SaaS moves fast, and with it comes an ever-growing vocabulary of acronyms, metrics, and methodologies. Whether you’re a founder building your first go-to-market team, a new hire trying to decode meeting conversations, or a seasoned operator looking for a quick reference, this glossary has you covered.
We’ve organised every term by function: Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success, so you can jump straight to the terms that matter most for your role. Some terms naturally span multiple functions (like ARR or CAC), but we’ve placed each where it’s most frequently used in day-to-day operations.
Bookmark this page. Share it with your team. And never nod along to an acronym you don’t understand again.
Marketing
Marketing is the engine that generates awareness, demand, and qualified pipeline for your sales team. These are the terms that every SaaS marketer and anyone collaborating with them should know.
ABM – Account-Based Marketing
A targeted growth strategy that aligns an organisation’s entire go-to-market team around winning and growing a specific set of high-value accounts. Instead of casting a wide net with broad campaigns, ABM focuses resources on a defined list of accounts with personalised messaging and multi-channel outreach. It requires tight alignment between marketing and sales to be effective.
BOFU – Bottom of Funnel
The final stage of the marketing funnel where prospects are evaluating solutions and making purchase decisions. Content at this stage includes case studies, product comparisons, ROI calculators, and free trials. BOFU leads are the closest to converting into paying customers and are typically handed to sales for closing.
Bounce Rate
The percentage of visitors who land on a page and leave without taking any further action, such as clicking a link or filling out a form. A high bounce rate can indicate poor content relevance, slow page load times, or a mismatch between the ad or search result and the landing page content.
Brand Awareness
The degree to which potential customers recognise and recall your brand. In SaaS, brand awareness is critical for standing out in crowded categories. It’s typically built through content marketing, paid advertising, PR, events, and community involvement. While harder to measure directly than performance marketing, strong brand awareness reduces CAC over time.
CAC – Customer Acquisition Cost
The total cost associated with winning a new customer, including all marketing and sales expenses divided by the number of new customers acquired in a given period. For example, if you spend $100,000 on marketing and sales in a quarter and acquire 50 customers, your CAC is $2,000. Monitoring CAC is essential for evaluating the efficiency of your growth engine and ensuring unit economics are sustainable.
Content Marketing
A strategic approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant content to attract and engage a defined audience. In SaaS, this typically includes blog posts, whitepapers, webinars, podcasts, and video content. The goal is to build trust and authority, generate inbound leads, and nurture prospects through the buyer journey.
Conversion Rate
The percentage of visitors or leads who complete a desired action, such as signing up for a free trial, requesting a demo, or making a purchase. Conversion rate is a fundamental metric for evaluating the effectiveness of landing pages, email campaigns, and the overall marketing funnel.
CRO – Conversion Rate Optimisation
The systematic process of increasing the percentage of website visitors who take a desired action. CRO involves A/B testing, user behaviour analysis, heatmaps, and iterative design changes to improve the performance of landing pages, forms, and calls-to-action.
CTA – Call to Action
A prompt that encourages a user to take a specific next step, such as “Start Free Trial,” “Book a Demo,” or “Download the Guide.” CTAs are used across every marketing channel and are critical for guiding prospects through the funnel.
Demand Generation
The process of creating awareness and interest in a product through targeted marketing activities. Unlike lead generation, which focuses on capturing contact information, demand generation is broader and encompasses brand building, content marketing, events, partnerships, and paid advertising to create a pipeline of engaged prospects.
Freemium
A pricing model that offers a basic version of a product for free, with premium features available behind a paywall. Freemium is a powerful acquisition strategy in SaaS because it lowers the barrier to entry and allows users to experience value before committing financially. The key challenge is converting free users to paid plans.
Free Trial Conversion Rate
The percentage of users who sign up for a free trial and subsequently convert into paying customers. This metric is critical for product-led growth companies and is influenced by onboarding quality, time-to-value, and the overall trial experience.
GTM – Go-to-Market
A comprehensive plan for how a company will bring its product to market and acquire customers. GTM encompasses the coordination of sales, marketing, product, and distribution efforts to maximise visibility, generate leads, and convert them into paying customers. A strong GTM strategy defines your ICP, messaging, channels, pricing, and competitive positioning.
ICP – Ideal Customer Profile
A detailed description of the type of company that gets the most value from your product. An ICP includes firmographic data such as industry, company size, revenue, technology stack, and buying behaviour. It helps focus marketing and sales efforts on the accounts most likely to convert, retain, and expand.
