Activation
The moment a new user or customer first gets the value they signed up for. In SaaS it is the step that best predicts whether a trial converts, so it is defined in product terms and measured weekly.
Glossary
Glossary of the terms that move budget.
Plain-English definitions of the revenue terms that decide budget: CAC payback, pipeline coverage, MQL and SQL, attribution and more.
A–Z
Marketing and revenue terms
A
Annual contract value (ACV)
The average yearly value of a contract, excluding one-off fees. ACV decides how much you can afford to spend acquiring a customer and which channels make sense at all.
Annual recurring revenue (ARR)
Recurring revenue normalised to a year: monthly recurring revenue times twelve. It is the headline number for SaaS growth and the base most marketing targets are set from.
Attribution
How credit for a deal is shared between the touches that led to it. The model you choose (first touch, last touch or multi-touch) decides which channels look profitable, so agree it before you set budgets.
B
Buying committee
The group of people who approve a B2B purchase: user, budget holder, technical evaluator and sign-off. Marketing that reaches only one of them stalls deals later.
C
CAC (customer acquisition cost)
Total sales and marketing cost in a period divided by the number of new customers won in it. Include salaries and tools, not just ad spend, or the number flatters the channel.
CAC payback period
How many months of gross margin from a new customer it takes to recover what it cost to acquire them. Under twelve months is healthy for most B2B SaaS; over twenty-four needs a reason.
Churn
The share of customers or revenue lost in a period. Revenue churn matters more than logo churn: losing one large account can outweigh ten small wins.
Close rate
The share of opportunities that become customers. Track it by source: a channel with cheap leads and a poor close rate is usually the most expensive one.
Cohort
A group of customers or leads that started in the same period. Comparing cohorts shows whether retention and conversion are improving, which blended averages hide.
Conversion rate
The share of people who move from one funnel stage to the next. Always state both stages (visit to lead, lead to opportunity) or the number means nothing.
Conversion tracking
Recording which actions count as success (a form, a booked call, a trial) and sending them to your ad platforms and analytics. Without it, bidding optimises for clicks.
CRM (customer relationship management)
The system of record for contacts, companies and deals, such as HubSpot or Salesforce. If the CRM is wrong, every report built on it is wrong.
D
Demand generation
Creating and capturing buying intent so it turns into qualified pipeline. It covers positioning, channels, conversion and the handoff to sales, and it is measured in pipeline rather than leads.
E
Expansion revenue
New revenue from existing customers through upgrades, more seats or cross-sell. It is usually the cheapest growth available once the core product is retaining well.
F
First-party data
Data you collect directly from your own visitors and customers, with their consent. It is the reliable base for targeting and measurement as third-party cookies disappear.
Forecast
An evidence-based projection of revenue for the coming periods, built from pipeline, stage conversion and timing. A forecast the board trusts is the point of the whole revenue system.
Funnel
The stages a buyer passes through from first contact to customer. Useful only when each stage has a definition sales and marketing share, and a conversion rate you track.
G
GA4 (Google Analytics 4)
Google's event-based analytics platform. Configure key events and link it to Google Ads and your CRM, or it reports traffic without telling you what it is worth.
Google Tag Manager
A container for analytics and advertising tags, so they can be changed without a code release. It needs a consent setup and an owner, or it fills with tags nobody can explain.
I
ICP (ideal customer profile)
The type of company that buys fastest, stays longest and pays the most, described in firmographic and situational terms. Targeting, messaging and lead scoring all start from it.
L
Lead scoring
Ranking leads by fit and intent so sales works the best ones first. It only helps when the scores are checked against what actually closed.
Lifecycle stage
Where a contact is in the buying process: subscriber, lead, MQL, SQL, opportunity, customer. In HubSpot it is a single field that marketing and sales must agree on.
Lifetime value (LTV)
The gross margin a customer generates over the whole relationship. Compared with CAC, it shows whether growth is creating value or buying revenue at a loss.
LTV to CAC ratio
Lifetime value divided by acquisition cost. Around three to one is a common target; much higher can mean you are under-investing in growth.
M
Marketing qualified lead (MQL)
A lead that meets an agreed fit and intent threshold and is ready for sales follow-up. If sales rejects most MQLs, the definition is wrong, not the sales team.
Monthly recurring revenue (MRR)
Predictable revenue billed each month from subscriptions. Tracking new, expansion and churned MRR separately shows where growth is really coming from.
N
Negative keyword
A search term you exclude so your ads do not show for it. In B2B paid search, the negative list often saves more budget than any bid change.
Net revenue retention (NRR)
Revenue kept from existing customers over a year, including expansion and churn. Above 100% means the customer base grows on its own.
O
Offline conversion import
Sending CRM outcomes (qualified opportunity, closed deal) back to Google Ads or LinkedIn so bidding optimises for revenue rather than form fills.
Opportunity
A deal sales has qualified and is actively working, with a value and an expected close date. Opportunities, not leads, are the unit of pipeline.
P
Performance Max
Google's automated campaign type that runs across Search, YouTube, Display and more from one budget. It needs strong conversion signals; fed form fills, it finds more form fills.
Pipeline
The total value of open opportunities expected to close in a period. Qualified pipeline, not lead volume, is the number marketing should be held to.
Pipeline coverage
Open pipeline divided by the revenue target for the period. Three times coverage is a common rule of thumb; the right number comes from your own close rate.
Pipeline velocity
How quickly pipeline turns into revenue: number of opportunities times win rate times deal size, divided by cycle length. Improve any one term and revenue moves.
Positioning
Who you are for, what you replace and why you win. Most acquisition cost problems are positioning problems that show up in the ad account.
Product-qualified lead (PQL)
A trial or free user whose product usage signals buying intent. For product-led SaaS it is often a better sales trigger than an MQL.
Q
Quality Score
Google Ads' rating of keyword, ad and landing page relevance. A higher score lowers cost per click; it improves with tighter ad groups and pages that match the search.
R
Retargeting
Showing ads to people who have already visited your site or engaged with you. It works best with clear audiences and frequency caps, and it needs consent.
S
Sales cycle
The time from opportunity creation to closed deal. It sets how long a channel needs before you can judge it.
Sales handoff
The agreed moment and method for passing a lead from marketing to sales, usually with a response-time commitment. Most lost pipeline leaks here.
Sales qualified lead (SQL)
A lead sales has accepted and confirmed is worth pursuing. The MQL-to-SQL rate is the clearest test of whether marketing and sales agree on quality.
Search intent
What a searcher is trying to do: learn, compare or buy. Pages and ads that match intent convert; pages that chase volume do not.
Speed to lead
The time between a lead's enquiry and the first meaningful reply. Minutes, not days, decide whether the lead is still interested.
T
Trial-to-paid conversion
The share of free trials that become paying customers. Activation, onboarding and pricing usually move it more than adding more trials.
U
UTM parameters
Tags added to a link (source, medium, campaign) so analytics and the CRM can tell where a visit came from. Agree a naming convention, or the reports fragment.
W
Win rate
The share of qualified opportunities won. Unlike close rate it ignores early disqualification, so it shows how well you compete once a real deal is on the table.
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