MRR

Expansion MRR is the additional monthly recurring revenue earned from existing customers through upgrades, cross-sells, or increased usage, excluding new customers.

Expansion Revenue

Expansion revenue is additional revenue earned from existing customers through upsells, cross-sells, or increased usage.

First Marketing Hire

The first marketing hire is the initial dedicated marketing employee in a founder-led business.

First-Party Data

First-party data is information you collect directly from your audience and customers, such as website behavior, email engagement, and purchase history.

First-Touch Attribution

First-touch attribution gives full credit for a sale to the first marketing interaction a buyer had with you.

Founder Brand

A founder brand is the personal reputation and visibility a founder builds in their market, which lends credibility and reach to the company.

Founder-Led Sales

Founder-led sales is when the founder personally closes most or all new business.

Fractional CMO

A fractional CMO is a senior marketing leader who works part-time across one or several companies, providing strategy and direction without a full-time executive salary.

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)

Generative engine optimization is the practice of increasing a brand's visibility inside AI-generated responses.

Go-To-Market Motion

A go-to-market motion is the primary repeatable way a company acquires customers, such as sales-led, product-led, or partner-led.

Go-To-Market Strategy

A go-to-market strategy is the plan for how a company reaches its target customers and delivers its product to win them.

Gross Margin

Gross margin is the percentage of revenue left after subtracting the direct costs of delivering your product or service.

Gross Revenue Retention (GRR)

Gross revenue retention measures the percentage of recurring revenue retained from existing customers, excluding any expansion.

Growth Audit

A growth audit is a review of the entire path from demand generation through to closed revenue, identifying where the growth system leaks.

Growth Ceiling

A growth ceiling is the point where a business stops growing despite continued effort, because the system that produced past growth cannot produce more.

Growth Engine

A growth engine is the connected system of positioning, demand, conversion, and sales that reliably turns investment into new customers.

Growth Strategy

A growth strategy is the plan for how a business will increase revenue and customers over time, identifying the primary levers, market, product, pricing, or channel, that will drive expansion.

Growth Team

A growth team is a cross-functional group responsible for driving measurable growth across the full funnel, often combining marketing, product, and data skills.

Holdout Test

A holdout test deliberately withholds marketing from a portion of your audience or market to compare outcomes against the exposed group.

Horizontal Marketing

Horizontal marketing targets a broad market across many industries with a general offering, rather than specializing in one niche.

Ideal Customer Profile Fit

Ideal customer profile fit is how closely a prospect matches the characteristics of the customers you serve best and most profitably.

Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)

An ideal customer profile is a detailed description of the type of company or buyer that gets the most value from your product and is most profitable to serve.

Impression Share

Impression share is the percentage of available impressions your ads received out of the total they were eligible for.

Incrementality Testing

Incrementality testing measures the additional conversions a marketing activity actually caused, as opposed to conversions that would have happened anyway.

In-House vs Agency

The in-house versus agency decision is the choice between hiring marketing employees or engaging an external partner.

Intent-Based Marketing

Intent-based marketing targets prospects based on signals that they are actively researching or ready to buy, rather than on demographics alone.

Internal Linking

Internal linking is the practice of linking between pages on your own site.

Jobs to Be Done (JTBD)

Jobs to be done is a framework that defines products by the progress a customer is trying to make, the job they hire the product to do, rather than by customer demographics.

Land and Expand

Land and expand is a strategy of winning a customer with a small initial engagement, then growing the account over time through additional services or scope.

Landing Page Optimization

Landing page optimization is the practice of improving a page's ability to convert visitors into leads or customers.

Last-Touch Attribution

Last-touch attribution gives full credit for a sale to the final marketing interaction before conversion.

Lead Magnet

A lead magnet is a valuable resource offered in exchange for a prospect's contact details, such as a tool, template, guide, or assessment.

Lead Routing

Lead routing is the process of directing incoming leads to the right person or team automatically, based on rules such as territory, size, or product interest.

