Reference

CRM Glossary

Clear definitions of 52+ sales, marketing, and CRM terms in plain language.

A

Account: A company or organization record in your CRM that represents a current or potential customer. Accounts group related contacts, deals, and activities under one business entity.
Activity: Any tracked interaction with a contact or account such as a phone call, email, meeting, or note. Activities create a timeline of engagement that helps reps pick up where they left off.
Automation: Rules or workflows that perform actions automatically when certain conditions are met. Examples include sending a follow-up email when a deal enters a new stage or assigning a lead based on territory.

B

B2B: Business-to-business. A sales model where one company sells products or services to another company rather than to individual consumers.
B2C: Business-to-consumer. A sales model where a company sells directly to individual end users or consumers.
Bounce Rate: The percentage of emails that could not be delivered to the recipient's inbox. Hard bounces indicate permanent delivery failures such as invalid addresses, while soft bounces are temporary issues like a full inbox.

C

Campaign: A coordinated series of marketing messages sent to a targeted list of contacts. Campaigns can include email sequences, drip series, or one-time blasts and are tracked for opens, clicks, and conversions.
Churn Rate: The percentage of customers who cancel or stop using your product during a given time period. A low churn rate indicates strong customer retention.
CLV: Customer Lifetime Value. The total revenue a business can expect from a single customer account over the entire duration of the relationship. CLV helps prioritize high-value accounts.
Cold Call: An unsolicited phone call to a prospect who has not previously expressed interest in your product or service. Cold calls are often the first touchpoint in outbound sales.
Cold Lead: An unconsented, not-yet-contacted prospect that lives only inside Cold Outreach, on an imported or manually added list. Cold leads are deliberately kept separate from your CRM contacts and the CRM "Lead" lifecycle stage: they are excluded from CRM search, dashboards, and automations until you promote one, which creates a CRM contact with a pending consent record. The two senses of "lead" carry opposite warmth, so the product keeps them apart.
Contact: An individual person record in your CRM. Contacts typically belong to an account (company) and have associated activities, deals, and communication history.
Conversion Rate: The percentage of prospects who complete a desired action such as signing up for a trial, requesting a demo, or closing a deal. Conversion rates measure the effectiveness of each stage of your sales process.
CRM: Customer Relationship Management. Software that helps businesses manage interactions with current and potential customers, track deals through a sales pipeline, and maintain a centralized record of all customer data.
Custom Field: A user-defined data field added to a CRM record type (contact, company, deal) to capture information specific to your business. Custom fields extend the default schema without code changes.

D

Dashboard: A visual overview of key metrics and KPIs displayed in charts, graphs, and summary cards. Dashboards give managers real-time insight into pipeline health, team performance, and revenue forecasts.
Deal: A potential sale being tracked through your pipeline. Deals (also called opportunities) have a value, an expected close date, and move through stages from qualification to closed-won or closed-lost.
Drip Campaign: An automated sequence of emails sent to contacts over time based on triggers or a fixed schedule. Drip campaigns nurture leads by delivering relevant content at each stage of the buying journey.

E

Email Marketing: The practice of sending targeted emails to a list of contacts to promote products, share updates, or nurture leads. Email marketing is measured by open rates, click-through rates, and conversions.
Engagement: The degree to which a contact interacts with your communications and content. High engagement (opens, clicks, replies) signals buying intent and helps prioritize follow-up.

F

Forecast: A prediction of future revenue based on the deals currently in your pipeline, their stages, and win probabilities. Forecasts help sales leaders plan headcount, set quotas, and report to stakeholders.
Funnel: A visual model of the buyer journey from initial awareness to closed deal. Each stage of the funnel narrows as prospects drop off, helping identify where your sales process needs improvement.

G

GDPR: General Data Protection Regulation. A European Union privacy law that governs how businesses collect, store, and process personal data. GDPR grants individuals rights to access, correct, and delete their data.

I

Integration: A connection between your CRM and an external tool (email provider, calendar, accounting software, etc.) that syncs data automatically. Integrations reduce manual data entry and keep systems in sync.

K

KPI: Key Performance Indicator. A measurable value that shows how effectively a team or individual is achieving a business objective. Common sales KPIs include revenue, win rate, average deal size, and sales cycle length.

