Glossary

The 80/20 Rule, also known as the Pareto Principle, asserts that 80% of outcomes result from 20% of all causes for any given event.

A/B testing is a method for comparing two versions of a webpage or app to determine which one performs better based on statistical analysis.

In a sales, an account refers to a customer or organization that purchases goods or services from a company.

An Account Executive is an employee responsible for maintaining ongoing business relationships with clients, primarily found in industries like advertising, public relations, and financial services.

Account management is the daily management of client accounts to ensure they continue to do business with a company, focusing on showing clients the value they can enjoy if they continue to use the company's products or services.

Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is a business marketing strategy that concentrates resources on a set of target accounts within a market, employing personalized campaigns designed to engage each account based on their specific attributes and needs.

Accounts payable (AP) refers to a company's short-term obligations owed to its creditors or suppliers for goods or services received but not yet paid for.

Ad-hoc reporting is a business intelligence process that involves creating reports on an as-needed basis to answer specific business questions.

After-sales service refers to the ongoing support and assistance a business provides to its customers after they have purchased a product or service.

Always Be Closing (ABC) is a motivational phrase and sales strategy that emphasizes the continuous pursuit of prospects, product pitching, and transaction completion.

Amortization is the process of spreading the cost of an intangible asset over its useful life or reducing the balance of a loan over time through regular payments.

Analytical CRM is a subset of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) that focuses on collecting and analyzing customer interaction data to increase customer satisfaction and retention rates.

Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) is a financial metric that represents the money a business expects to receive annually from subscriptions or contracts, normalized for a single calendar year.

An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is a software solution that helps companies organize and manage candidates for hiring and recruitment purposes.

Average Order Value (AOV) is a metric that tracks the average dollar amount spent each time a customer places an order on a website or mobile app.

The Average Selling Price (ASP) refers to the typical price at which a certain class of goods or services is sold.

B2B data, or business-to-business data, refers to any information that benefits B2B companies, particularly their sales, marketing, and revenue operations teams.

B2B demand generation is a marketing process aimed at building brand awareness and nurturing relationships with prospects throughout the buyer's journey.

B2B leads, or Business-to-Business leads, refer to the process of identifying potential buyers for a product or service and enticing them to make a purchase.

B2B Marketing Analytics is a Salesforce CRM Analytics app tailored for B2B marketers.

B2B marketing attribution is the process of monitoring and evaluating marketing touchpoints that contribute to converting a lead into a customer.

B2B Marketing KPIs are quantifiable metrics used by companies to measure the effectiveness of their marketing initiatives in attracting new business customers and enhancing existing client relationships.

B2B sales, or business-to-business sales, is the process of selling products or services from one business to another.

A B2B sales process is a scalable and repeatable set of steps designed to help sales teams convert prospects into customers.

The business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C) model is a partnership where businesses sell products to retailers while also gaining valuable data directly from the consumers who purchase those goods.

B2C2B, or Business-to-Consumer-to-Business, is a unique approach to the B2B business model where a company aims to sell products or services to another company by first attracting and selling to the employees of their target company.

A ballpark is a term used to describe an approximate figure or range that is close to the correct amount or number but not exact. It is often used in the context of rough calculations or estimates, providing a general idea without the need for detailed data.

Behavioral analytics is the process of utilizing artificial intelligence and big data analytics to analyze user behavioral data, identifying patterns, trends, anomalies, and insights that enable appropriate actions.

Below the Line (BTL) marketing refers to a set of promotional strategies that target specific audiences through non-mass media channels, such as direct mail, email, events, and social media.

A bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who leave a webpage without taking any action, such as clicking on a link, filling out a form, or making a purchase.

Branded keywords are search terms that include a brand name, product name, or variations thereof, directly associated with a specific company, product, or service.

A break-even point is a critical financial metric that represents the level at which a business's total costs and total revenues are equal, resulting in neither profit nor loss.

A Business Development Representative (BDR) is a professional responsible for generating new opportunities for a business by creating long-term value from customers, markets, and relationships.

Business-to-consumer (B2C) refers to the process of selling products and services directly between a business and consumers who are the end-users of its products or services.

