This glossary follows the path of a B2B outreach campaign from start to finish: where leads come from, how a list is enriched and verified, what decides whether an email reaches the inbox, how outreach messages and sequences are written, which figures show whether it worked, which rules apply, and how a reply is handed over to sales.
Each entry says what the term means, why it matters and how it differs from the term people often mix it up with. Most entries have an example with a fictional company such as Contoso or Fabrikam, or a calculation with invented numbers. None of the numbers are industry benchmarks.
Some terms also appear in the sales and CRM glossary or the internet and email glossary. Here they are explained from the point of view of someone planning and sending outreach.
Glossary
Lead generation and outreach terms
109 terms
Lead sources
- Lead generation
- All the work of finding people and companies who might buy, and getting a first sign of interest from them. It covers inbound methods, such as guides and forms, and outbound ones, such as research and cold outreach. Lead generation fills the list; qualification decides who on it is worth pursuing.
- Contoso's lead generation this quarter: a webinar, a trade fair and outreach to 400 researched wholesalers.
- Ideal customer profile (ICP)
- The description of the companies most likely to buy and benefit, used as the filter for every lead list. A list built from a sharp ICP needs less cleaning and gets more relevant replies. The ICP filters companies; the persona decides which person there to write to.
- Wholesalers in Germany and Austria with 50 to 500 staff that take orders by email: 1,200 companies match.
- Account list
- A list of companies that match the ICP, before any people are chosen. It is the first step of outbound list building. An account list holds companies; a contact list holds people at those companies.
- 300 wholesalers with name, website, country, industry and staff count.
- Contact list
- A list of people at the target companies, with role and contact details, ready for outreach. Each person on it should have a reason to be there. It is built from the account list, usually with one to three people per company.
- 300 companies × 2 roles (head of operations, head of purchasing) = up to 600 contacts.
- Lead source
- Where a lead was found or where it came from, such as a website form, an event, a directory or a referral. Recording it shows which sources bring replies and customers, and lets you tell people where you got their data. The source should stay on the record for good.
- Source: "Visitor list, LogiMesse 2026, badge scanned with consent".
- Business directory
- A public listing of companies by industry and place, such as a chamber of commerce member list or an online map of local businesses. It is a common starting point for an account list. A directory gives company details; the right person and their contact details need separate research.
- A search for "wine shop" in three cities lists 140 shops with address, website and phone number.
- Company register
- An official public register of companies, with legal name, address, legal form and often the names of directors. It confirms that a company exists and what it is legally called. It is more reliable than a directory but does not list email addresses.
- The register shows "Fabrikam Logistics Ltd", its registered office, two directors and the date it was founded.
- Purchased list
- A list of contacts bought from a data provider. It is quick, but often out of date, poorly matched to your ICP and unclear about where the data came from and on what legal basis. A purchased list is someone else's research; a built list is your own.
- 5,000 "logistics decision-makers" for a fixed price, with no date showing when each was last checked.
- Web scraping
- Collecting data from websites automatically with a program. It saves hours of copying, but a site's terms, database rights and data protection law can limit what you may collect and use. Collecting public company facts is a different matter from gathering personal data at scale.
- A script collects the name, city and website of 400 shops from a public directory page.
- Inbound lead
- A person or company that contacted you first, for example by filling in a form, downloading a guide or asking for a price. They have shown interest, so the answer should be quick and specific. An inbound lead started the conversation; an outbound lead was approached by you.
- Anna Berger downloads Contoso's guide on order errors and ticks "Please contact me".
- Lead magnet
- Something useful offered in exchange for contact details, such as a guide, a checklist or a calculator. It turns website visitors into inbound leads. Agreeing to receive the guide is not the same as agreeing to marketing emails, so ask for that separately.
- "Download the order error checklist", with a separate, unticked box for the monthly newsletter.
- Referral
- A lead recommended by an existing customer, partner or contact. It starts with trust, so the first message should name the person who recommended you. A reply such as "talk to my colleague" is also a referral, inside the same company.
- "Tom from Litware suggested I write to you about your warehouse orders."
- Warm introduction
- A first contact made by someone who knows both sides and connects them directly, for example in one email to both. It is usually received far better than a cold message. With a referral you get a name; with a warm introduction the contact is made for you.
- A partner at Proseware emails Anna and Tom: "You two should talk about order software."