L

Lead: A person or company that has shown interest in your product but has not yet been qualified as a sales opportunity. Leads enter the top of the funnel and are nurtured until they become qualified prospects. This is distinct from a Cold Lead, which is an unconsented prospect that lives only in Cold Outreach until it is promoted into the CRM.
Lead Scoring: A method of ranking leads based on their likelihood to convert. Scores are calculated from demographic data (job title, company size) and behavioral signals (website visits, email opens, form submissions).
Lifecycle Stage: The current phase of a contact's relationship with your business such as subscriber, lead, MQL, SQL, opportunity, customer, or evangelist. Lifecycle stages help tailor messaging and prioritize outreach.

M

MQL: Marketing Qualified Lead. A lead that has been vetted by the marketing team based on engagement criteria (e.g., downloaded a whitepaper, attended a webinar) and is ready to be passed to sales for further qualification.

N

Nurture: The process of building relationships with prospects through targeted content and consistent follow-up, even when they are not ready to buy. Nurturing keeps your brand top-of-mind until the prospect is sales-ready.

O

Opportunity: A qualified prospect with a real chance of becoming a customer. Opportunities are tracked through pipeline stages and have an associated value and expected close date. Often used interchangeably with "deal."

P

Pipeline: A visual representation of all active deals organized by stage. Pipelines help sales teams see where each deal stands, forecast revenue, and identify bottlenecks in the sales process.
Pipeline Stage: A step in the sales process that a deal moves through, such as "Discovery," "Proposal Sent," or "Negotiation." Each stage represents progress toward closing and often has an associated win probability.
Prospect: A potential customer who has been identified and qualified as a good fit for your product or service. Prospects have moved beyond the lead stage and are actively engaged in the sales process.

Q

Qualification: The process of evaluating whether a lead is a good fit for your product based on criteria like budget, authority, need, and timeline (BANT). Qualification prevents reps from wasting time on low-probability deals.
Quote: A formal document sent to a prospect detailing the products or services offered, quantities, prices, discounts, and terms. Quotes are often generated directly from deal records in the CRM.

R

Revenue: The total income generated from sales of products or services. In a CRM context, revenue is tracked at the deal, account, and organizational level to measure business performance.
ROI: Return on Investment. A metric that measures the profitability of an investment by comparing the gain to the cost. In sales and marketing, ROI evaluates the effectiveness of campaigns, tools, and strategies.

S

Sales Cycle: The average time it takes to move a deal from first contact to closed-won. Shorter sales cycles improve cash flow and indicate an efficient sales process.
Sales Pipeline: The set of stages and deals that represent your sales process from prospecting to closing. Managing the sales pipeline involves moving deals forward, removing stale opportunities, and maintaining accurate forecasts.
Segmentation: The practice of dividing your contacts or accounts into groups based on shared characteristics such as industry, deal size, engagement level, or geography. Segments enable targeted outreach and personalized messaging.
SLA: Service Level Agreement. A commitment between a service provider and a customer that defines expected response times, resolution times, and availability. In CRM, SLAs are often applied to support tickets.
SQL: Sales Qualified Lead. A lead that has been vetted by the sales team and meets the criteria for active pursuit. SQLs have a confirmed need, budget, and timeline and are ready for a demo or proposal.

T

Tag: A label applied to contacts, companies, or deals for flexible categorization. Tags are freeform and allow for quick filtering and segmentation without needing custom fields.
Template: A reusable email, quote, or document layout with placeholders for personalized data. Templates save time and ensure consistency in outbound communication.
Territory: A defined geographic region, industry vertical, or account segment assigned to a specific sales rep or team. Territory management ensures balanced workloads and clear ownership of accounts.
Ticket: A customer support request tracked in a help desk or CRM system. Tickets have a subject, description, priority, status, and assigned agent. They move through a resolution workflow until closed.
Touchpoint: Any interaction between a prospect or customer and your business, including emails, calls, meetings, website visits, and social media engagement. Tracking touchpoints provides a complete view of the customer journey.

U

Upsell: A sales technique where you offer a customer a more expensive product, premium tier, or add-on feature to increase the total deal value. Upselling is most effective when the additional offering solves a real need.

W

Webhook: An automated HTTP callback triggered when a specific event occurs in your CRM (e.g., deal closed, contact created). Webhooks push real-time data to external systems without polling.
Win Rate: The percentage of deals that close as won out of the total deals that reached a decision stage. Win rate is a key indicator of sales effectiveness and is used to calibrate pipeline forecasts.
Workflow: A defined sequence of automated steps triggered by an event or condition. Workflows can update records, send notifications, create tasks, and route data between systems without manual intervention.

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