A buyer, also known as a purchasing agent, is a professional responsible for acquiring products and services for companies, either for resale or operational use.

Buyer behavior refers to the decisions and actions people undertake when purchasing products or services for individual or group use.

Buyer intent is a measure of a customer's likelihood to purchase a product or service, based on their engagement patterns and behaviors that suggest readiness to buy.

Buyer Intent Data is information that reveals when buyers are actively researching online for solutions, including which products and services they are interested in, based on the web content they consume.

The buyer journey is the process customers go through to become aware of, consider, and decide to purchase a new product or service.

The buyer's journey is the process that potential customers go through before purchasing a product or service.

The buying cycle, also known as the sales cycle, is a process consumers go through before making a purchase.

Buying intent, also known as purchase intent or buyer intent, is the likelihood of customers purchasing a product or service within a specific timeframe.

The buying process refers to the series of steps a consumer goes through when deciding to purchase a product or service, including recognizing a need or problem, searching for information, evaluating alternatives, making a purchase decision, and reflecting on the purchase post-purchase.

CRM data refers to the information collected, stored, and analyzed by a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, encompassing every interaction a business has with its customers across various platforms and channels.

A CRM integration is the seamless connectivity between your customer relationship management (CRM) software and third-party applications, allowing data to flow effortlessly between systems.

A call disposition is a concise summary of a call's outcome, using specific tags or values to log the result.

The Challenger Sales Model is a sales approach that emphasizes teaching, tailoring, and taking control of sales experiences.

The Challenger Sales Model is a sales approach that focuses on teaching, tailoring, and taking control of a sales experience.

Channel marketing is a practice that involves partnering with other businesses or individuals to sell your product or service, creating mutually beneficial relationships that enable products to reach audiences that might otherwise be inaccessible.

A channel partner is a company that collaborates with a manufacturer or producer to market and sell their products, services, or technologies, often through a co-branding relationship.

Channel sales, also known as indirect sales, is a sales strategy where a parent company sells its products through another company, which could be a partner, distributor, or affiliate.

Churn, also known as the churn rate or rate of attrition, is the rate at which customers stop doing business with a company, typically expressed as a percentage of service subscribers who discontinue their subscriptions within a given time period.

Click-Through Rate (CTR) is a metric that measures how often people who see an ad or free product listing click on it, calculated by dividing the number of clicks an ad receives by the number of times the ad is shown (impressions), then multiplying the result by 100 to get a percentage.

A closed question is a type of question that asks respondents to choose from a distinct set of pre-defined responses, such as "yes/no" or multiple-choice options.

A Closed Won is a sales term used when a prospect has signed a contract or made a purchase, officially becoming a customer.

A cold call is the solicitation of a potential customer who has had no prior interaction with a salesperson.

A cold email is an unsolicited message sent to someone with whom the sender has no prior relationship, aiming to gain a benefit such as sales, opportunities, or other mutual advantages.

Cold emailing is the practice of sending unsolicited emails to potential leads or contacts with whom the sender has no prior relationship, aiming to gain a benefit such as sales, opportunities, or other mutual advantages.

Commission is a form of compensation paid to an employee for completing a specific task, typically selling a certain number of products or services.

A competitive advantage refers to factors that allow a company to produce goods or services better or more cheaply than its rivals, enabling it to generate more sales or superior margins compared to its market competitors.

A competitive analysis is a strategy that involves researching major competitors to gain insight into their products, sales, and marketing tactics.

Competitive Intelligence (CI)It helps companies understand their competitive environment, identify opportunities and challenges, and develop effective strategies to outperform rivals.

A competitive landscape refers to the array of options available to customers other than a company's product, including competitors' products and other types of customer solutions.

Consultative sales is a customer-centric approach where sales representatives act more like advisors than traditional salespeople, focusing on understanding the customer's needs and pain points before recommending tailored solutions.

Consultative selling is a sales approach that prioritizes relationship building and open dialogue to address a customer's needs.

A consumer is an individual or group who purchases or intends to purchase goods and services for personal, non-commercial use.

Consumer buying behavior refers to the actions taken by consumers before purchasing a product or service, both online and offline.

Contact data refers to the various pieces of information a business holds about its key contacts, such as employees, customers, and vendors.