- Buying signal
- An event or behaviour suggesting a company may need what you sell now, such as a new site, new hires, a funding round or a visit to your pricing page. It helps choose the moment and gives a real reason to write. A signal suggests timing; it does not replace checking the fit.
- Wide World Importers advertises for five warehouse staff and opens a second depot.
Data and enrichment
- Contact data
- The details needed to reach a person: name, role, company, work email, phone and sometimes a profile link. In the EU, a work email with a person's name in it is personal data. Contact data reaches a person; company data describes the organisation.
- Anna Berger, head of purchasing, Fabrikam, anna.berger@fabrikam.example.
- Firmographics
- Facts about a company used to segment and qualify it, such as industry, size, revenue band, location and age. They are to companies what demographics are to people. Firmographics describe what a company is; technographics describe what it uses.
- Wholesale, 180 staff, revenue 20 to 50 million euros, Hamburg, founded 1998.
- Technographics
- Information about the software and technology a company uses, such as its shop system or accounting tool. It helps find companies that fit, or that use a product you can replace. Technographics describe tools; firmographics describe the company itself.
- Fabrikam's website runs on a common shop system, and orders still arrive through an email form.
- Data enrichment
- Adding missing details to a lead record, such as industry, size, role or an email address, from other sources. It turns a name on a list into a lead you can qualify and contact. Enrichment adds data; verification checks that the data is right.
- Before: "Fabrikam, fabrikam.example". After: 180 staff, wholesale, Hamburg, head of purchasing Anna Berger.
- Email pattern
- The rule a company uses to build its email addresses from names, such as first.last@ or f.last@. Knowing it lets you work out an address that is not published anywhere. A guessed address must be verified before use, because patterns have exceptions.
- Two known addresses, tom.fischer@ and lena.koch@, suggest the pattern first.last@fabrikam.example.
- Role-based address
- An address for a function or team rather than a person, such as info@, sales@ or support@. Several people may read it, and it rarely reaches the decision-maker directly. A personal address reaches one named person; a role address reaches whoever is on duty.
- info@coho-winery.example is read by the front desk, not by the owner.
- Data decay
- The way contact data goes out of date as people change jobs, companies move and domains change. A list that was right a year ago will have dead addresses and wrong roles today. Decay is why lists are verified again before each campaign, not once.
- In twelve months, 6 of Contoso's 50 key contacts changed jobs and one company was taken over.
- Job change
- A contact moving to a new role or company. Their old address starts to bounce, and the new role may make them a good lead somewhere else. Watching for job changes keeps records right and can open new conversations.
- Lena Koch moves from Fabrikam to Tailspin Toys and becomes a lead at her new company.
- Data provenance
- A record of where, when and how each piece of contact data was obtained. Under Article 14 GDPR you must be able to tell people the source of their data, so it is not optional. Provenance is about the origin of each detail; the lead source is about how the lead first reached you.
- "Email found on fabrikam.example/team on 2026-10-12; role confirmed in the company register."
- Column mapping
- Matching the columns of an imported file to the fields of your own system, such as "Firma" to company. Wrong mapping puts data in the wrong place, for example first names in the company field. Check a few rows after every import.
- CSV column "Vorname" → first name, "Unternehmen" → company, "Position" → job title.
- Deduplication
- Finding and merging repeated records before outreach, so nobody gets the same email twice. Outreach lists often overlap, for example when a fair list meets a directory list. Check new lists against your CRM and your suppression list too.
- 600 new contacts, 45 already in the CRM and 3 on the suppression list: 552 left to contact.
Email verification
- Email verification
- Checking whether an email address exists and can receive mail, without sending a message to it. It protects your bounce rate and your sender reputation. Verification says whether an address can receive mail; it says nothing about whether the person wants your email.
- 600 addresses checked: 540 valid, 25 invalid, 30 catch-all, 5 unknown.
- Syntax check
- The first verification step: does the address have a valid form, with one @, allowed characters and a domain? It catches typing errors and broken imports. An address can look correct and still not exist, so this step alone is not enough.
- "anna berger@fabrikam.example" fails because of the space.
- Domain check
- Checking that the domain of an address exists and has MX records, so it can receive email at all. If a domain has no mail servers, every address on it will bounce. It checks the domain, not the single mailbox.
- fabrikam-old.example has no MX record, so all 12 addresses on it are invalid.
