Every term you'll meet in outbound sales — deliverability, qualification, pricing models, LinkedIn prospecting — defined in plain English by people who run these campaigns daily.
A/B testing sends two versions of an email element to comparable audience splits to measure which one produces better opens, replies, or meetings.
Appointment setting is the process of booking qualified sales meetings between prospects and a company's closers, usually via outbound outreach.
A BDR is a sales rep focused on generating new business through outbound prospecting - researching accounts, contacting prospects, and booking meetings.
Bounce rate is the percentage of sent emails returned as undeliverable; in cold email it should stay under 3% to protect sender reputation.
A buyer persona is a profile of the individual decision-maker you sell to - their role, goals, pains, and objections - used to shape outreach messaging.
The CAN-SPAM Act is the 2003 US law governing commercial email: no deceptive headers, include a postal address, and honor opt-outs within 10 business days.
A catch-all email domain accepts mail to any address at that domain, making individual addresses impossible to verify as valid or invalid.
Cold calling is phoning prospects who have had no prior contact with your company to start a sales conversation or book a meeting.
Cold email is a personalized B2B sales email sent to a prospect with no prior relationship, aiming to start a conversation - typically 2-15% reply rates.
Cold outreach is any first-touch contact with a prospect who has no prior relationship with you — via email, phone, LinkedIn, or other channels.
A LinkedIn connection request is an invitation to join someone's network — the standard first touch in LinkedIn outreach, capped at roughly 100 per week.
Deliverability is the ability of your emails to reach the recipient's inbox rather than the spam folder - the foundation every cold email campaign depends on.
Demand generation is the marketing discipline of creating awareness and buying intent in a target market, feeding pipeline beyond direct-response capture.
A discovery call is the first substantive sales conversation, where a rep qualifies the prospect's situation, pain, budget, and fit before proposing anything.
DKIM is an email authentication standard that cryptographically signs outgoing mail so receiving servers can verify it came from your domain unaltered.
DMARC is an email authentication policy that tells receiving servers how to handle mail failing SPF/DKIM, and is required for bulk senders since 2024.
Domain reputation is a mailbox provider's trust score for your sending domain, built from bounces, complaints, and engagement - it decides inbox vs spam.
An email blacklist is a database of IPs or domains flagged for spam; listed senders get their mail blocked or filtered by receiving servers.
An email deliverability test checks where your emails actually land — inbox, spam, or promotions — across mailbox providers before and during campaigns.
Email verification checks whether addresses on a list are valid and deliverable before sending, keeping cold email bounce rates under the critical 3% line.
Email warmup gradually builds a new mailbox's sending reputation through low, rising volume and positive engagement before cold campaigns begin.
Firmographics are company-level attributes - industry, headcount, revenue, location, funding - used to segment B2B markets and build targeted lead lists.
A follow-up email is a subsequent touch sent to a prospect who has not replied; follow-ups typically generate half or more of a cold campaign's total replies.
GDPR is the EU data protection law (2018) governing personal data; B2B cold email to EU prospects can rely on legitimate interest but carries strict duties.
An ICP is a precise definition of the company type that gets the most value from your offer and is most profitable to acquire - the basis of outbound targeting.
Inbound lead generation attracts prospects to come to you - via content, SEO, ads, and referrals - and converts them into leads when they raise their hand.
Intent data is behavioral evidence that a company is actively researching a problem or product category, used to prioritize and time outbound outreach.
A lead is a person or company that has shown potential to become a customer, with contact information your sales process can act on.
Lead generation is the process of identifying and attracting potential customers and capturing their interest so a sales process can begin.
Lead nurturing is the practice of maintaining useful contact with not-yet-ready leads over time, so you are the vendor they call when timing turns.
Lead qualification is the process of assessing whether a lead is worth sales pursuit - checking fit, need, authority, timing, and budget against set criteria.
Lead scoring assigns points to leads based on fit and behavior, ranking them so sales works the highest-probability contacts first.
LinkedIn outreach is prospecting through LinkedIn - connection requests, direct messages, and InMail - to start sales conversations with target buyers.
A Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) is a lead whose engagement with marketing signals real buying interest, but who has not yet been vetted by sales.
Open rate is the percentage of delivered emails recorded as opened, tracked via an invisible pixel — a rough and increasingly unreliable metric.
Outbound lead generation is proactively contacting target prospects through cold email, calls, and LinkedIn rather than waiting for them to find you.
Pay-per-appointment is a pricing model where clients pay only for booked, qualified sales meetings instead of a flat monthly retainer.
Pay-per-lead is a pricing model where clients pay a set fee for each lead that meets agreed qualification criteria, rather than paying for effort.
PECR (Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003) is the UK law governing electronic marketing, including rules for B2B cold email.
Personalization tokens are merge fields like {{firstName}} or {{company}} that insert prospect-specific data into email templates at send time.
Pipeline is the total set of open sales opportunities a team is working, organized by stage and usually measured in dollar value.
A prospect is a potential customer who fits your target profile and has been identified for outreach but has not yet engaged or bought.
Prospecting is the process of finding, qualifying, and gathering contact data for potential customers before outreach begins.
Reply rate is the percentage of delivered cold emails that receive a response; healthy campaigns typically land between 2% and 15%.
Retainer pricing is a flat recurring monthly fee for lead generation services, independent of how many leads or meetings are delivered.
A sales cadence is the scheduled sequence of touchpoints — emails, calls, LinkedIn actions — an SDR runs over days or weeks to engage a prospect.
Sales Navigator is LinkedIn's paid prospecting product, offering advanced search filters, lead lists, and InMail for finding B2B prospects.
An SDR is a sales role focused on outbound prospecting and qualifying leads into booked meetings for closers — not on closing deals.
Sender Score is Validity's 0-100 rating of a sending IP address's reputation, based on complaints, spam traps, and bounce data.
A cold email sequence is an automated series of emails — an opener plus follow-ups — sent over days or weeks, stopping when the prospect replies.
Show-up rate is the percentage of booked sales meetings the prospect actually attends; well-run outbound programs hold 85% or more.
Social selling is building relationships and pipeline by engaging prospects on social networks — mainly LinkedIn in B2B — through content and conversation.
A spam trap is an email address with no real user behind it, maintained by providers and blacklists to catch senders with poor list hygiene.
SPF is a DNS record listing which mail servers may send email for your domain, letting receivers detect unauthorized senders.
Spintax is a syntax like {Hi|Hello|Hey} that randomly varies wording in each email sent, reducing identical-content fingerprints in cold outreach.
A Sales Qualified Lead (SQL) is a lead vetted by sales as having real need, budget, authority, and timeline — ready for active selling.
TAM, SAM, and SOM are nested market-size estimates: total demand, the segment you can actually serve, and the share you can realistically win.
Technographics are data about the technologies a company uses — its software stack and infrastructure — used to target and segment B2B outreach.
Unsubscribe rate is the percentage of delivered emails that trigger an opt-out — a direct read on how well targeting and message match the list.
A warm email is outreach to a prospect who already has some connection to you — prior engagement, a referral, or a trigger event — unlike a fully cold contact.