Lead Scoring

Lead scoring is a system that ranks leads by how likely they are to become customers, based on fit and behavior.

Lead Velocity Rate (LVR)

Lead velocity rate is the month-over-month percentage growth in your number of qualified leads.

Lifecycle Marketing

Lifecycle marketing is the practice of tailoring marketing to each stage of the customer relationship, from awareness through onboarding, growth, and renewal.

LinkedIn Marketing

LinkedIn marketing is the use of LinkedIn for B2B awareness, demand, and relationship-building through content, engagement, and targeted outreach.

llms.txt

llms.

LLM Visibility

LLM visibility is how often and how prominently a brand appears in responses generated by large language models.

Logo Churn

Logo churn is the rate at which you lose customers by count, regardless of their revenue value.

LTV: CAC Ratio

The LTV: CAC ratio compares the lifetime value of a customer to what it cost to acquire them.

Magic Number

The SaaS magic number measures sales and marketing efficiency by comparing new recurring revenue to the spend that generated it.

Marketing Attribution

Marketing attribution is the practice of assigning credit for a sale to the marketing touches that influenced it.

Marketing Attribution Gap

The marketing attribution gap is the difference between the revenue marketing actually influences and the revenue analytics can prove it influenced.

Marketing Audit

A marketing audit is a structured review of a business's marketing to assess what is working, what is not, and where the opportunities sit.

Marketing Budget

A marketing budget is the money a company allocates to marketing over a period.

Marketing Dashboard

A marketing dashboard is a consolidated view of the metrics that show how marketing is performing, ideally focused on a small number of decision-relevant numbers.

Marketing Funnel

A marketing funnel is a model of the stages a prospect moves through from first awareness to becoming a customer, typically awareness, interest, consideration, and decision.

Marketing Funnel Stages

Marketing funnel stages are the defined steps a prospect moves through from first awareness to purchase, commonly grouped as top, middle, and bottom of funnel.

Marketing Maturity

Marketing maturity describes how developed a business's marketing capability is, from ad hoc activity through to a measured, repeatable system.

Marketing Operations

Marketing operations is the function that manages the systems, data, processes, and reporting behind marketing, so that campaigns run reliably and results are measurable.

Marketing Plan

A marketing plan is a document that sets out marketing goals, target audience, strategy, channels, budget, and how success will be measured over a period.

Marketing Qualified Account (MQA)

A marketing qualified account is an account showing enough collective buying signal across its people to be worth sales attention, the account-level equivalent of a marketing qualified lead.

Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL)

A marketing qualified lead is a contact that marketing judges is more likely to become a customer based on their behavior or profile, such as downloading content or matching your target profile.

Marketing Qualified Pipeline Velocity

Pipeline velocity measures how quickly opportunities move through the pipeline and generate revenue, combining the number of opportunities, win rate, deal size, and sales cycle length.

Marketing ROI

Marketing ROI measures the profit generated by marketing relative to its cost.

Marketing Sourced Pipeline

Marketing sourced pipeline is the total value of open opportunities that originated from marketing-generated leads.

Marketing-Sourced Revenue

Marketing-sourced revenue is the portion of closed revenue that originated from a marketing-generated lead or opportunity.

Marketing Strategy

A marketing strategy is the overarching approach that defines how marketing will achieve business goals: which markets to target, how to position, and where to focus resources for advantage.

Marketing Team Structure

Marketing team structure is how marketing responsibilities are organized across people, whether by function, channel, or outcome.

Market Segmentation

Market segmentation is dividing a broad market into distinct groups of buyers with shared needs or characteristics, so you can choose which to target and how to serve them.

Media Mix Modeling (MMM)

Media mix modeling uses statistical analysis of aggregate spend and outcomes over time to estimate each channel's contribution to results.

Message-Market Fit

Message-market fit is the point where your messaging resonates so clearly with your target market that prospects immediately recognize the problem you solve as their own.

Messaging Framework

A messaging framework is the documented set of core claims, proof points, and language your company uses consistently across every channel and every person who sells.

