Resources
GTM Glossary
Plain definitions of the go-to-market terms B2B teams use every day, each with why it matters, an example and where it fits in our playbooks.
A
- Account Executive (AE) An account executive (AE) is a salesperson who owns qualified opportunities and runs them through discovery, demos, proposals and negotiation until the customer signs.
- Account-Based Marketing (ABM) Account-based marketing (ABM) is a B2B strategy where sales and marketing pick a defined list of target companies and run coordinated, tailored campaigns to the people inside each one.
- Agentic Workflow An agentic workflow is a multi-step process where one or more AI agents plan, call tools, check results and make decisions within a defined structure to complete a business task.
- AI Agent An AI agent is software built on a large language model that takes a goal, decides on the steps, calls tools such as search, APIs or databases, and acts on the results.
- AI SDR An AI SDR is software that uses AI models to carry out sales development tasks such as researching prospects, writing personalized outreach, sending sequences and handling or routing replies.
- Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) Annual recurring revenue (ARR) is the yearly value of a company's active subscription contracts, counting only repeatable revenue and excluding one-time fees such as setup or services.
B
- Business Development Representative (BDR) A business development representative (BDR) is a salesperson who finds and contacts new potential customers through outbound prospecting and books qualified meetings for account executives.
- Buyer Persona A buyer persona is a semi-fictional profile of a person who buys or influences the purchase of a product, describing their role, goals, problems, decision criteria and the sources they trust.
- Buying Signals Buying signals are observable events or behaviors that suggest a company or person may need a product soon, such as a funding round, a new executive, a relevant job posting or a pricing page visit.
C
- Cold Email Cold email is an unsolicited, individually addressed email sent to a potential buyer who has no prior relationship with the sender, usually to start a sales conversation.
- Context Engineering Context engineering is the practice of designing and managing everything a language model sees when it works, including instructions, examples, retrieved data, tool results and memory, so it produces reliable output.
- CRM (Customer Relationship Management) A CRM (customer relationship management) system is software that stores a company's contacts, accounts, deals and interactions so sales, marketing and success teams work from one shared record.
- Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is the total sales and marketing spend in a period divided by the number of new customers won in that same period.
D
- Data Enrichment Data enrichment is the process of adding missing or updated information to existing records, such as emails, phone numbers, job titles, company size or technology, by matching them against external data sources.
- Deduplication (Dedupe) Deduplication (dedupe) is the process of finding records that describe the same person or company in a database or list, then merging or removing the copies so each one appears once.
- Demand Generation Demand generation is the set of marketing activities that build awareness of a problem and interest in a solution within a target market, so buyers come to the company when they are ready.
- DKIM DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) is an email authentication method where the sending server adds a cryptographic signature to each message, which receivers verify using a public key published in the domain's DNS.
- DMARC DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance) is a DNS-published email policy that tells receiving servers how to treat messages failing SPF or DKIM checks aligned with the sender's domain.
E
- Email Deliverability Email deliverability is the ability of an email to reach the recipient's inbox rather than the spam folder or being blocked, which depends on authentication, sender reputation, content and recipient engagement.
- Email Finder An email finder is a tool that returns a person's likely work email address from inputs such as their name, company domain or LinkedIn profile.
- Email Verification Email verification is the process of checking whether an email address is correctly formatted, belongs to a working domain and mailbox, and can receive mail before a message is sent.
- Email Warmup Email warmup is the practice of gradually increasing how much email a new mailbox or domain sends, so mailbox providers can build a sending reputation for it before larger campaigns begin.
F
G
- Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Generative engine optimization (GEO) is the practice of shaping content so AI-powered search and assistant tools, which write answers instead of listing links, find, understand and cite it.
- Go-to-Market (GTM) Go-to-market (GTM) is the plan and set of activities a company uses to bring a product to buyers: who it targets, what it says, which channels it uses and how it sells.
- GTM Engineering GTM engineering is the discipline of building automated go-to-market systems with code, APIs and AI, covering data sourcing, enrichment, buying signals, outreach sequencing and CRM sync.
I
- Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) An ideal customer profile (ICP) is a description of the type of company that gets the most value from a product and brings the most value back, defined by firmographic, technographic and situational traits.
- Intent Data Intent data is information about the online behavior of people or companies that suggests they are researching a topic, product or problem and may be moving toward a purchase.
L
- Lead Generation Lead generation is the process of identifying and attracting potential buyers and capturing their contact details so sales and marketing can follow up with them.
- Lead Magnet A lead magnet is a free, useful resource, such as a guide, template, checklist, tool or report, offered in exchange for a prospect's contact details or another small commitment.
- Lead Scoring Lead scoring is a method of ranking leads by assigning points for how well they fit the ideal customer profile and how they engage, so sales can work the most promising leads first.
- LinkedIn InMail LinkedIn InMail is a LinkedIn message type that lets a member send a direct message to another member they are not connected with, using credits included in premium plans such as Sales Navigator.
- llms.txt llms.txt is a proposed standard for a Markdown file, usually placed at a website's root as /llms.txt, that gives AI agents a short, curated overview of the site and links to its most useful content.
M
- Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) A marketing qualified lead (MQL) is a lead that marketing judges more likely to become a customer than other leads, based on fit and engagement, and ready to pass to sales.
- Model Context Protocol (MCP) The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open-source standard that defines how AI applications connect to external systems such as data sources, tools and workflows through a common interface.
- MX Record An MX record (mail exchanger record) is a DNS entry that names the mail server responsible for accepting email for a domain, along with a preference number that sets its priority.
P
- Pipeline Generation Pipeline generation is the work of creating qualified sales opportunities, deals with a real buyer, need and value, that enter the sales pipeline and can be forecast toward revenue.
- Product-Led Growth (PLG) Product-led growth (PLG) is a go-to-market motion where the product itself, through free trials, freemium plans or self-serve signup, drives customer acquisition, adoption and expansion.
R
S
- Sales Development Representative (SDR) A sales development representative (SDR) is a salesperson who prospects and qualifies potential buyers and books meetings for account executives, rather than closing deals themselves.
- Sales Qualified Lead (SQL) A sales qualified lead (SQL) is a prospect that the sales team has reviewed and accepted as having a real need, fit and timing worth pursuing as a potential deal.
- Social Listening Social listening is the practice of monitoring social platforms and online communities for mentions of a brand, competitor, topic or keyword, then analyzing them to guide marketing and sales actions.
- SPF Record An SPF record (Sender Policy Framework) is a DNS TXT record that lists the servers and IP addresses allowed to send email using a domain in the envelope sender address.
- Spintax Spintax (spin syntax) is a text format that lists alternative words or phrases inside curly braces, separated by pipes, such as {Hi|Hello}, so software can produce a different version of a message for each recipient.
- Stakeholder Mapping Stakeholder mapping is the process of identifying every person involved in a B2B buying decision at an account and recording each one's role, influence and view of the purchase.
T
- Technographics Technographics are data about the technologies a company uses, such as its CRM, cloud provider, analytics tools or programming frameworks, used to segment and prioritize accounts in B2B sales and marketing.
- Total Addressable Market (TAM) Total addressable market (TAM) is the total revenue opportunity available if a product won every possible customer in its market, often expressed as a dollar value or a count of target accounts.
U
W
- Waterfall Enrichment Waterfall enrichment is a method of filling a data field by querying several data providers in sequence, moving to the next provider only when the previous one returns no result or a weak one.
- Web Scraping Web scraping is the automated extraction of information from web pages, where software loads pages and pulls specific content into a structured format such as a spreadsheet or database.
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