B2B Data Glossary: 50 Terms Every Buyer Should Know

Buying B2B data comes with its own vocabulary, and vendors don’t always slow down to explain it. This glossary defines the 50 terms you’ll encounter most often, grouped by theme so you can scan straight to what you need. Bookmark it as a reference when you’re reading pitches and contracts.

How to Use This Glossary

Terms are organized into themes — core concepts, data types, data quality, contacts and targeting, tools and integration, pricing, and compliance. You don’t need to read it end to end; jump to the section that matches whatever you’re evaluating.

Core Concepts

B2B database — A structured, searchable, maintained collection of business and contact data used for sales and marketing. Contact record — A single entry pairing a person’s details with their company’s details. ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) — A description of the company type that best fits your product. Buyer persona — A profile of the individual decision-maker you target. Lead — A potential customer who has shown some interest or fit. Prospect — A potential customer who matches your ICP, with interest not yet confirmed. TAM — Total Addressable Market: every company that could possibly buy. SAM — Serviceable Available Market: the slice of TAM you can realistically serve. SOM — Serviceable Obtainable Market: the share you can realistically win.

Data Types

Firmographics — Company attributes: industry, size, revenue, location. Technographics — The technology and tools a company uses. Intent data — Signals suggesting an account may be researching a purchase. Data sourcing — Where and how a provider obtains its data.

Data Quality and Accuracy

Data coverage — How much of your target universe a database actually contains. Data accuracy — How often a field’s value is correct and current. Fill rate — The percentage of records that have a given field populated. Match rate — The share of your input records a provider can successfully match. Data decay — The rate at which records become outdated as people and companies change. Data enrichment — Filling in or updating missing fields on existing records. Data hygiene — Ongoing cleaning to keep records accurate and deduplicated. Deduplication — Removing or merging duplicate records. Verification — Confirming a data point is real and current. Human-verified data — Data checked by a person rather than only software. Bounce rate — The percentage of emails that fail to deliver. Hard bounce — A permanent delivery failure, such as a non-existent address. Soft bounce — A temporary delivery failure, such as a full mailbox. Sender reputation — A score affecting whether your emails reach inboxes.

Contacts and Targeting

Direct dial — A phone number that reaches a person directly, not a switchboard. Business email — An individual work email, as opposed to a generic catch-all. Catch-all email — A generic address (info@, sales@) not tied to one person. Seniority — A contact’s level, such as manager, director, VP, or C-level. Decision-maker — A contact with authority to influence or approve a purchase. Gatekeeper — Someone who controls access to a decision-maker. ABM (Account-Based Marketing) — Targeting specific high-value accounts as markets of one. Suppression list — Contacts you must exclude from outreach.

Tools and Integration

CRM — Software for managing relationships and pipeline with known contacts. Sales engagement platform — A tool that sequences and tracks outreach. API — A connection that lets systems exchange data automatically. Batch enrichment — Updating many records at once on a schedule. Real-time enrichment — Updating a record at the moment it’s needed.

Pricing Terms

Credits — Units you spend to unlock contacts in credit-based pricing. Per-record pricing — Paying for each individual record purchased. Subscription pricing — Paying a recurring fee for access over time. Cost per lead (CPL) — Total spend divided by qualified leads produced.

Compliance Terms

GDPR — EU regulation governing personal data, including B2B contacts. CCPA / CPRA — California privacy laws affecting data on residents. CAN-SPAM — US law governing commercial email. Legitimate interest — A lawful basis under GDPR sometimes used for B2B outreach. Opt-in / opt-out — Whether consent is given proactively or assumed until refused. SLA (Service Level Agreement) — A vendor’s contractual commitments on quality or service. Definitions of legal terms here are explanatory and not legal advice; consult a qualified professional for your specific situation.