Inbound Marketing
A methodology that attracts customers through valuable content and experiences tailored to them, rather than interrupting them with outbound messages. Inbound tactics include SEO, blogging, social media, and email nurturing. The goal is for prospects to come to you when they’re ready to buy.
Landing Page
A standalone web page designed specifically for a marketing or advertising campaign. Visitors arrive at a landing page after clicking on an ad, email link, or search result. Landing pages are optimised for a single conversion goal, such as capturing a lead or driving a sign-up.
Lead Scoring
A methodology for ranking leads based on their perceived value to the organisation. Scores are typically assigned based on demographic fit (job title, company size) and behavioural signals (website visits, content downloads, email engagement). Lead scoring helps marketing and sales prioritise the leads most likely to convert.
LTV (or CLV) – Customer Lifetime Value
An estimate of the total revenue that an account will generate throughout their entire relationship with your company. LTV helps determine how much you can afford to spend on acquiring a customer (CAC) while remaining profitable. A healthy SaaS business typically targets an LTV:CAC ratio of at least 3:1.
Marketing Automation
The use of software to automate repetitive marketing tasks such as email campaigns, social media posting, lead nurturing workflows, and ad management. Marketing automation platforms like HubSpot, Marketo, and Pardot help teams scale their efforts while maintaining personalisation.
MOFU – Middle of Funnel
The stage of the marketing funnel where prospects have shown interest and are evaluating options. MOFU content is designed to educate and nurture, including webinars, comparison guides, and detailed case studies. The goal is to move prospects closer to a buying decision.
MQL – Marketing Qualified Lead
A lead that has been deemed more likely to become a customer compared to other leads, based on their engagement with marketing content and fit with the ICP. MQLs are typically passed to the sales team (often to MDRs or SDRs) for further qualification and outreach.
NPS – Net Promoter Score
A metric that measures customer loyalty by asking how likely a customer is to recommend your product on a scale of 0–10. Respondents are grouped into Promoters (9–10), Passives (7–8), and Detractors (0–6). NPS is calculated by subtracting the percentage of Detractors from Promoters. While often owned by Customer Success, NPS data is heavily used in marketing for social proof and messaging.
PPC – Pay-Per-Click
An advertising model where the advertiser pays each time a user clicks on their ad. Google Ads and LinkedIn Ads are the most common PPC platforms for SaaS companies. PPC allows for precise targeting and measurable ROI, but costs can escalate quickly in competitive categories.
Product-Led Growth (PLG)
A go-to-market strategy where the product itself is the primary driver of acquisition, activation, and expansion. In PLG companies, users can sign up, experience value, and convert to paid plans with minimal or no interaction with a sales rep. Examples include Slack, Zoom, and Notion. PLG relies heavily on freemium models, free trials, and excellent onboarding.
Retargeting (Remarketing)
A form of online advertising that targets users who have previously visited your website or interacted with your brand but did not convert. Retargeting keeps your product top-of-mind and encourages return visits. It’s particularly effective in SaaS where buying cycles can be long.
ROI – Return on Investment
A measure of the profitability of an investment. In marketing, ROI assesses the return generated from campaigns compared to the costs invested. It’s calculated as (Revenue – Cost) / Cost × 100. ROI is the ultimate metric for justifying marketing spend and guiding budget allocation.
SEM – Search Engine Marketing
The practice of marketing a business through paid advertisements that appear on search engine results pages. SEM is broader than PPC and can include both paid search and organic search engine optimisation (SEO) strategies, though it most commonly refers to paid search.
SEO – Search Engine Optimisation
The practice of optimising your website and content to rank higher in organic search engine results. For SaaS companies, SEO is a long-term investment that compounds over time, driving sustained inbound traffic and reducing dependence on paid channels.
TOFU – Top of Funnel
The earliest stage of the marketing funnel, focused on generating awareness among a broad audience. TOFU content is educational and non-promotional, including blog posts, infographics, social media content, and industry reports. The goal is to attract potential buyers into your ecosystem.
Viral Coefficient
A metric that measures how many new users each existing user brings in. A viral coefficient greater than 1 means the product is growing exponentially through word-of-mouth. While true virality is rare, many SaaS products build viral loops through sharing features, referral programmes, and collaborative workflows.
