The Lead Generation Glossary: 40+ Sales & Marketing Terms You Actually Need to Know
9 min read
In short
Lead generation is the process of attracting, identifying, qualifying, and converting potential customers into sales opportunities. It combines strategies such as inbound and outbound outreach, lead scoring, CRM systems, and follow-ups to turn prospects into customers.
The Lead Generation Glossary: Sales & Marketing Terms Explained
If you work in sales, marketing or business development, you’ve probably heard terms like MQL, SQL, ICP, CRM, CAC and speed to lead thrown around on a daily basis.
But what do they actually mean — and how do they fit together?
This glossary breaks down the most important lead generation, sales and marketing terms in the order they appear in the customer journey. No unnecessary jargon, no complicated definitions — just the terms you actually need to know.
1. Leads & Their Stages
Lead
A lead is a person or company that could potentially become a customer. They may have interacted with your business already or simply match the type of customer you want to reach.
Prospect
A prospect is a lead that has been identified as a potential fit and is being considered more seriously as a sales opportunity.
ICP
ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) describes the type of company that is the best possible fit for your product or service. It usually includes characteristics such as industry, company size, location, revenue and business needs.
MQL
MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead) is a lead that has shown enough interest or engagement to be considered worth pursuing by sales. The exact criteria for becoming an MQL depend on the company.
SQL
SQL (Sales Qualified Lead) is a lead that has been assessed by sales and meets the criteria for a genuine sales opportunity. In other words, marketing says “this looks promising” and sales says “this is worth talking to.”
Funnel
The sales funnel represents the journey from first awareness to becoming a customer. The number of potential customers generally decreases as people move through each stage.
Pipeline
A sales pipeline is the collection of active sales opportunities and the stages they are currently in. Unlike the broader funnel, a pipeline focuses on real opportunities being actively worked by sales teams.
Lead Lifecycle
The lead lifecycle describes how a lead moves through different stages — from first contact or inquiry to qualification, opportunity and, eventually, customer.
2. Outbound
Cold Email
A cold email is an unsolicited sales or business email sent to someone who has not previously interacted with your company. The goal is usually to start a relevant conversation, not immediately make a sale.
Cold Call
A cold call is a sales call made to a potential customer without a prior business relationship. Good cold calling is less about reading a script and more about identifying whether there is a relevant problem to solve.
SDR
SDR (Sales Development Representative) is a sales role focused primarily on prospecting, qualifying leads and booking meetings for the sales team.
Sequence
A sequence is a predefined series of outreach actions — such as emails, calls and LinkedIn touches — designed to follow up with a prospect over a specific period.
Follow-up
A follow-up is any additional contact after an initial interaction. Effective follow-up keeps an opportunity moving instead of letting an interested prospect disappear from the pipeline.
Personalization
Personalization means adapting outreach to the specific prospect rather than sending the same generic message to everyone. This can include mentioning the company's situation, industry, role or a relevant business challenge.
Sales Cadence
A sales cadence is the planned rhythm and timing of outreach to a prospect. It defines when and how often sales representatives follow up across different channels.
3. Inbound
Lead Magnet
A lead magnet is a piece of valuable content offered in exchange for contact information. Examples include guides, reports, templates, webinars or calculators.
Landing Page
A landing page is a dedicated web page designed around one specific action, such as downloading a resource, requesting a demo or submitting an inquiry.
CTA
CTA (Call to Action) is a prompt that tells the visitor what to do next — for example, “Book a demo,” “Get the guide” or “Talk to sales.”
Speed to Lead
Speed to lead measures how quickly a company responds after receiving a new lead or inquiry. Research published by Harvard Business Review found that, among 2,241 companies audited, the average response time was 42 hours and 23% of companies never responded at all.
Separate lead-response research found that contacting a lead within five minutes, compared with 30 minutes, was associated with 100× higher odds of contact and 21× higher odds of qualification.
Lead Routing
Lead routing is the process of automatically assigning new leads to the right salesperson, team or region. Good routing makes sure the right person receives the right lead without unnecessary delays.
Lead Scoring
Lead scoring assigns points to leads based on characteristics and behaviours that indicate their likelihood of becoming a customer. A scoring model can help sales teams prioritize the leads that are most worth their time.
Attribution
Attribution is the process of identifying which marketing channels or activities contributed to generating a lead or customer. It helps companies understand where their pipeline and revenue are coming from.
Conversion
A conversion happens when a visitor or lead completes a desired action, such as submitting a form, booking a meeting or making a purchase.
