Glossary
Sales and outreach terms, explained simply.
Short, clear definitions of the words you hear in B2B sales and LinkedIn outreach.
- A/B testing
- Sending two versions of a message to similar groups to see which one gets more replies.
- Acceptance rate
- The share of connection requests that are accepted. A signal of good targeting and a trusted profile.
- Account-based marketing (ABM)
- Focusing sales and marketing on a list of named companies instead of a broad audience.
- Bounce rate
- The share of emails that cannot be delivered. High bounce rates hurt your sender reputation.
- Buyer persona
- A profile of a typical buyer: role, goals, challenges and how they decide.
- Buying committee
- Everyone involved in a purchase decision inside a company.
- Buying signal
- An event that shows a company may need you now, such as hiring, funding or a new leader.
- Cold outreach
- Contacting people who do not know you yet, by LinkedIn message, email or phone.
- Connection request
- An invitation to connect on LinkedIn, optionally with a short note.
- CRM
- Customer Relationship Management software, such as HubSpot, Pipedrive or Salesforce, where leads and deals are tracked.
- Data enrichment
- Adding extra information to a lead, such as company size, role details or recent activity.
- Deliverability
- How reliably your emails reach the inbox instead of spam.
- DKIM
- An email authentication method that signs your messages so receivers can trust they came from you.
- DMARC
- A policy that tells email providers what to do with messages that fail SPF or DKIM checks.
- Follow-up
- Any message sent after the first one when there is no reply yet.
- Icebreaker
- A short, personal first line that shows the message was written for this person.
- Ideal customer profile (ICP)
- A description of the type of company that gets the most value from your offer.
- If/else condition
- A rule in a sequence that changes the next step based on what the lead did, such as accepting or clicking.
- InMail
- A paid LinkedIn message that can be sent to people outside your network. Some profiles accept free InMails.
- Lead
- A person who could become a client. A qualified lead fits your ICP and shows interest.
- Lead magnet
- Something useful offered for free, such as a guide or checklist, to start a conversation.
- Lookalike audience
- An ad audience built from people similar to an existing list of contacts.
- Multichannel outreach
- Reaching the same lead through more than one channel, usually LinkedIn and email.
- Open profile
- A LinkedIn Premium profile that accepts InMails from anyone for free.
- Personalization
- Adapting a message to the person, their company or their situation.
- Pipeline
- All active sales opportunities and the stages they are in.
- Positive reply rate
- The share of leads who reply with interest. The most important outreach metric.
- LinkedIn’s paid tool for searching and tracking leads and accounts with advanced filters.
- Sequence
- A planned series of outreach steps across LinkedIn and email, with timing and conditions.
- Building trust and relationships on social networks before and during the sales process.
- SPF
- An email record that lists which servers are allowed to send email for your domain.
- Spintax
- A way to write message variations, such as {Hi|Hello}, so each message is slightly different.
- Warm lead
- A lead who already knows you, for example through content, events or a referral.
- Warm-up
- Gradually increasing sending activity on a new inbox to build a good reputation.
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