B2B Data Glossary

Plain-English definitions of the terms you will meet when buying, enriching and using B2B data, from compliance rules to email authentication.

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Account-Based Marketing (ABM): A strategy that targets a defined set of high-value accounts with coordinated, personalised campaigns across the buying committee.

Bounce Rate: The percentage of emails that cannot be delivered. Hard bounces are permanent failures; soft bounces are temporary.
Buying Committee: The group of people involved in a B2B purchase, such as the economic buyer, users, technical evaluators and approvers.

CAN-SPAM: The US law governing commercial email. It requires accurate headers, honest subject lines, a postal address and a working opt-out honoured within 10 business days.
CASL: Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation, which requires express or implied consent before sending commercial electronic messages, including B2B email.
CCPA / CPRA: California's privacy laws, which give residents rights over their personal information, including business contact data, such as access, deletion and opt-out of sale or sharing.
CRM: Customer relationship management software used to store and manage contacts, accounts and sales activity.
Catch-All Domain: A domain set to accept email for any address, which makes individual mailboxes harder to verify.
Contact Enrichment: Adding missing details to contact records, such as job title, email, direct dial and seniority.

DKIM: DomainKeys Identified Mail, an email authentication method that uses a digital signature to show a message was not altered.
DMARC: An email authentication policy that tells receiving servers how to handle messages that fail SPF or DKIM checks.
Data Append: Adding new fields to existing records by matching them against a trusted data source.
Data Cleansing: Finding and fixing errors in a database, including duplicates, formatting problems and invalid or outdated records.
Data Decay: The gradual loss of accuracy in a database as people change jobs and companies change details.
Data Enrichment: Improving existing records by adding, correcting and verifying information.
Deduplication: Identifying and merging or removing duplicate records.
Deliverability: The ability of your emails to reach recipients' inboxes rather than bouncing or landing in spam.
Direct Dial: A phone number that reaches a specific person rather than a main switchboard.

Email Append: Matching contact records to add verified business email addresses where they are missing.
Email Verification: Checking email addresses for syntax, domain and mailbox status before sending.

Firmographic Data: Company-level facts such as industry, size, revenue, location and ownership.

GDPR: The EU General Data Protection Regulation, which governs personal data about people in the EU, including business contact details.

Hard Bounce: A permanent delivery failure, usually because the address or domain does not exist.

ICP (Ideal Customer Profile): A description of the companies most likely to buy from you and become valuable customers.
Intent Data: Signals that suggest a company may be researching a topic or product, often inferred from online behaviour.

Lead Scoring: Ranking leads by fit and engagement so sales teams focus on the most promising ones.
Legitimate Interests: A lawful basis under GDPR that can allow processing when the organisation's interests are balanced against the individual's rights.
List Hygiene: The routine practice of keeping a contact list accurate through verification, cleansing and suppression.

MQL / SQL: Marketing-qualified and sales-qualified leads: leads judged ready for further marketing or for direct sales follow-up.
Match Rate: The percentage of records in a file that can be matched to a data source during append or enrichment.

Opt-Out: A recipient's request to stop receiving communications, which must be honoured promptly.

PECR: The UK Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, which set rules for electronic marketing alongside UK GDPR.

Role-Based Address: A shared address such as info@ or sales@ rather than a named person's mailbox.

SPF: Sender Policy Framework, an email authentication method listing which servers may send mail for a domain.
Segmentation: Dividing a list into groups by attributes such as industry, role or technology to tailor messages.
Sender Reputation: How mailbox providers rate a sending domain or IP, based on bounces, complaints and engagement.
Suppression List: A list of contacts who must not be contacted, such as those who have opted out.

TAM (Total Addressable Market): The total number of organisations, or the revenue opportunity, that could use your product.
Technographic Data: Information about the software, cloud and hardware technologies a company uses.