Middle of Funnel (MOFU)

Middle of funnel is the consideration stage where prospects are aware of their problem and evaluating solutions.

Minimum Viable Audience

A minimum viable audience is the smallest group of people you can serve well enough that they sustain the business and spread the word.

Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)

Monthly recurring revenue is the predictable subscription revenue a business earns each month.

Multi-Touch Attribution

Multi-touch attribution distributes credit for a sale across several marketing interactions rather than assigning it all to one.

Negative Keywords

Negative keywords are terms you exclude so your ads do not appear for irrelevant searches.

Net Dollar Retention (NDR)

Net dollar retention measures the revenue retained and grown from existing customers over a period, including expansion and net of churn and contraction.

Net New Revenue

Net new revenue is the actual revenue growth in a period after accounting for losses: new plus expansion revenue, minus churned and contracted revenue.

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Net Promoter Score measures customer loyalty by asking how likely customers are to recommend you on a 0 to 10 scale.

Net Revenue Retention (NRR)

Net revenue retention measures how much recurring revenue you keep and grow from existing customers over a period, including expansion, minus churn and contraction.

Niche Marketing

Niche marketing is focusing your marketing on a narrow, well-defined segment of the market rather than a broad audience.

North Star Metric

A north star metric is the single measure that best captures the core value your product delivers to customers, used to align the whole company around one priority.

Objection Handling

Objection handling is the practice of anticipating and answering the concerns that prevent a buyer from committing, such as price, timing, risk, or internal resistance.

Organic Social

Organic social is unpaid social media activity: content, engagement, and community-building that reaches an audience without advertising spend.

Organic Traffic

Organic traffic is the visitors who reach your website through unpaid search results rather than ads.

Outbound Prospecting

Outbound prospecting is proactively reaching target buyers who have not expressed interest, through email, calls, or social outreach.

Owned Media

Owned media is the audience and channels you control directly, such as your email list, website, and community, as opposed to rented audiences on platforms you do not control.

Partnership Marketing

Partnership marketing is growing through relationships with other businesses that reach or serve your target market, including referral partners, resellers, and co-marketing.

Payback Period

Payback period is the time it takes to recover an investment from the returns it generates.

Performance-Based Pricing

Performance-based pricing ties a vendor's fee to agreed results, such as qualified leads or revenue generated, rather than to time or deliverables.

Personal Branding

Personal branding is the deliberate practice of building an individual's public reputation and visibility around their expertise and point of view.

Pillar Content

Pillar content is a comprehensive, authoritative piece covering a core topic broadly, serving as the central hub of a content cluster.

Pipeline Coverage

Pipeline coverage is the ratio of the total open pipeline value to your sales target for a period.

Pipeline Generation

Pipeline generation is the ongoing work of creating new qualified opportunities, through outbound, inbound, and partnerships.

Positioning

Positioning is the decision about which market you compete in, who you serve, and why you are the better choice for them.

Predictable Pipeline

A predictable pipeline is one where new opportunities arrive at a consistent, forecastable rate rather than sporadically.

Pricing Strategy

Pricing strategy is the deliberate approach to setting and structuring prices to support your positioning, margin, and growth goals.

Product-Led Growth (PLG)

Product-led growth is a go-to-market motion where the product itself drives acquisition, conversion, and expansion, usually through a free trial or freemium plan.

Product Qualified Lead (PQL)

A product qualified lead is a user who has experienced real value from your product, usually through a free trial or freemium plan, and shows behavior that signals readiness to buy.

Proof of Concept (POC)

A proof of concept is a limited, time-boxed engagement that demonstrates your solution works for the buyer's specific situation before they fully commit.

Proposal Writing

Proposal writing is the craft of creating the document that presents your recommended solution, scope, and price to a prospect.

Quality Score

Quality Score is a Google Ads diagnostic estimating the relevance and quality of your keywords, ads, and landing pages, reported on a 1 to 10 scale.

