Glossary
Outbound Sales Glossary: 40 B2B Terms, With Israeli Notes
B2B sales in Israel run in a mixed language. One sentence jumps from Hebrew to English to acronyms, and anyone new to the field, or hiring a first SDR, hears words no dictionary explains.
The harder problem is terms everyone uses and each person reads differently. To one person a "lead" is a name and a phone number, and to another it's a manager who already asked for a quote. That's how arguments start over how many leads a campaign brought.
I wrote the definitions the way we use them at LeadBound. Where the market has more than one version, I say so.
Basic terms: what are B2B, a lead and prospecting?
B2B (Business to Business)
B2B is selling a product or service from one business to another, as opposed to B2C, selling to private consumers. In B2B the decision usually passes through several people, deals are bigger and the sales process is longer.
Outbound
Outbound is selling where the company makes the first contact with potential customers it picked, by email, LinkedIn or phone. Its opposite is inbound, where the customer arrives through the website, an ad or a referral. In Hebrew the formal term is pniya yezuma ("initiated approach"), but most Israeli teams just say "outbound". The full comparison is in what is outbound.
Lead
A lead is a person at a company that fits your customer profile, with whom you can open a sales conversation. A cold lead hasn't heard of you yet, and a warm lead has shown interest, for example by replying or asking for details. More in B2B lead generation in Israel.
Lead generation
Lead generation is everything a business does to reach new people who fit it and open a conversation: ads, content, events, referrals and outbound. In B2B it's measured in meetings with decision-makers, because the number of names collected says little. See how to get B2B clients.
Prospecting
Prospecting is finding potential customers, checking that they fit and contacting them first. In practice it's list building, short research on each company and outreach, and it fills most of an SDR's or BDR's day.
Audience and data: ICP, persona and signals
ICP (Ideal Customer Profile)
The ICP describes the type of company you most want to sell to: industry, size, region, and sometimes growth stage or the technology it uses. A good ICP is narrow enough to build a list from, and it's based on the best customers you already have.
Persona
A persona is the person inside an ICP company you contact: their role, what bothers them and what they need to hear to say yes. One ICP usually has several personas, such as the VP of Operations who lives with the problem and the CEO who approves the spend.
TAM (Total Addressable Market)
TAM is the total size of the market you can sell to. In outbound you actually count it, as the number of companies and people that match the ICP. In many Israeli markets that number is small enough to run out, so you don't burn it on weak messages.
Signal
A signal is a visible fact suggesting a company needs what you sell right now: open roles, a funding round, a new product, entry into a new market or a new executive in the role. A message built on a signal answers "why are you writing to me now" before anyone asks. More in signal-based selling and the hiring signal campaign.
Intent data
Intent data is signs that a company or person is looking for a solution in your category right now, such as reading content on the topic, comparing vendors or visiting your pricing page. A signal shows the need exists, and intent data shows someone is already shopping.
Lists and verification: what do you check before sending?
Enrichment
Enrichment fills in missing data on each row of a list: work email, title, company size, phone or LinkedIn profile. Verification comes next: checking that every address exists and accepts mail, without sending anything.
Bounce
A bounce is an email that came back to the sender without reaching the inbox. A hard bounce means the address doesn't exist, and a soft bounce is a temporary failure, like a full inbox. A high bounce rate hurts the sending domain's reputation, so our target is under 2%.
Catch-all
A catch-all domain is one whose server accepts mail for any address, even one that doesn't exist. Verification tools can't confirm an address on such a domain, so it stays a question mark: some addresses will reach the inbox, and some will bounce or vanish.
MX record
An MX record is a DNS record that sets which mail server receives a domain's email. From it you can tell, for free, whether the recipient uses Google, Microsoft or a security gateway, and plan the campaign accordingly.
Cold email and deliverability: the infrastructure terms
Cold email
A cold email is a first email to someone you had no previous contact with, sent because they fit your customer profile. In Israel it has a legal side: section 30A of the Communications Law, known as the spam law, prohibits sending advertising by email without prior consent, with some exceptions. Details in cold email and Israel's spam law, with examples in cold email templates.
