How to use this glossary
Terms are grouped by the stages of an outreach campaign: audience, deliverability, messaging, metrics and sales roles. Each definition explains what the term means, why it affects results and how to interpret it in a campaign.
A glossary explains the language, not the full operating process. If you need a campaign assessed or want to understand whether outreach fits your commercial task, start with a <a href="/en/free-audit/">free cold outreach audit</a>.
Audience and list building: who to contact
Every campaign begins with the people and companies that will receive the message. A weak segment cannot be fixed later by better copy or technical setup.
- ICP — ideal customer profile: the industries, company characteristics and decision-maker roles that define a relevant account.
- Cold outreach and cold email — a first business contact made without a prior relationship, most often by email.
- Decision-maker — the person able to influence or approve a purchase, rather than a generic recipient who can only forward a message.
- TAM, SAM and SOM — three ways to describe the total market, the serviceable market and the realistically reachable part of it.
- Lead list and intent signals — a list of relevant companies and timely reasons to contact them, such as expansion, hiring or a new product launch.
- Catch-all address — a domain configured to accept mail for any address, which can make email validation less conclusive.
Infrastructure and deliverability: reaching the inbox
Deliverability is often the most technical and most underestimated part of outreach. Across our campaigns, 97.7% of addresses accepted an email; that is an operational result, not a guarantee that every future message will reach the inbox.
- Deliverability and inbox placement — the difference between an email being accepted by a receiving server and appearing in the primary inbox rather than spam.
- SPF, DKIM, DMARC and MX records — domain-level email authentication and routing records that help receiving systems verify a sender.
- Sender reputation — the trust associated with a sending domain, inbox or technical sending environment over time.
- Spam traps, blocklists and DNSBLs — systems and addresses that can signal poor list hygiene or harmful sending behaviour.
- Unsubscribe and List-Unsubscribe — mechanisms that allow a recipient to opt out and can reduce unwanted-mail complaints.
Sequences and copy: what a decision-maker reads
- Sequence — a planned series of contacts, including the first email and follow-ups.
- Cadence — the timing and channel mix of contacts; it can include email, Telegram and LinkedIn.
- Spintax — controlled text variation used to avoid sending one identical message at scale.
- A/B test — a comparison of two message variants sent to comparable segments, used to evaluate a specific change.
For the Russian and CIS market, channel choice matters. Many decision-makers read their own email, while Telegram is also a working business channel; local inbox ecosystems differ from the tools and data sources commonly used in other markets.
Metrics and economics: how to judge the result
A number without context is not a conclusion. Across our campaigns, 5.93% of companies contacted replied; it is a historical figure from our work, not a promise for your business.
- Reply rate — the share of contacted companies that reply. It is usually more useful for judging cold outreach than opens alone.
- Open rate — the recorded share of emails opened, often distorted by automatic image loading and privacy features in email clients.
- Bounce — a delivery failure. Hard and soft bounces have different causes, but both require attention when assessing list quality.
- CPL and ROMI — cost per lead and return on marketing investment. They should be evaluated against qualified meetings and revenue, not email opens.
Sales roles, LinkedIn and compliance
- SDR, BDR and AE — sales roles that prospect, qualify and close opportunities, with different responsibilities at each stage.
- MQL, SQL and qualification — lead stages and the criteria used before passing a contact to sales.
- No-show — a booked meeting that the prospect does not attend.
- ABM and AI SDR — account-focused outreach and AI-assisted first-line work; both still need human judgement and clear qualification rules.
- SSI, connection rate and InMail — LinkedIn indicators and formats relevant to teams using that channel.
- Personal-data and advertising rules — the legal framework that affects how cold outreach should be planned and handled.
When this glossary is not for you
If you need meetings rather than terminology, this is not the best starting point. Review our <a href="/en/services/">B2B lead generation services</a> or request a <a href="/en/free-audit/">free audit</a> of your current outreach.
This is also not a general sales textbook or a diagnosis of a live campaign. When outreach is already running without replies, the answer lies in your audience, domains, messages and handling process—not in a definition alone.