Contact discovery is the process of finding and verifying the contact information of potential customers or clients, with the goal of gathering accurate and relevant details such as email addresses, phone numbers, social media profiles, and physical addresses.

Contract management involves overseeing legally-binding agreements from initiation through execution.

Conversational Intelligence is the utilization of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to analyze vast quantities of speech and text data from customer-agent interactions, extracting insights to inform business strategies and improve customer experiences.

Cost Per Click (CPC) is an online advertising revenue model where advertisers pay a fee each time their ad is clicked by a user.

Cost per impression (CPI) is a marketing metric that measures the expense an organization incurs each time its advertisement is displayed to a potential customer.

Cross-selling is a marketing strategy that involves selling related or complementary products to existing customers, aiming to generate more sales from the same customer base.

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is a business metric that measures the total cost an organization spends to acquire new customers, including sales and marketing expenses, property, and equipment.

Customer buying signals are behaviors or actions that indicate a prospect's active consideration of making a purchase.

Customer centricity is the ability of individuals within an organization to understand their customers' situations, perceptions, and expectations, placing the customer at the center of all decisions related to delivering products, services, and experiences.

Customer churn rate, also known as the rate of attrition, is the percentage of customers who stop doing business with an entity within a given time period.

Customer Data Management (CDM) is a strategic approach to handling customer data, including acquisition, storage, organization, and utilization.

A Customer Data Platform (CDP) is a software that collects and consolidates data from multiple sources, creating a centralized customer database containing information on all touchpoints and interactions with a product or service.

Customer Experience (CX) refers to the broad range of interactions that a customer has with a company, encompassing every touchpoint from initial contact through to the end of the relationship.

Customer journey mapping is the process of creating a visual representation of every interaction a customer has with a service, brand, or product, including touchpoints like social media, advertising, website interactions, and customer support.

The customer lifecycle describes the stages a consumer goes through with a brand, from initial awareness to post-purchase loyalty.

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is a metric that represents the total worth of a customer to a business over the entire duration of their relationship.

Customer loyalty is an ongoing positive relationship between a customer and a business, motivating repeat purchases and leading existing customers to choose a company over competitors offering similar benefits.

Customer Relationship Marketing (CRM) is a strategy that focuses on building long-term relationships with customers to increase customer lifetime value, engagement, loyalty, and alignment while reducing costs for a bigger return on investment.

Customer retention is the rate at which a business keeps its customers over a specific period, and it's a critical metric for assessing customer loyalty and overall business success.

Customer Retention Cost (CRC) is the cost of keeping an existing customer purchasing.

Customer retention rate is the percentage of customers a company retains over a given period of time, serving as a key metric for measuring how well a business maintains customer relationships and identifies areas for improvement in customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Customer Success is a proactive approach to anticipate and solve customer challenges, aiming to boost customer happiness and retention, which in turn increases revenue and customer loyalty.

The Dark Funnel represents the untraceable elements of the customer journey that occur outside traditional tracking tools, including word-of-mouth recommendations, private browsing, and engagement in closed social platforms.

Dark social refers to the sharing of content through private channels, such as messaging apps, email, and text messages, which are difficult to track by traditional analytics tools due to their private nature.

Data appending is the process of adding missing or updating existing data points in an organization's database by comparing it to a more comprehensive external data source.

Data enrichment is the process of enhancing first-party data collected from internal sources by integrating it with additional data from other internal systems or third-party external sources.

Data hygiene is the process of ensuring the cleanliness and accuracy of data in a database by checking records for errors, removing duplicates, updating outdated or incomplete information, and properly parsing record fields from different systems.

A Data Management Platform (DMP) is a software system that stores, organizes, and interprets customer segment and ad campaign data from various sources.

Data privacy refers to the protection of personal data from unauthorized access and the ability of individuals to control who can access their personal information.

Data-driven marketing is the approach of optimizing brand communications based on customer information, using customer data to predict their needs, desires, and future behaviors.

Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) is a financial metric that measures how quickly a company collects payment after a sale has been made.

A decision maker is an individual who is primarily responsible for making significant choices or judgments in various contexts, such as business, healthcare, and more.