Quarterly Business Review (QBR)

A quarterly business review is a regular meeting with a customer to review results delivered, align on goals, and plan ahead.

Referral Ceiling

The referral ceiling is the growth limit a business hits when word of mouth can no longer produce enough new customers to hit its targets.

Referral Program

A referral program is a structured system that encourages and rewards existing customers or partners for referring new business.

Renewal Rate

Renewal rate is the percentage of customers who renew their contract when it comes up for renewal.

Repeatable Acquisition

Repeatable acquisition is a customer acquisition process that produces consistent results when repeated, with known costs and conversion rates.

Request for Proposal (RFP)

A request for proposal is a document a business issues to invite vendors to propose solutions and pricing for a defined need.

Retainer

A retainer is a recurring fee paid to an agency or consultant for ongoing work, typically monthly.

Retargeting

Retargeting is advertising to people who have already interacted with you, such as website visitors, to bring them back.

Retention Marketing

Retention marketing is marketing directed at existing customers to keep them engaged, satisfied, and buying, rather than acquiring new ones.

Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)

Return on ad spend is the revenue generated for every dollar spent on advertising.

Revenue Attribution

Revenue attribution connects closed revenue back to the marketing activity that influenced it, rather than stopping at leads or conversions.

Revenue Operations (RevOps)

Revenue operations is the practice of aligning marketing, sales, and customer success around shared data, processes, and goals across the full revenue lifecycle.

Revenue Target

A revenue target is the amount of revenue a business commits to producing in a period.

Rule of 40

The Rule of 40 is a benchmark for subscription businesses stating that the revenue growth rate plus profit margin should equal or exceed 40%.

SaaS Quick Ratio

The SaaS quick ratio measures growth efficiency by comparing revenue gained (new plus expansion) to revenue lost (churn plus contraction) in a period.

Sales Accepted Lead (SAL)

A sales accepted lead is a lead that sales has formally agreed to accept and work, sitting between a marketing qualified lead and a sales qualified opportunity.

Sales and Marketing Alignment

Sales and marketing alignment is the degree to which both functions share definitions, goals, and data about the revenue process.

Sales Collateral

Sales collateral is the set of materials that support the sales process, including one-pagers, case studies, proposals, decks, and comparison sheets.

Sales Cycle Length

Sales cycle length is the average time from first contact with a prospect to a closed deal.

Sales Cycle Stages

Sales cycle stages are the defined steps a deal passes through from first contact to close, such as discovery, qualification, proposal, and negotiation.

Sales Enablement

Sales enablement is equipping the people who sell with the content, tools, and training they need to convert opportunities.

Sales Forecast

A sales forecast is a prediction of the revenue expected to close in a future period, based on current pipeline weighted by stage and probability.

Sales Funnel

A sales funnel is the path a qualified prospect follows from opportunity to closed deal, including stages like discovery, proposal, and negotiation.

Sales-Led Growth (SLG)

Sales-led growth is a go-to-market motion where a sales team drives acquisition through direct selling, most suited to considered, higher-value purchases.

Sales Pipeline

A sales pipeline is the organized view of all open opportunities and the stages they occupy on the way to closing.

Sales Process

A sales process is the defined, repeatable sequence of stages a deal moves through from first conversation to close, with clear criteria for advancing at each stage.

Sales Qualified Lead (SQL)

A sales-qualified lead is a prospect that sales has reviewed and accepted as a genuine opportunity worth pursuing.

Sales Qualified Opportunity (SQO)

A sales qualified opportunity is a vetted deal that sales has confirmed as a genuine, active opportunity worth forecasting, one step beyond a sales qualified lead.

Sales Velocity

Sales velocity measures how quickly revenue moves through your pipeline.

Schema Markup

Schema markup is structured data added to a web page that describes its content in a machine-readable format, using a shared vocabulary.

Scope Creep

Scope creep is the gradual expansion of work beyond what was originally agreed, without a corresponding change in fee or timeline.