Deliverability
Deliverability is an email's ability to reach the recipient's primary inbox instead of spam. It depends on the domain's authentication records, its reputation, the bounce rate and how recipients respond to your emails. More in why emails go to spam.
SPF (Sender Policy Framework)
SPF is a DNS record listing which servers may send email on behalf of your domain. Mail from a server that isn't on the list looks suspicious to the receiving server.
DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail)
DKIM is a digital signature attached to every outgoing email. The receiving server checks it to confirm the email came from your domain and nobody changed it on the way.
DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance)
DMARC is a DNS record that tells receiving servers what to do with mail that fails SPF and DKIM checks, and sends you reports on what happened. Under Google's sender guidelines, since February 1, 2024 anyone sending more than 5,000 emails a day to personal Gmail accounts must set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC.
Warm-up
Warm-up is a period in which a new inbox sends and receives a small, gradually rising volume of email, to build reputation before real sending. Ours lasts 14 days before a single message goes out. More in domain warm-up.
Secondary domain
A secondary domain is a separate domain, usually with a name close to the company's, used only for cold email. If its reputation suffers, the main domain and the company's everyday email stay safe. Each of our setups includes 100 warmed Outlook and Google Workspace inboxes on secondary domains.
Spintax
Spintax means writing several versions of the same part of a message, in a syntax like {Hi|Hello|Good morning}, so each recipient gets a slightly different combination. The goal is that no two recipients get identical text, and every version should sound like something you'd write yourself.
LinkedIn terms for sales
Connection request
A connection request is an invitation to connect with someone on LinkedIn, with or without a short note. Once it's accepted you can send regular messages, and every profile has a weekly limit on requests (LinkedIn limits). What to write in one: LinkedIn sales messages.
InMail
InMail is a LinkedIn message to someone you aren't connected with. You send it with credits that come with paid plans such as Sales Navigator, and the number of credits per month is limited.
Sales Navigator
Sales Navigator is LinkedIn's paid product for salespeople. It adds advanced search filters, such as title, company size and time in role, plus saved lead lists, alerts on changes at those leads, and InMail credits.
Acceptance rate
Acceptance rate is the share of connection requests that get accepted. In Expandi's benchmark report from May 2026, covering more than 13 million connection requests, the global average across their data was 28.5%.
Roles: what are an SDR, a BDR and an AE?
SDR (Sales Development Representative)
An SDR owns the start of the sale: first contact, qualifying who fits and booking a meeting for the person who closes. In many companies the SDR mainly handles inbound leads, and in others it's the name for anyone who prospects. When to outsource the role: outsourced vs in-house SDRs.
BDR (Business Development Representative)
A BDR focuses on proactive outreach to new customers, ones who haven't heard of the company yet. The line between SDR and BDR varies from company to company, and on a small team it's usually the same person.
AE (Account Executive)
An AE takes the meeting from the SDR or BDR, runs the sales process and closes the deal. AEs are measured on closed deals and revenue.
RevOps (Revenue Operations)
RevOps is the role, or team, that owns the revenue infrastructure: the CRM, tools, data and processes connecting marketing, sales and customer success. The goal is that no lead gets lost in a handoff between teams.
The four roles side by side:
| Role | Where in the process | Measured mainly on |
|---|---|---|
| SDR | First contact and qualifying, often of inbound leads too | Meetings booked |
| BDR | Proactive outreach to new customers | Meetings booked and new pipeline |
| AE | From the first meeting to the signature | Closed deals and revenue |
| RevOps | The systems and data behind every stage | Clean data and a process that doesn't leak |
Pipeline and metrics: from reply to deal
MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead)
An MQL is a lead that marketing has flagged as a fit and interested, based on activity such as downloading a document, signing up for a webinar or several site visits. At this stage they haven't spoken with anyone in sales.