4. Metrics
CTR
CTR (Click-Through Rate) measures the percentage of people who click on a link, advertisement or CTA after seeing it.
CVR
CVR (Conversion Rate) measures the percentage of visitors or users who complete a desired action. A higher CVR generally means a larger share of your traffic is taking the action you want.
CPL
CPL (Cost Per Lead) measures how much it costs, on average, to generate one lead. It is commonly calculated by dividing total campaign spend by the number of leads generated.
CAC
CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) measures the average cost of acquiring a new customer, including relevant sales and marketing costs.
LTV
LTV (Lifetime Value) estimates the value or profit a customer generates throughout their relationship with a company. Comparing LTV with CAC helps businesses understand whether their customer acquisition model is economically sustainable.
Reply Rate
Reply rate measures the percentage of people who respond to an outreach message. It is particularly useful for evaluating cold email and outbound campaigns.
Show Rate
Show rate measures the percentage of people who actually attend a meeting or call after booking it. For example, if 100 meetings are booked and 80 take place, the show rate is 80%.
Close Rate
Close rate measures the percentage of qualified opportunities that ultimately become customers. It is one of the clearest indicators of how effectively a sales process turns opportunities into revenue.
5. Tools & Channels
CRM
CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is the system a company uses to manage customer and prospect relationships, interactions and sales data. It gives sales and marketing teams a shared view of leads, opportunities and customer activity.
Sequencer
A sequencer is a tool that automates and manages multi-step sales outreach. It can schedule emails, reminders and other follow-ups while keeping the process organized.
SEO
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the practice of improving a website and its content so that it can appear more prominently in search engine results. The goal is to attract relevant organic traffic without paying for every click.
SERP
SERP (Search Engine Results Page) is the page displayed after someone searches for something on a search engine. It can contain organic results, ads, featured snippets, maps, AI features and other search elements.
GSC
GSC (Google Search Console) is Google's tool for monitoring how a website performs in Google Search. It provides information about search visibility, indexing, queries and other technical search data.
GEO
GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is a term used for efforts aimed at increasing a brand's visibility in generative AI search experiences. Google notes that the fundamentals of SEO remain important for AI features such as AI Overviews and AI Mode, rather than requiring a completely separate set of optimization rules.
Paid Search
Paid search refers to advertising that appears on search engine results pages, typically through platforms such as Google Ads. Advertisers generally pay when someone interacts with the advertisement.
Organic Search
Organic search refers to unpaid traffic coming from search engine results. Strong SEO can help a website generate this traffic consistently over time.
6. The AI Era
AI SDR
An AI SDR is an AI-powered system that can perform parts of an SDR's workflow, such as researching prospects, identifying leads, sending personalized outreach and handling initial qualification.
Voice Agent
A voice agent is an AI system that can communicate with people through spoken conversations. In sales, it can be used for tasks such as qualifying leads, answering inquiries or scheduling calls.
Inquiry Automation
Inquiry automation uses software or AI to automatically process incoming inquiries — from capturing and qualifying the request to routing it to the right person. The goal is to reduce manual work while making sure potential customers are not left waiting.
RFQ
RFQ (Request for Quotation) is a request from a potential customer asking a supplier to provide pricing for a specific product or service. RFQs are particularly common in B2B sales and procurement.
AI Lead Qualification
AI lead qualification uses AI to assess incoming leads against predefined criteria and determine which ones are worth human attention. This can help sales teams focus their time on the opportunities with the strongest potential.
AI-Assisted Prospecting
AI-assisted prospecting uses AI to help sales teams identify potential customers, research companies, find relevant contacts and prepare personalized outreach. The aim is not necessarily to replace salespeople, but to remove repetitive research and preparation from their workflow.
The Terms We Use Every Day
At Myralum, these aren't just sales and marketing buzzwords — they describe the systems and processes we work with every day.
ICP helps us define who we should be targeting. CRM, lead scoring and lead routing help organize and prioritize opportunities. Outbound sequences and follow-ups help turn prospects into conversations, while speed to lead and inquiry automation make sure valuable inbound opportunities do not get lost.
And increasingly, AI SDRs, voice agents and AI-assisted prospecting are changing what is possible. The goal isn't simply to automate more — it is to build a faster, more intelligent lead generation process where technology handles repetitive work and people can focus on the conversations that actually matter.
Because at the end of the day, knowing the terminology is useful. Knowing how all the pieces work together is what actually generates pipeline.