Sales
Sales is where pipeline turns into revenue. From prospecting to closing, these terms define the roles, processes, and metrics that drive a SaaS sales organisation.
ACV – Annual Contract Value / Average Contract Value
The annualised revenue per customer contract, excluding one-time fees. ACV is used to segment deals (e.g., SMB vs. enterprise), set quotas, and benchmark sales performance. For multi-year contracts, ACV normalises the total contract value to a yearly figure for easier comparison.
ADR – Account Development Rep
A highly specialised sales development role focused on account-based prospecting. While an SDR targets a single role across thousands of accounts, an ADR targets multiple stakeholders within a small set of high-value accounts. ADRs are the most senior of the sales development roles and must have deep knowledge of use cases and the ability to engage executives with provocative sales techniques.
AE – Account Executive
The primary revenue-generating role in a SaaS sales organisation. AEs typically work a named list of 20 to 300 accounts, using a combination of provocative and solution-based selling to start conversations, conduct discovery, and close deals. Sales cycles can range from three weeks to nine months depending on deal complexity and the buying process.
ARR – Annual Recurring Revenue
The value of all recurring subscription revenue normalised to a one-year period. ARR is the north star metric for most SaaS businesses, used for forecasting, valuation, and tracking growth. It includes new subscriptions, expansions, and renewals, minus churned revenue.
BANT
A sales qualification framework that stands for Budget, Authority, Need, and Timing. BANT helps sales reps quickly assess whether a prospect is worth pursuing by determining if they have the budget to buy, the authority to make the decision, a genuine need for the product, and a timeline for implementation.
BDR – Business Development Rep
A sales role responsible for prospecting and qualifying outbound leads. BDRs generate pipeline by making cold calls, sending outreach emails, and engaging prospects on social channels. They bridge the gap between marketing efforts and sales execution by passing qualified opportunities to AEs.
Champion
An internal advocate within the prospect’s organisation who believes in your product and actively promotes it to other stakeholders. Identifying and enabling a champion is one of the most critical aspects of enterprise sales, as they help navigate internal politics, build consensus, and push deals forward.
Closed-Won / Closed-Lost
The final stages of a sales opportunity in a CRM. Closed-Won means the deal was successfully signed. Closed-Lost means the prospect chose not to proceed. Tracking the reasons behind Closed-Lost deals provides invaluable insight for improving sales process, messaging, and product-market fit.
CRM – Customer Relationship Management
A system used to manage a company’s interactions with current and potential customers. In SaaS sales, CRMs like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Pipedrive are the backbone of pipeline management, tracking every interaction from first touch to closed deal and beyond.
Deal Desk
A cross-functional team or process that supports sales reps in structuring, pricing, and approving complex deals. A deal desk typically involves representatives from sales, finance, and legal. It ensures pricing consistency, accelerates approvals, and helps reps close high-value deals faster.
Disco/Demo
A common term referring to the combining of a discovery call and a product demonstration into a single meeting. This approach is often used when buyers want to quickly evaluate functionality and suitability. It contrasts with traditional enterprise sales, where discovery and demonstration are separate steps to advance the process methodically.
Discovery Call
A consultative conversation between a sales rep and a prospect, focused on understanding the prospect’s pain points, goals, current tools, decision-making process, and timeline. A strong discovery call is the foundation of any effective sales process it determines whether the opportunity is real and how to position the solution.
Enterprise Sales
The process of selling to large organisations, typically involving multiple stakeholders, longer sales cycles (6–18 months), higher deal values, and complex procurement processes. Enterprise deals often require custom proposals, security reviews, legal negotiations, and executive buy-in.
Guided Selling
The use of real-time data and analytics to recommend the best next action for a sales rep at any given moment. Guided selling draws from engineering principles like A/B testing, applied to the sales process to surface the actions with the highest probability of a successful outcome.
Inside Sales
A group of remote sellers working from a centralised office, using online selling and remote selling techniques to engage customers in other locations. Inside sales teams learn faster than field sales teams because they share best practices in real-time and have greater visibility into each other’s calls and strategies.
ISR – Inside Sales Rep
A role that combines inbound lead management and closing. ISRs are typically found in high-velocity sales environments where customers can demo the product themselves via a free trial and then contact the ISR with intent to buy. An ISR can manage up to a hundred customer interactions per day, focusing on addressing concerns, providing pricing, and securing commitment.
