B2B data glossary

B2B data API

Also called business data API

A service your software calls to get facts about companies and the people who work there, such as a company's size or a person's current role, at the moment it needs them, instead of a list bought once and left to age.

Data as a service

Also called DaaS

Getting data from a provider's servers when your software needs it, instead of buying a large file and storing it yourself.

Data decay

Also called database decay

Records going out of date on their own, because people change jobs, companies move and email addresses stop working.

Data enrichment

Also called B2B data enrichment, lead enrichment

Filling in what your records are missing. You start from what you have, such as a company website or a person's profile link, and get back the facts around it: industry, size, location, role, work email.

Data hygiene

Also called CRM hygiene

Keeping a database clean: no duplicates, no dead contacts, no blank or outdated fields.

Entity resolution

Also called identity resolution, record linkage

Working out that several records describe the same company or the same person, even when they are written differently.

Firmographic data

Also called firmographics

The basic facts about a company that let you sort it into a market: what it does, how big it is, where it is based and how old it is.

Intent data

Also called buyer intent data

Clues that a company is looking into a kind of product, taken from what its people read and search for online.

People search (B2B)

Also called B2B people search

Finding the professionals who match a buyer profile, by role, seniority, function and company attributes, across a whole market rather than one account at a time.

Technographic data

Also called technographics

The software and tools a company works with, such as its CRM, its data warehouse or its support desk.

Waterfall enrichment

Also called enrichment waterfall

Asking several data sources for the same missing fact, one after another, until one of them finds it.

Account scoring

Also called account prioritization

Giving each target company a score, so the team works the strongest candidates first.

Buying committee

Also called buying group

The group of people at a company who take part in a purchase: the one who signs, the ones who push for it, and the ones who can stop it.

Buying signals

Also called sales signals, trigger events

Events at a company that suggest it may need what you sell soon: a new hire, a new office, a funding round, a new tool.

Decision maker

Also called economic buyer

The person who can say yes to a purchase and owns the budget for it. In a marketing deal, that is whoever runs marketing in the company: a CMO in a large one, a Head of Marketing in a mid-size one, often the founder in a startup.

Hiring signal

A change in how a company hires that says something about its plans: a new team, a first hire in a function, a wave of openings in one region.

Ideal customer profile

Also called ICP

A description of the kind of company that gets the most out of what you sell, written precisely enough to pick those companies out of a list.

Serviceable addressable market

Also called SAM

The part of your total market that your offer can actually serve, given where you sell, what you sell and to whom.

Serviceable obtainable market

Also called SOM

The part of the market you can realistically win over the next few years, given your team and the other options buyers have.

Signal convergence

Also called convergence scoring

Counting how many independent searches found the same company. Found once, a company may be a coincidence; found by four different kinds of evidence, it almost certainly belongs to your market.

TAM by Jobs

Also called a company search that runs on job postings

A search that reads what companies write in their job postings and gives you back the companies behind them, each one once, with the number of postings that matched.

Total addressable market

Also called TAM

Everyone who could buy what you sell. Finance teams count it in revenue; go-to-market teams turn it into a list: every company that could become a customer, before you decide which ones to work first.

Waterfall ICP

Also called a prioritized title search

A people search that tries your list of job titles in order, inside one company, filling the number of contacts you ask for from your first choice down: ask for one and it stops at the first person it finds.

Catch-all email

Also called catch-all domain, accept-all domain

A company email setup that accepts mail sent to any address at its domain, even an address that belongs to nobody.

Direct dial

Also called direct line

A phone number that reaches one person, a mobile or a personal direct line, instead of a company switchboard.

Email bounce

Also called hard bounce, soft bounce

An email that comes back undelivered. Sometimes the address does not exist; sometimes the inbox is full or the server is busy.

MX record

Also called mail exchanger record

A line in a domain's settings that tells the internet which servers receive the domain's email.

Reverse email lookup

Also called email to person

Starting from an email address and finding out who is behind it.

Outbound sales

Also called outbound prospecting

Selling by reaching out first: the seller picks the companies and people to contact, instead of waiting for them to ask.

RevOps

Also called revenue operations

The team that runs the systems, data and processes behind a company's revenue, so that sales, marketing and customer success work from the same numbers.

Sales prospecting

Also called prospecting

Finding the companies and people who could buy from you, and checking that they fit, before anyone tries to sell to them.

SDR

Also called sales development representative

The salesperson who finds and contacts potential buyers and books the first meeting, before an account executive takes over the deal.

Agent storefront

A shop written for AI agents rather than for people: what a seller offers, what each call costs and how to pay, in files an agent can read.

Agentic commerce

Also called agent-led commerce

Buying and selling where the buyer is an AI agent: it finds a product, reads the price, pays and uses what it bought, without a person filling in forms on its behalf.

API credits

Also called usage credits

Units you buy in advance and spend on each request to a service; when they run out, requests stop until you buy more.

API rate limit

Also called rate limiting, 429 Too Many Requests

A cap on how many requests a program may send to a service in a second or a minute. Above it, the service turns requests away for a moment.

Claude connector

Also called custom connector

An outside tool or data source plugged into Claude, so Claude can read from it or act in it while you chat. A custom connector is one you add yourself by pasting the URL of a remote MCP server.

MCP server

Also called Model Context Protocol server

A connector that gives an AI assistant tools it can use: it tells the assistant what each tool does, and the assistant calls them during a conversation to read data or take an action.