- Mailbox check
- Asking the receiving mail server, in an SMTP conversation that stops before any message is sent, whether it would accept mail for an address. It can find addresses that do not exist. Many servers give no clear answer, which leads to catch-all or unknown results.
- RCPT TO:<tom.old@fabrikam.example> is answered with "550 5.1.1 User unknown": invalid.
- Catch-all domain
- A domain whose mail server accepts mail for any address, real or not, at least at first. Verification cannot tell which addresses on it exist, so they are marked catch-all or risky. Mail to a non-existent address there may be dropped silently or bounce later.
- The server says yes to anna.berger@contoso.example and to xyz123@contoso.example alike.
- Verification result
- The status a check gives an address: valid (accepts mail), invalid (does not exist), catch-all (cannot be checked) or unknown (no clear answer). Each result needs a rule before sending. Valid means the mailbox exists, not that the person still works there or wants your email.
- Send to valid; remove invalid; send to catch-all in small numbers; check unknown again later.
- Disposable email address
- A temporary address from a service that creates throwaway inboxes, often used to get a download without giving a real address. It stops working after a short time. On a B2B lead list, it shows that the lead gave no real contact.
- anna@tempinbox.example on a form for a pricing guide.
- Typo domain
- A misspelling of a domain in an address, such as a swapped or missing letter. Mail to it bounces or reaches a domain set up to catch such mistakes. Verification and a list of common misspellings catch most of them.
- anna.berger@fabrikam.exmaple instead of anna.berger@fabrikam.example.
- Hard bounce
- A permanent delivery failure, usually because the address or the domain does not exist. The address must be removed at once and never mailed again. Repeated hard bounces tell mailbox providers that a list is old or bought.
- 550 5.1.1 User unknown.
- Soft bounce
- A temporary delivery failure, such as a full mailbox, a server that is down or a message that is too large. The sending system usually tries again. An address that soft-bounces again and again should be treated like a hard bounce.
- 452 4.2.2 Mailbox full.
- Bounce rate
- The share of sent emails that bounced. It is the clearest sign of list quality, and a high rate quickly damages sender reputation. A sudden rise means: stop sending and check the list.
- 9 bounces from 300 sent: 9 / 300 = 3%.
- Spam trap
- An address used by mailbox providers or blocklist operators to catch senders with poor list habits. Some never belonged to anyone; others are old, abandoned addresses turned into traps. Nobody signs up with a trap, so mailing one shows the list was not collected or cleaned properly.
- An address on a list bought in 2021 has been unused for years and now quietly reports every sender.
Deliverability
- Deliverability
- Whether outreach emails reach the inbox rather than the spam folder or nowhere. For cold outreach it depends on clean lists, authentication, sensible volumes and messages people want to answer. Problems are often invisible: the emails look sent, but nobody sees them.
- 300 sent, 291 delivered, but test mailboxes show about half of them landing in spam.
- Inbox placement test
- Sending a message to a set of test mailboxes at different providers to see whether it lands in the inbox, in spam or not at all. It shows problems that sending statistics cannot. It is only a sample, so results vary from test to test.
- 50 test mailboxes: 38 inbox, 10 spam, 2 missing.
- Sender reputation
- The trust mailbox providers place in your sending domain and IP address, based on how recipients reacted to your past mail. Bounces, complaints and spam traps lower it; replies and real engagement raise it. One careless send to a bad list can damage it for weeks.
- After 2,000 emails to an unverified list, even Fabrikam's emails to customers start landing in spam.
- Sending domain
- The domain in the From address of outreach emails. Many teams send outreach from a separate but clearly related domain, so problems do not harm the main domain used for customers and invoices. It still needs SPF, DKIM and DMARC and must make clear who is writing.
- Main domain contoso.example; outreach from contoso-mail.example, with its own SPF, DKIM and DMARC records.
- Sending mailbox
- One email account used to send outreach, in a real person's name. Spreading the volume over several mailboxes keeps each one at a sensible level. Each must accept replies: a no-reply address in outreach loses answers and looks careless.
- Tom and Priya each send from their own mailbox at contoso-mail.example.
- Warm-up
- Raising sending volume step by step on a new domain or mailbox, so mailbox providers can build trust in it. A large volume from a brand-new domain looks like spam. Warm-up builds a history; it cannot fix a bad list or an unwanted message.
- Week 1: 10 emails a day; week 2: 20; week 3: 30; then hold steady while bounces and complaints stay low.