Land and Expand
A sales strategy where you start with a small initial deal (the “land”) and then grow revenue within that account over time through upselling, cross-selling, and adding users or departments (the “expand”). This approach reduces the initial barrier to entry and relies heavily on strong customer success to demonstrate value and drive expansion.
MDR – Market Development Rep
A role focused on generating sales qualified leads from inbound marketing qualified leads, such as following up on demo requests, form submissions, or event registrations like webinars and trade shows. MDRs are most common in inbound-heavy businesses and typically report into Marketing.
MRR – Monthly Recurring Revenue
The predictable, recurring revenue generated from subscriptions each month. MRR is calculated by multiplying the number of active subscribers by the average revenue per subscriber. It’s a critical metric for tracking short-term revenue trends, identifying growth or contraction, and making operational decisions.
Objection Handling
The process of addressing concerns or pushback from a prospect during the sales process. Common objections in SaaS include price, timing, competitor comparisons, and internal resistance. Effective objection handling involves listening, empathising, reframing, and providing evidence (case studies, data, references) to overcome the concern.
Pipeline
The total value of all active sales opportunities at various stages of the sales process. Pipeline is the lifeblood of a sales organisation. Healthy pipeline coverage (typically 3–4x of target) ensures that even with expected attrition, the team can hit quota.
PoC – Proof of Concept
A testing period, typically lasting days or weeks, where a prospect can test that the product works as advertised in their specific environment. PoCs are common in enterprise and platform sales where integration and performance need to be validated before commitment.
Recurring Revenue
Revenue generated from customers who purchase on an ongoing, subscription basis rather than a one-time transaction. Recurring revenue is the backbone of SaaS business models and is sustained by consistently delivering value that keeps customers renewing.
SA – Solution Architect
A technical sales support role focused on customising the product to the client’s specific needs. Unlike Sales Engineers who focus on integration within existing infrastructure, SAs configure the product (dashboards, workflows, settings) to match the client’s requirements. At some companies, the terms SA and SE are interchangeable.
SaaS – Software as a Service
A software delivery model where applications are hosted centrally and made available to customers over the internet via subscription. Customers pay a recurring fee rather than purchasing software outright. SaaS has become the dominant model for business software because of its scalability, lower upfront costs, and continuous updates.
Sales Cycle
The total amount of time from first contact with a prospect to a signed deal. Sales cycle length varies dramatically based on deal size, product complexity, and the number of decision-makers involved. SMB deals might close in days or weeks, while enterprise deals can take 6–18 months.
SDR – Sales Development Rep
A role focused on outbound prospecting within a specific region or vertical. SDRs develop sales qualified leads from scratch by starting conversations, provoking decision-makers into action, handling objections, and booking meetings for Account Executives. Due to the sales-like skills required, this role typically reports into Sales.
SE – Sales Engineer
A technical role that supports the sales process for complex, platform-level products. SEs are responsible for demonstrating technical capabilities, managing integrations, and ensuring the product works within the client’s existing technology stack. They are often the most qualified person on a sales call and carry significant trust from both seller and buyer.
SM – Sales Manager
The leader responsible for all business within a territory, vertical, or customer segment. Sales Managers typically oversee 4–10 individual reps and are focused on coaching, pipeline management, and ensuring the team meets individual and collective quotas.
SMB – Small and Medium-Sized Business
Typically a company with 20 to 999 employees that uses a single-tier buying process. SMB deals usually range from £5,000 to £100,000 and involve multiple decision-makers within a single management layer. SMB sales cycles are shorter and more transactional compared to enterprise.
SPICED Framework
A sales discovery framework that stands for Situation, Pain, Impact, Critical Event, and Decision. SPICED helps sales reps structure their discovery conversations to uncover not just what the prospect needs, but why they need it now and how the decision will be made.
SQL – Sales Qualified Lead
A lead that has been vetted by the sales team and deemed ready for direct sales engagement. An SQL has typically been qualified on criteria like budget, authority, need, and timeline. The handoff from MQL to SQL represents one of the most critical transitions in the revenue funnel.
TCV – Total Contract Value
The total revenue expected from a customer contract over its entire duration, including one-time fees, implementation costs, and recurring subscription charges. For example, a 3-year contract at $50,000/year with a $10,000 implementation fee has a TCV of $160,000.
Win Rate
The percentage of opportunities that result in a Closed-Won deal. Win rate is a key indicator of sales effectiveness and is used for forecasting, benchmarking, and identifying where deals are most commonly lost in the sales process.
