Marketing terms, defined plainly.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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 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 Success

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

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.

Economic Buyer

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

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.

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 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.

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.

In-House vs Agency

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

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.

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 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.

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 Budget

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

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 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 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.

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.

Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)

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

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.

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 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.

Payback Period

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)

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

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 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.

Scope Creep

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

Self-Reported Attribution

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.