- Daily sending limit
- The maximum number of emails a mailbox sends per day, set by the email provider or by the team. Staying well below the provider's maximum and spreading sends over the day looks more natural. The limit applies per mailbox, so volume is planned across mailboxes.
- 3 mailboxes × 40 emails a day = 120 emails a day for the team.
- Sending window
- The hours in which outreach emails go out, usually the recipient's working hours in their own time zone. An email that arrives at 3 am is buried under newer mail by morning. Spreading sends across the window also avoids sudden bursts.
- Monday to Thursday, 8 am to 5 pm in the recipient's time zone.
- SPF
- A DNS record listing the servers allowed to send email for your domain. Every outreach tool or service that sends in your name must be included, or its mail fails the check. SPF allows at most 10 DNS lookups, a limit that adding many tools can break.
- v=spf1 include:_spf.mailhost.example include:_spf.sendtool.example -all
- DKIM
- A digital signature on each email that proves it was sent with your domain's permission and was not changed. Each service that sends for you needs its own DKIM key set up for your domain. Without it, outreach mail is hard for mailbox providers to trust.
- DKIM-Signature: d=contoso-mail.example; s=out1
- DMARC
- A DNS record that ties SPF and DKIM to your visible From address and tells receivers what to do when both fail. Large mailbox providers require it from bulk senders, and its reports show every service sending in your name. A common path is to start with p=none, read the reports, then tighten.
- _dmarc.contoso-mail.example TXT "v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:dmarc@contoso.example"
- Spam complaint rate
- The share of delivered emails that recipients marked as spam. It is one of the strongest negative signals for mailbox providers. Gmail's sender guidelines ask senders to stay below 0.1% and never reach 0.3%, a level untargeted cold email can easily pass.
- 2 complaints from 400 delivered emails: 2 / 400 = 0.5%, far too high.
- Custom tracking domain
- Using your own subdomain for tracked links and open pixels instead of the tracking service's shared domain. A shared tracking domain carries the reputation of every sender who uses it. Leaving tracking off in first emails is another option.
- track.contoso-mail.example, set up as a CNAME to the tracking service.
- Plain-text email
- An email without layout, images or HTML formatting, like a message typed to a colleague. Outreach is often written this way because it reads as a personal message, not a newsletter. Plain text cannot carry an open-tracking pixel.
- Four short paragraphs, at most one link and a typed signature.
- Spam trigger words
- Words such as "free" or "guaranteed" that are said to send email to spam. Modern filters rarely decide on single words; they weigh reputation, authentication, engagement and the message as a whole. Pushy wording still hurts, because it makes people press "Report spam".
- "100% FREE!!! Act now" annoys readers more than it trips any filter.
Writing and sequences
- Cold email
- A first email to someone who has had no contact with you, written because they match your ICP and you have a reason to think it is relevant. It should be short, specific and easy to answer or decline. Whether you may send it depends on the recipient's country and on whether they are a consumer or a business.
- Four sentences to Fabrikam's head of operations about order errors after their new depot opened.
- Subject line
- The short line shown in the inbox before the email is opened. In outreach a plain, specific subject, like one a colleague would write, works better than a slogan. A misleading subject line breaks trust and, for commercial email in the US, the CAN-SPAM Act.
- "Order errors at the new Hamburg depot" instead of "Revolutionise your logistics!!!"
- Preview text
- The first words of the email, which many inboxes show next to or under the subject line. Readers see it before deciding to open, so the opening line does double work. In a plain-text email it is simply the start of the message.
- Subject "Order errors at the new depot", preview "Anna, congratulations on opening the Hamburg site..."
- Opening line
- The first sentence of the email, which decides whether the rest is read. A good one is about the reader and why you are writing now, not about you. "My name is..." wastes it, because your name is already in the From line.
- "I saw that Fabrikam opened a second depot in Hamburg last month."
- Personalisation
- Fitting a message to the recipient using what you know about them: their role, company, situation or a recent event. Good personalisation explains why you are writing to this person now. Inserting a first name is a merge field, not personalisation.
- "Since you take orders by email at both depots, the double typing might sound familiar."
- Merge field
- A placeholder in a template that is replaced with each recipient's data when the email is sent, such as {{first_name}} or {{company}}. It lets one template serve many people. An empty or wrong value is visible at once, so check the data first.
- "Hi {{first_name}}" becomes "Hi Anna".