SQL (Sales Qualified Lead)
An SQL is a lead that sales has checked and approved: it fits the ICP, has a real need and has a reasonable chance of becoming a deal. In many companies the move from MQL to SQL happens on the first call with an SDR.
Meeting booked
A booked meeting is a conversation with a potential customer that's in the calendar, with a date, a time and the person who decides. Outbound services are usually measured by this number, so agree up front on what counts as a meeting.
Show rate
Show rate is the share of booked meetings that actually happened: meetings held divided by meetings booked. A meeting nobody attended moves nothing forward, so track it separately. How to raise it: sales meetings and show rate.
Pipeline
The pipeline is all your open deals, arranged by stage, from the first meeting to the signature. Pipeline value is the sum of those deals, sometimes weighted by each deal's chance of closing.
CRM (Customer Relationship Management)
A CRM is the system where you manage leads, contacts, deals and the history of every conversation, such as HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive or monday.com. An outbound campaign synced to the CRM logs every reply and meeting there, so nobody copies anything by hand.
Sequence
A sequence is a series of messages sent to the same person on a schedule, until they reply or the sequence ends. In a good sequence every step brings a new angle, and a reply automatically stops the next steps. In Israel, plan it around the local calendar: the work week starts on Sunday, and "let's talk after the holidays" is a real answer to log and come back to.
Follow-up
A follow-up is a message to someone who didn't answer the previous one. In Instantly's 2026 benchmark report, 42% of cold email replies came from the follow-up steps, after the first email.
A/B test
An A/B test sends two versions in parallel to two similar groups, with one difference between them, to see which gets more replies. Test one thing at a time and give each version enough recipients. The thing most worth testing is usually the offer.
Reply rate
Reply rate is the share of people who got a message and answered it, not counting auto-replies. In the campaigns we run it ranges from 8% to 25% on email and from 20% to 45% on LinkedIn. More in reply rate benchmarks.
How do the terms connect in one campaign?
Almost every term here is a stage on one road, from the whole market to a deal in the CRM:
- Start from the TAM, narrow it to the ICP, and choose a persona inside it.
- Look for a signal or intent data that says who needs you now.
- Build a list, enrich it and verify every address, deciding what to do with catch-all domains.
- Prepare infrastructure: secondary domains, SPF, DKIM and DMARC, and warm-up for the inboxes.
- Send an email sequence and LinkedIn connection requests in parallel, following up with whoever didn't answer.
- Measure the reply rate, sort the answers, and move each SQL to a meeting.
- A meeting that happened enters the pipeline as an open deal, and every stage is logged in the CRM.
If I had to pick one term to learn in depth, I'd pick the ICP. Almost every later mistake, from a list that's too broad to a meeting with someone who can't buy, starts there.
Frequently asked questions
What is B2B?
B2B is selling from one business to another, as opposed to B2C, selling to private consumers. Several people usually weigh in, and the sale takes longer. So reaching customers differs too: fewer broad ads, more personal outreach to the people who decide.
What is a lead?
A lead is a person who fits your customer profile and with whom you can open a sales conversation. In B2B it's usually someone who influences the decision at a fitting company, with an address that reaches them directly. A lead who replied with interest is warm, and once sales qualifies them, an SQL.
What is the difference between an ICP and a persona?
The ICP describes a company: industry, size, region and growth stage. A persona describes a person inside that company: their role, what bothers them and what will convince them. Define the ICP first, and only then choose whom inside it to contact.
What is the difference between an SDR and a BDR?
Both roles own the start of the sale, up to the meeting. In companies that separate them, the SDR mainly handles inbound leads and the BDR does proactive outreach to new customers. In many companies, especially small ones, it's the same role under two names.
What is lead generation?
Lead generation is everything that brings new, fitting people into a sales conversation: ads, content, events, referrals and outbound. In B2B, measure it in meetings with decision-makers.
What is prospecting?
Prospecting is finding potential customers and making first contact, before they've heard of you. It covers building a list by ICP, short research on each company and outreach by email, LinkedIn or phone.