Customer Success
Customer Success is where revenue is protected and grown. In a subscription business, the real money is made after the initial sale. These terms define the roles, metrics, and strategies that drive retention, expansion, and advocacy.
AM – Account Manager
Typically introduced at the beginning of a customer relationship after the initial sale. AMs are responsible for the commercial aspects of the relationship and work closely with Customer Success teams to identify expansion and renewal opportunities. Companies often create dedicated AM teams so that sales reps can stay focused on acquiring new logos.
Adoption
The degree to which customers are actively using your product and its key features. Adoption is a leading indicator of retention customers who adopt deeply are far less likely to churn. Customer Success teams drive adoption through onboarding, training, and proactive engagement.
Churn
The rate at which customers stop doing business with you. Churn is the enemy of every SaaS business. It can be measured as customer churn (the percentage of customers lost) or revenue churn (the percentage of revenue lost). Reducing churn is one of the primary objectives of Customer Success.
CSAT – Customer Satisfaction Score
A short-term sentiment metric that measures how satisfied customers are with a specific interaction, feature, or overall experience. CSAT surveys typically ask customers to rate their satisfaction on a 1–5 scale. It provides direct, actionable feedback on specific touchpoints in the customer journey.
CS – Customer Success
The function responsible for helping customers achieve their desired outcomes while using your product. Modern CS teams are focused on reducing churn, driving renewals, and expanding accounts. Increasingly, CS is treated as a profit centre rather than a cost centre, with teams directly influencing net revenue retention.
CSM – Customer Success Manager
The primary relationship owner for a portfolio of customer accounts. CSMs proactively drive adoption and net retention through strategic conversations, quarterly business reviews, onboarding support, and ongoing guidance. As a company matures, the CSM role shifts from hands-on support to high-level strategic advising.
CTS – Cost to Serve
The direct costs associated with delivering your product or service to a customer. CTS includes infrastructure, support, implementation, and customer success resources. Understanding CTS by customer segment helps optimise pricing, identify unprofitable accounts, and make informed decisions about resource allocation.
Customer Health Score
A composite metric that combines multiple data points (product usage, support ticket volume, NPS responses, engagement with CSM, payment history) to predict the likelihood of a customer renewing or churning. Health scores enable CS teams to prioritise their efforts and intervene proactively with at-risk accounts.
Customer Journey
The complete sequence of experiences a customer goes through when interacting with your company, from initial awareness through purchase, onboarding, adoption, renewal, and advocacy. Mapping the customer journey helps identify key touchpoints, friction points, and opportunities to deliver value.
Customer Lifecycle
A high-level view of the stages a customer passes through in their relationship with your business: acquisition, onboarding, adoption, retention, expansion, and advocacy. Understanding the lifecycle helps align internal teams around the right activities at the right time.
DAU / MAU – Daily Active Users / Monthly Active Users
Metrics that measure how many unique users engage with your product on a daily or monthly basis. The ratio of DAU to MAU (known as the “stickiness ratio”) indicates how habitually users engage with your product. A higher ratio means users are returning frequently, which is a strong predictor of retention.
Downselling
Offering a customer a lower-tier plan or reduced scope that better fits their current needs or budget. While it reduces immediate revenue, downselling can prevent churn entirely and preserve the customer relationship for future expansion when circumstances change.
EBR – Executive Business Review
A strategic meeting between your company and a customer, typically held quarterly or annually. EBRs review the value delivered, progress against the customer’s goals, and alignment on future priorities. They are an opportunity to strengthen executive relationships, surface expansion opportunities, and reinforce the partnership.
Expansion Revenue
Revenue generated from existing customers through upselling, cross-selling, or adding users and seats. Expansion revenue is one of the most efficient sources of growth because it doesn’t carry the same acquisition costs as new logos. Companies with strong expansion revenue can achieve net revenue retention above 100%.
Feedback Loop
The process of continuously collecting customer feedback, acting on it, and closing the loop by showing customers what changed as a result. Effective feedback loops build trust, improve the product, and demonstrate that customer voices matter. Without closing the loop, feedback collection becomes performative.
GRR – Gross Revenue Retention
The percentage of recurring revenue retained from existing customers over a period, excluding expansion revenue. GRR only accounts for contraction and churn. It’s a pure measure of your ability to keep existing revenue and is a critical metric for investors evaluating the health of a SaaS business.