- Fallback value
- The text used when a merge field is empty for a recipient. It stops emails going out as "Hi ," or with the placeholder still visible. When no fallback reads naturally, hold the email until the data is filled in.
- {{first_name|there}} gives "Hi there" when the first name is missing.
- Value proposition
- In outreach, one or two sentences on the result you can bring this reader, ideally with a number or a short example. It answers the reader's silent question: why should I care? It describes the outcome for the reader; a feature list describes the product.
- "We helped Tailspin Toys cut wrong deliveries from about 20 a month to 4."
- Call to action (CTA)
- The one thing the email asks the reader to do. In cold outreach a small ask, such as a question about interest, is easier to say yes to than a 60-minute demo. One clear CTA per email is easier to answer than several.
- "Worth a short call, or not a priority right now?"
- Sequence
- A planned series of outreach emails, sometimes with calls or messages, sent to one person over days or weeks until they reply. Each person leaves the sequence as soon as they answer or ask to stop. A sequence follows one person; a campaign is the whole send to a list.
- Email 1 on day 1, email 2 on day 4, email 3 on day 9, email 4 on day 16.
- Cadence
- The rhythm of a sequence: how many steps, through which channels and how many days apart. Too dense feels pushy; too sparse lets the reader forget you. Cadence is about timing; the sequence is the content.
- 4 emails and 1 call over 16 days.
- Follow-up
- A later message to someone who has not replied, usually sent in the same email thread so the earlier message is visible. Busy people often answer a reminder rather than the first email, but each follow-up should add something new. "Just bumping this" adds nothing.
- "Anna, one more thought: Litware solved this with a shared order form. Shall I send the example?"
- Breakup email
- The last email of a sequence, saying politely that you will stop writing. It respects the reader's time and makes a short "no thanks" easy. It must be genuine: do not write again the following week.
- "I'll stop writing about this. If order errors become a priority, just reply to this email."
- Multichannel outreach
- Reaching the same person through more than one channel, such as email, phone and a professional network. Each channel has its own rules and manners. It is not sending more of the same: each touch should fit its channel.
- An email on day 1, a call on day 5, a connection request with a short note on day 8.
- Email signature
- The block at the end of an email with name, role, company and contact details. In outreach it shows a real person and a real company behind the message. The law in some countries also requires company details or a postal address in business or marketing emails.
- Tom Fischer, Account Executive, Contoso Ltd, 1 Example Street, Hamburg.
Metrics
- Delivery rate
- The share of sent emails that the receiving servers accepted, that is, sent minus bounced. It says nothing about inbox or spam folder. A high delivery rate with very few replies can hide a deliverability problem.
- 300 sent, 9 bounced: 291 / 300 = 97% delivery rate.
- Open rate
- The share of delivered emails recorded as opened by a tracking pixel. Privacy features, image blocking and security scanners make it unreliable: it counts machine opens and misses real ones. Use it at most as a rough trend, never as proof that someone read your email.
- 291 delivered, 160 "opens", of which an unknown number were automatic.
- Apple Mail Privacy Protection (MPP)
- A privacy feature in Apple's Mail app, introduced in 2021, that loads email images through proxy servers whether or not the person reads the message. It triggers tracking pixels, so opens are recorded that never happened. It is a major reason open rates stopped being a useful outreach figure.
- A contact "opens" every email within a minute of sending, even at 3 am.
- Click rate
- The share of delivered emails in which a tracked link was clicked. Security scanners sometimes follow links automatically, which creates clicks nobody made. Many first outreach emails contain no link at all, so a click rate often means little there.
- 291 delivered, 6 clicks, 4 of them within seconds of delivery from the same scanner.
- Reply rate
- The share of delivered emails, or of contacted people, that got a reply. It is the most trustworthy outreach figure, as long as automatic replies such as out-of-office messages are left out. Teams must say which base they use, emails or people.
- 18 human replies from 291 delivered emails: 18 / 291 ≈ 6.2%.
- Positive reply rate
- The share of contacted people who replied with interest, for example by asking for details or agreeing to a call. It is closer to the purpose of outreach than the reply rate, which also counts "no thanks" and "remove me". The team must agree what counts as positive.
- 18 replies: 7 positive, 6 not now, 3 wrong person, 2 opt-outs. 7 / 291 ≈ 2.4%.
- Unsubscribe rate
- The share of delivered emails after which the recipient asked to stop. An opt-out is a normal outcome and far better than a spam complaint. A rising rate means the targeting or the message is off.
