↳ Glossary
B2B sales and buying-signal glossary
Short, plain definitions of the terms used in B2B outbound, buying signals and AI sales tools, with links to the deeper guides.
- Account executive (AE)
- An account executive is the salesperson who runs qualified opportunities through demos, negotiation and closing.
- Account-based marketing (ABM)
- Account-based marketing is a strategy where sales and marketing focus on a defined list of target accounts and tailor outreach and content to each one.
- AI GTM
- AI GTM (AI go-to-market) means using AI agents to run parts of the go-to-market motion end to end: finding accounts, reading signals, reaching out, handling replies and learning from outcomes.
- AI GTM explained →
- AI SDR
- An AI SDR is software that automates parts of a sales development rep's work, mainly finding prospects and writing and sending first outreach messages.
- Tools differ a lot in whether a human approves each message, which channels they use and how they pick who to contact.
- AI SDR tools compared →
- BDR (business development representative)
- A BDR does the same pipeline-building work as an SDR; many companies use the titles interchangeably, while some reserve BDR for outbound and SDR for inbound.
- Buyer persona
- A buyer persona describes the people who influence or make the purchase inside an ideal customer: their role, goals, problems and how they evaluate vendors.
- Buying committee
- A buying committee is the group of people involved in a B2B purchase. Forrester's 2026 research puts a typical decision at 13 internal stakeholders and 9 external influencers.
- Buying signal
- A buying signal is an observable event that suggests a company may need what you sell soon, such as hiring for a relevant role, raising money, a new executive or a tool change.
- Signals tell you where to look, not who will buy. The strongest ones involve a real change inside the company or a relationship with you.
- Buying signals guide →
- Buying-signal agent
- A buying-signal agent is software that watches buying signals, judges whether each company fits your ideal customer profile, finds the right person and drafts the outreach, usually with human approval before sending.
- What is a buying-signal agent? →
- Champion tracking
- Champion tracking means following past customers and users when they change jobs, because people who already know your product are among the most likely buyers at their new company.
- Dark funnel
- The dark funnel is the part of the buying journey vendors cannot see, such as private conversations, communities, podcasts and AI assistant questions.
- Data enrichment
- Data enrichment adds missing information to a lead or company record, such as role, email, phone, company size or technology, from external sources.
- Domain warmup
- Domain warmup means gradually increasing sending volume from a new domain or mailbox so mailbox providers build trust before full volume.
- Email deliverability
- Deliverability is the ability of your emails to reach the inbox rather than spam, driven by sender reputation, authentication, list quality and complaint rates.
- Domain reputation and deliverability →
- Firmographics
- Firmographics are descriptive facts about a company, such as industry, size, revenue, location and company age, used to segment and qualify accounts.
- First-party intent
- First-party intent is buying interest you observe on your own channels: visits to your pricing page, demo requests, replies, product sign-ups and webinar attendance.
- Generative engine optimization (GEO)
- Generative engine optimization means making a company easy for AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity to find, verify and recommend, mainly through clear facts and mentions on third-party sites.
- Which sales tools AI assistants recommend →
- GTM engineering
- GTM engineering is the work of building and maintaining data and outreach workflows for sales and marketing, often in tools like Clay, with enrichment, scoring and automation.
- GTM engineering guide →
- Ideal customer profile (ICP)
- An ideal customer profile describes the type of company that gets the most value from your product and is most likely to buy: industry, size, business model, market and situation.
- Intent data
- Intent data is information that suggests a company is researching a topic or product category, collected from its own website (first-party) or from content networks and review sites (third-party).
- Third-party topic intent is noisy on its own; it works best as a tie-breaker combined with company fit.
- Intent data guide →
- Lead scoring
- Lead scoring ranks leads by how well they fit and how engaged they are, so the team works the most promising ones first.
- Legitimate interest (GDPR)
- Legitimate interest is a legal basis in GDPR Article 6(1)(f) that can allow B2B outreach without consent, if a balancing test shows the business interest is not overridden by the person's rights.
- National email rules still apply on top of GDPR, and the person must be able to object easily.
- GDPR and B2B email →
- MCP (Model Context Protocol)
- MCP is an open standard that lets AI assistants call external tools and data sources, so an assistant can for example look up live hiring data during a conversation.
- Revexa's MCP server →
- MQL
- A marketing qualified lead (MQL) is a lead that marketing judges ready for sales attention based on fit and engagement.
- Multithreading
- Multithreading means building relationships with several people at the same target account, so a deal does not depend on one contact.
- Opt-out
- An opt-out is the recipient's way to stop further messages; in B2B outreach it should be simple, honored in every channel and never answered with a sales pitch.
- Pipeline coverage
- Pipeline coverage is the value of open pipeline divided by the sales target for a period; many teams aim for roughly three times the target.
- Pipeline coverage guide →
- Sales sequence (cadence)
- A sales sequence is a planned series of outreach steps across email, LinkedIn or phone, with set timing between each step.
- SDR (sales development representative)
- An SDR is a salesperson who creates and qualifies new opportunities, usually through outbound outreach, and hands qualified meetings to an account executive.
- What does an SDR cost? →
- Signal-based selling
- Signal-based selling means contacting a company when it shows a reason to buy, with a message tied to that reason, instead of working through a static list in order.
- Speed to lead
- Speed to lead is how fast a company responds to an inbound lead. HBR's analysis of 1.25 million leads found firms answering within an hour were nearly seven times as likely to qualify the lead.
- SPF, DKIM and DMARC
- SPF, DKIM and DMARC are email authentication standards that prove a message really comes from your domain; major mailbox providers require them for bulk senders.
- SQL
- A sales qualified lead (SQL) is a lead that sales has accepted as a real opportunity worth pursuing.
- Suppression list
- A suppression list holds people and companies that must never be contacted, such as those who opted out, existing customers or competitors.
- Target account list
- A target account list is the set of named companies a team actively pursues, usually the accounts that best match the ideal customer profile.
- Technographics
- Technographics describe the software and technology a company uses, for example its CRM or website platform, and can reveal fit or switching opportunities.
- Third-party intent
- Third-party intent is research activity a data provider observes outside your own channels, for example a company reading many articles about a topic across a publisher network.
- UWG §7 (Germany)
- UWG §7 is the German rule that requires prior express consent for advertising by email, including business to business, which makes cold email to German leads unlawful.
- Cold email to Germany →
- Waterfall enrichment
- Waterfall enrichment queries several data providers in sequence until one returns the requested field, to raise match rates without paying every provider for every record.