High-Touch / Low-Touch / Tech-Touch
Models for how Customer Success teams engage with different customer segments. High-touch involves dedicated CSMs with frequent personal interaction (for enterprise accounts). Low-touch provides lighter, more scalable engagement. Tech-touch uses automation, in-app messaging, and content to serve customers at scale with minimal human involvement.
NRR – Net Revenue Retention
The percentage of recurring revenue retained from existing customers, including expansion (upsells, cross-sells) and subtracting churn and contraction. NRR above 100% means your existing customer base is growing even without new sales. It’s widely considered the single most important metric for SaaS businesses.
Onboarding
The process of integrating a new customer with your product after purchase. Effective onboarding ensures the customer sees value quickly, understands how to use the product, and achieves their first meaningful outcome (“aha moment”). Poor onboarding is one of the leading causes of early churn.
Onboarding Manager
A specialist role dedicated to driving initial deployment and setup. Like a sales engineer for the post-sale phase, they handle account configuration, enablement of key features, and support the customer through critical early milestones particularly the point when the customer goes live with the product.
Playbook
A documented set of best practices, workflows, and actions for specific customer scenarios. CS teams use playbooks for onboarding, renewal preparation, at-risk intervention, expansion identification, and more. Playbooks ensure consistency, enable scaling, and reduce reliance on individual tribal knowledge.
QBR – Quarterly Business Review
A recurring meeting (typically quarterly) between your CS team and the customer to review performance, usage, outcomes achieved, and upcoming goals. QBRs strengthen the relationship, demonstrate ROI, and provide a structured opportunity to discuss expansion or address concerns.
Renewal Rate
The percentage of customers who choose to renew their subscription at the end of its term. A high renewal rate is the clearest signal that customers are finding ongoing value. Renewal management involves proactive engagement well before the renewal date to address any concerns and reinforce the case for continuing.
Scaled Customer Success
A blended approach that combines tech-touch automation with targeted human engagement to serve a large customer base efficiently. Scaled CS uses data-driven triggers, automated communications, and self-service resources alongside strategic CSM interventions. It enables organisations to maintain quality customer experiences with less overhead.
TAM – Technical Account Manager
A role focused on providing technical services to customers, such as custom integrations, migrations, and advanced configuration. TAMs typically have a technical background combined with customer management skills. An increasing number of companies with complex implementations hire TAMs to complement their CS teams.
Time-to-Value (TTV)
The amount of time it takes for a customer to realise the first meaningful value from your product after purchase. Reducing TTV is critical for preventing early churn, increasing satisfaction, and accelerating the path to expansion. It’s directly influenced by the quality of onboarding and implementation.
Upsell / Cross-Sell
Upselling is getting an existing customer to purchase a higher-tier plan or additional capacity. Cross-selling is promoting complementary products or add-ons. Both strategies are essential for driving expansion revenue and increasing LTV. They work best when rooted in genuine value delivery rather than aggressive sales tactics.
Value Realisation
The point at which a customer experiences the tangible benefits of your product often called the “aha moment.” Value realisation is the foundation of retention and expansion. CS teams are responsible for guiding customers to this point as quickly as possible and continuously reinforcing the value delivered over time.
Voice of the Customer (VoC)
A programme or practice for systematically capturing customer feedback, preferences, and expectations. VoC data is collected through surveys, interviews, support tickets, and product usage analytics. It informs product development, improves customer experience, and helps align the entire organisation around customer needs.
YoY Retention – Year over Year Retention
The percentage of a company’s existing customers who remain customers from one year to the next. YoY retention provides a long-term view of customer loyalty and is a key indicator of product-market fit, customer satisfaction, and the overall effectiveness of the Customer Success function.
Wrapping Up
The SaaS landscape evolves constantly, and with it, the vocabulary. But the fundamentals remain the same: marketing creates demand, sales converts it into revenue, and customer success ensures that revenue compounds over time.
Understanding these terms isn’t just about sounding smart in meetings. It’s about building a shared language across your organisation that drives alignment, accountability, and growth. When your marketing team understands what an SQL really means to your sales team, and your sales team understands why NRR matters to customer success, you operate as one revenue engine instead of three siloed departments.
Share this glossary with your team, bookmark it for quick reference, and revisit it as your business scales. The terms might stay the same, but your understanding of them will deepen with every quarter.