- 4 opt-outs from 291 delivered emails: 4 / 291 ≈ 1.4%.
- Meeting rate
- The share of contacted people who booked a meeting. It links outreach to sales results. A booked meeting is not yet a held one, so count no-shows separately.
- 300 contacted, 5 meetings booked: 5 / 300 ≈ 1.7%.
- Outreach funnel
- The steps from contacted to customer, each with its own rate: contacted, delivered, replied, positive, meeting, opportunity, won. It shows where a campaign loses most people. Fix the earliest weak step first, because every later step depends on it.
- 300 contacted → 291 delivered → 18 replies → 7 positive → 5 meetings → 3 opportunities → 1 customer.
- Cost per meeting
- The total cost of an outreach campaign divided by the number of meetings it produced. It makes campaigns and channels comparable. It should include staff time and data costs, not only software.
- (2,000 euros staff time + 400 euros data and tools) / 5 meetings = 480 euros per meeting.
- A/B test
- Sending two versions of a message that differ in one thing, such as the subject line, to two random groups and comparing the results. Change only one thing at a time, or you cannot tell what made the difference. Small groups give results that are often just chance.
- 150 contacts get subject A and 150 get subject B; they bring 9 and 11 replies.
- Statistical significance
- A check of whether a difference between two results is probably real or could easily come from chance. With small outreach groups, a difference of a few replies is usually not significant. A significant difference is not necessarily a large or important one.
- 9 against 11 replies, from 150 emails each, is far too small a difference to name a winner.
Compliance and consent
- GDPR
- The General Data Protection Regulation, the EU law on personal data, applied since May 2018; the UK has its own version, the UK GDPR. It matters for outreach because work emails with names are personal data. It sets the principles and legal bases; the rules on sending marketing emails come mainly from ePrivacy law.
- Contoso must follow the GDPR when it collects and stores Anna Berger's work email for outreach.
- Personal data
- Any information about an identified or identifiable living person. A work email such as anna.berger@fabrikam.example, a direct phone number, or a job title together with a name all count. Company facts such as industry or staff count are not personal data on their own.
- Personal: Anna Berger, head of purchasing. Not personal: Fabrikam, 180 staff, wholesale.
- Controller
- The organisation that decides why and how personal data is used, and is responsible for following the GDPR. In outreach it is usually the company doing the selling. A processor, such as an email sending service, handles the data only on the controller's instructions and under a written contract.
- Contoso is the controller of its lead list; the email service it uses is its processor.
- Legal basis
- One of the reasons listed in Article 6 GDPR that make using personal data lawful, such as consent, a contract or legitimate interests. Every use needs one, chosen before it starts. A legal basis under the GDPR does not replace the separate rules on marketing emails.
- Contoso's legal basis for researching and storing B2B contacts: legitimate interests.
- Legitimate interest
- A legal basis under Article 6(1)(f) GDPR: you may use personal data if you have a real interest, the use is necessary for it and the person's rights do not outweigh it. Recital 47 says direct marketing may be a legitimate interest. It must be weighed and documented, and people can object.
- Contoso writes to heads of purchasing about purchasing software, which they could reasonably expect.
- Legitimate interest assessment (LIA)
- A written check of whether you can rely on legitimate interests, as data protection authorities recommend. It has three parts: the purpose, whether the processing is necessary for it, and a balance against the person's interests and expectations. It records your reasoning in case anyone asks.
- Purpose: offer order software. Necessary: only role and work email. Balance: business role, relevant offer, easy opt-out.
- Consent
- Permission that is freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous, shown by a clear action such as ticking an empty box. It must be as easy to withdraw as to give. Under the GDPR, silence, pre-ticked boxes and inactivity are not consent.
- "Yes, send me Contoso's monthly tips by email", unticked until Anna ticks it, with a link to withdraw.
- Double opt-in
- Confirming a sign-up with a second step, usually a link in an email, before any marketing is sent to the address. It shows that the owner of the address really agreed. In Germany it is the usual way to be able to prove consent for newsletters.
- Anna signs up on the website, then clicks "Confirm" in the email that arrives a minute later.
- Right to object
- The right under Article 21 GDPR to object to the use of one's personal data. For direct marketing it is absolute: once someone objects, you must stop using their data for marketing, without debate. Keep only what you need to make sure you never contact them again.