Search Intent

Search intent is the underlying goal behind a search query, what the person actually wants: information, a specific site, a comparison, or to make a purchase.

Search Terms Report

A search terms report shows the actual queries people typed before seeing or clicking your ads, as distinct from the keywords you targeted.

Self-Reported Attribution

Self-reported attribution is asking buyers directly how they heard about you, usually at the point of inquiry or purchase.

SEO Audit

An SEO audit is a systematic review of a website's ability to rank in search, covering technical health, content, and authority signals.

Server-Side Tracking

Server-side tracking sends analytics and conversion data from your own server rather than from the visitor's browser.

Share of Voice (SOV)

Share of voice is your brand's portion of the total market conversation or advertising presence in your category, relative to competitors.

Social Proof

Social proof is evidence that others have chosen you and benefited, such as case studies, testimonials, client logos, and results.

Speed to Lead

Speed to lead is how quickly you respond to a new inbound lead.

Statement of Work (SOW)

A statement of work is a document defining the specific work a vendor will deliver, including scope, deliverables, timelines, and responsibilities.

Statistical Significance

Statistical significance indicates that a difference observed in a test is unlikely to be the result of random chance.

Test and Learn

Test and learn is an approach to marketing that treats activity as a series of deliberate experiments, each designed to produce a usable insight regardless of outcome.

Thought Leadership

Thought leadership is publishing a distinctive, credible point of view that shapes how your market thinks about a problem.

Time to Value (TTV)

Time to value is how long it takes a new customer to reach their first meaningful result after buying.

Tone of Voice

Tone of voice is the consistent style and personality of how a brand communicates in writing and speech.

Topical Authority

Topical authority is the depth and credibility a site demonstrates across a subject area, built by covering a topic comprehensively rather than superficially.

Top of Funnel (TOFU)

Top of funnel refers to the earliest stage of the buyer journey, focused on creating awareness among people who may not yet know they have a problem or that you exist.

Total Addressable Market (TAM)

The total addressable market is the total revenue opportunity available if you captured 100% of the demand for your product.

Total Contract Value (TCV)

Total contract value is the complete revenue a contract represents over its entire term, including recurring and one-time fees.

T-Shaped Marketer

A T-shaped marketer has broad working knowledge across many marketing disciplines, represented by the horizontal bar, plus deep expertise in one or two, represented by the vertical stem.

Unit Economics

Unit economics are the direct revenues and costs associated with a single unit of your business, usually one customer.

Upsell

An upsell is selling an existing customer a higher-value version of what they already buy, such as a larger scope, higher tier, or expanded service.

User-Generated Content (UGC)

User-generated content is content created by customers or users rather than the brand, including reviews, posts, testimonials, and shared results.

UTM Parameters

UTM parameters are tags added to a URL that tell your analytics where a visitor came from, identifying the source, medium, and campaign.

Value-Based Pricing

Value-based pricing sets prices according to the value a customer receives rather than the cost to deliver or what competitors charge.

Value Proposition

A value proposition is a clear statement of the specific outcome you deliver, for whom, and why it is better than the alternatives.

Vanity Metric

A vanity metric is a number that looks impressive but does not inform a decision or connect to revenue, such as impressions, followers, or raw lead volume.

Vertical Marketing

Vertical marketing focuses on serving a specific industry or niche deeply, tailoring positioning, messaging, and offering to that segment.

Visual Identity

Visual identity is the visual portion of a brand: logo, color palette, typography, imagery, and layout systems.

Voice of Customer (VoC)

Voice of customer is the practice of systematically capturing what customers say about their needs, problems, and experience, in their own words.

Webinar Marketing

Webinar marketing uses live or recorded online presentations to attract, educate, and convert prospects.

Win/Loss Analysis

Win/loss analysis is the practice of systematically reviewing why deals were won or lost, usually through structured post-decision conversations with buyers.

Win Rate

Win rate is the percentage of opportunities that result in closed deals.

Word of Mouth

Word of mouth is when customers recommend you to others without being paid or prompted.