- Anna replies "Please don't contact me again"; Contoso adds her to the suppression list the same day.
- Duty to inform
- The duty under Article 14 GDPR to tell people whose data you did not get from them who you are, why you use it, on what legal basis, where it came from and what their rights are. If you use the data to contact them, you must do so at the latest in the first message. A short note with a privacy link is common.
- "I found your address on fabrikam.example. How we handle your data: contoso.example/privacy."
- ePrivacy Directive
- The EU directive on privacy in electronic communications (2002/58/EC). Its Article 13 requires prior consent for marketing emails to individuals, with an exception for existing customers, and leaves the rules for businesses largely to each country. Each EU country writes it into its own law, so the rules differ.
- Germany implements the email rules in § 7 UWG; the UK did so in PECR.
- § 7 UWG (Germany)
- Section 7 of the German Act against Unfair Competition. It treats email advertising without prior express consent as an unreasonable nuisance, for consumers and businesses alike, with a narrow exception for existing customers. Sales calls need express consent from consumers, presumed consent from businesses.
- A cold sales email from Contoso to a Berlin firm, without the recipient's prior consent, would breach § 7 UWG.
- PECR (UK)
- The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, the UK rules on electronic marketing. Marketing emails to individuals, including sole traders and some partnerships, need consent or the soft opt-in. Emails to corporate subscribers need no consent, but must say who is sending and offer a way to opt out.
- Under PECR, Contoso may email the purchasing team at Fabrikam Ltd without consent, if UK GDPR rules are also met.
- Corporate subscriber
- A UK PECR term for a company, a limited liability partnership, a Scottish partnership or some government bodies. Corporate subscribers can be sent marketing emails without prior consent, but they may opt out. Sole traders and ordinary partnerships count as individual subscribers instead.
- Fabrikam Ltd is a corporate subscriber; Coho Winery, run by a sole trader, is not.
- Soft opt-in
- An exception that lets a business email people who gave their address when buying from it about its own similar products, without fresh consent. An opt-out must be offered when the address is collected and in every message. It exists in the EU ePrivacy rules and in UK PECR, with national differences.
- Fourth Coffee emails a customer who bought beans last month about a new blend, with an unsubscribe link.
- CAN-SPAM Act
- The US law on commercial email, which also covers business-to-business email. It does not require consent before sending, but requires honest headers and subject lines, a valid postal address, a clear way to opt out and honouring opt-outs within 10 business days. State laws and other rules can apply too.
- A US company's cold email shows its real name, a postal address and "Reply 'stop' and I won't write again".
- Opt-out
- A person's request to stop receiving messages, or the link or instruction that lets them make it. In outreach every email should make it easy, and any reply such as "stop" counts. An opt-out ends contact; a soft bounce or no reply does not.
- "If this isn't relevant, just reply 'no' and I won't write again."
- Suppression list
- A list of addresses and domains that must never be contacted again, such as people who opted out or objected, hard bounces and companies that asked not to be contacted. Every new list is checked against it before sending. It is kept even when other data is deleted, because it is how you keep that promise.
- Anna's address, plus the whole domain litware.example at Litware's request.
- Data retention
- How long personal data is kept before it is deleted. Under the GDPR's storage limitation principle, lead data must not be kept longer than needed for its purpose. Set a rule, for example deleting contacts who never replied after a fixed period, and follow it.
- Contoso deletes outreach contacts with no reply 12 months after the last email, except the suppression list.
Sales handover
- Handover
- Passing a lead from the person who did the outreach to the person who will run the sales conversation, with everything learned so far. A poor handover makes the buyer repeat themselves. It is planned in advance: who takes over, when and with what information.
- The SDR forwards Anna's reply with notes to the account executive, who books the call the same day.
- Reply category
- A label given to each reply so it is handled the right way, such as interested, not now, wrong person, objection, opt-out or auto-reply. Categories decide the next step and feed the metrics. Clear rules stop two people labelling the same reply differently.
- "Not before spring" → not now, follow up in March. "Remove me" → opt-out.
- Out-of-office reply
- An automatic reply saying the person is away. It is not a real reply and should not count in the metrics, but it often names a return date or a colleague to contact. A sensible step is to pause the sequence until the person is back.
- "Back on 14 November. For urgent orders contact lena.koch@fabrikam.example."
- Wrong-person reply
- A reply saying you have reached the wrong person, often with the name of the right one. It is a referral inside the company and deserves a thank-you. Write to the new person, mention who sent you and update both records.
- "I don't handle this, try our COO, Daniel Weber." → new contact, noted as referred by Anna Berger.
- Not-now reply
- A reply saying the topic matters, but not at the moment. It is not a no: note the reason and the time given, and follow up then. Writing again sooner than agreed turns a warm lead cold.
- "Ask me again after our busy season in January." → task for 15 January.
- Speed to lead
- The time between a lead showing interest, such as a positive reply or a form, and the first personal response. Interest fades quickly, so the answer should come fast. It is measured in minutes or hours, not days.
- Anna replies at 10:05; Tom answers with two time slots at 10:40.
- Show rate
- The share of booked meetings that actually take place. No-shows waste time and make results look better than they are. A reminder the day before and a clear agenda in the invitation help.
- 20 meetings booked, 16 held: 16 / 20 = 80% show rate.
- Handover note
- A short written summary that travels with a lead to its next owner: who the person is, what they replied, their problem, their timing and what was promised. It saves the buyer from repeating themselves. It is written for a colleague, not for the customer.
- "Anna Berger, head of purchasing. Second depot opened in October. Orders typed twice. Wants prices for 40 users. Call booked Thursday."
- Service level agreement (SLA)
- In sales and marketing, an agreement on who does what by when, for example "sales answers every positive reply within four working hours". It makes the handover measurable. The SLA sets the promise; speed to lead shows whether it was kept.
- Positive replies get a personal answer within 4 working hours; not-now replies get a task with a date.
- Lead nurturing
- Keeping in touch with leads who are not ready to buy, with useful content and occasional contact, until the timing fits. It suits not-now replies and early inbound leads, within the rules on marketing email. Nurturing builds a relationship over months; a sequence asks for a reply within weeks.
- Margie's Travel asked to stay informed, so Contoso sends a short case study every two months.
Using it in class
As a reference. Keep the glossary open while learners plan or review a campaign, for example with the cold email anatomy guide or the outreach metrics exercise. When someone says "the email was delivered, so it arrived", ask them to look up delivery rate and inbox placement test and explain the difference.
As flashcards. Each section works as its own deck. A good order for a course is the order of a campaign: lead sources, data and enrichment, email verification, deliverability, then writing and sequences, metrics, compliance and consent, and sales handover. Cards marked "Not yet" come back in a second round.
For a vocabulary test. Pick ten terms from two sections and use three kinds of question:
Give the definition, learners write the term.
Give a short situation, learners name the term and the next step. For example: "A reply says: I'm away until Monday." (An out-of-office reply: do not count it, pause the sequence.)
Give a pair from the table below, learners explain the difference in one sentence.
Mark one point for the meaning and one for a correct example or difference.
Often mixed up | The difference in one line |
|---|---|
Account list and contact list | One lists companies, the other people at those companies. |
Data enrichment and email verification | Enrichment adds data; verification checks it. |
Hard bounce and soft bounce | A hard bounce is permanent; a soft bounce is temporary. |
Delivery rate and inbox placement | Delivered means accepted by a server; inbox placement says where it landed. |
Reply rate and positive reply rate | Every human reply counts for the first; only interested ones for the second. |
Merge field and personalisation | A merge field inserts data; personalisation gives a reason to write to this person. |
Consent and legitimate interest | Consent is the person's active permission; legitimate interest is your weighed reason, which they can object to. |
Opt-out and suppression list | The opt-out is the request; the suppression list is how you keep it. |
Referral and warm introduction | A referral gives you a name; a warm introduction makes the contact for you. |
A note on the law
The compliance terms are an overview for teaching, not legal advice. The rules differ between countries and change over time, and whether an email is allowed depends on the recipient's country, whether they are a consumer or a business, and how their data was obtained. The official texts are the GDPR and the ePrivacy Directive on EUR-Lex, § 7 UWG for Germany, the ICO guide to PECR for the UK and the FTC's CAN-SPAM guide for the US. The complaint rate thresholds come from Google's email sender guidelines, which can change.
Related resources
Where B2B leads come from: the lead sources section in depth.
Email verification explained and Email bounces exercise: what the checks and bounce codes mean.
Sender reputation and warm-up: how mailbox providers decide whom to trust.
Cold email and the law and the outreach compliance checklist: the rules applied to a real campaign plan.
Sales and CRM glossary: what happens after the handover.