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Lead words, made plain.
Thirty-two words you will hear in any talk about leads. Each one said in a single line, with no sales spin.
The short answer
This list says what the words mean that come up in any real talk about leads. The steps, the short names, the numbers, and the tracking words. Each one is a single line, written to be useful rather than fancy, and grouped so you can read one area at a time.
How to use this
Most mix-ups in talks about leads come from words, not ideas. Two people who each use "lead" to mean a different thing will argue about results for months and never notice they never agreed on the word.
The words below are grouped by area. Where a word has a whole guide behind it, we link to it. If you are new to this, start with the step words and read the guide on what getting leads means. The rest will land better after that.
The terms
- Lead
- A named person or shop that wants what you sell and said you may reach out. Not a page view, a click, or a follower.
- Real buyer
- A lead you have checked. You know they have the problem, the money, and the time to buy.
- MQL, a lead the ads team likes
- A lead that meets the rules both teams agreed make it worth a sales try.
- SQL, a lead the sales team took
- An MQL that sales looked at and agreed is worth their time.
- Live deal
- A checked deal with a size and a date on it. The first step that belongs in a plan.
- Lead path
- The step by step way from first look to paying buyer. We use it as a model because the pile gets smaller at each step.
- Top of the path
- The looking stage, where someone first learns the problem or your kind of work exists.
- Bottom of the path
- The choosing stage, where someone is weighing set options and is close to buying.
- Free giveaway
- Something truly useful you give in trade for a name and email. A guide, a tool, a form, or a check-up.
- Landing page
- A page built for one action, with the menus taken away so that action stays the clear next step.
- Catching a lead
- The moment a browser turns into a name you can reach. A form, a booking, a call, or a chat.
- Sorting
- Deciding, by written rules, which folks get a sales call and which get slow follow-up.
- Points
- Giving marks for fit and for what someone did, to pick who to call first. Only useful when you get more leads than you can call.
- Slow follow-up
- The steady set of notes that keeps a not-yet-ready lead warm until their timing changes.
- Answer time
- The gap between catching a lead and a real person trying to reach them.
- Hand-off
- Passing a checked lead from the ads set-up to a person who can sell. The seam where detail gets lost most often.
- CPL, cost per lead
- All you spent, split by leads caught. It means little until you carry it through to cost per buyer.
- CAC, cost per buyer
- The full cost of winning one buyer. Ad money, the build, running it, and sales time.
- LTV, what a buyer is worth
- All the money a buyer brings you over the whole time you work with them. The number to judge cost per buyer against.
- ROAS, what ads bring back
- Money tied to ads, split by what the ads cost. Usually before other costs.
- Pass rate
- The share of people at one step who reach the next. Always say which two steps, or the number means nothing.
- Close rate
- The share of checked deals that turn into buyers.
- Deals in play
- The whole value of open deals, used to guess money that has not come in yet.
- Tracking credit
- The way you decide which touch gets the credit when someone buys.
- First-touch credit
- Gives all credit to the first touch. Good for learning how folks find you, bad for judging what closes.
- Last-touch credit
- Gives all credit to the last touch before they buy. The norm in most tools, and why a search for your own name looks like magic.
- Split credit
- Spreads the credit over several touches. More honest, more work, and it needs data you truly joined up.
- CRM
- The one place every lead lands and where you write down what came next.
- Set-and-forget notes
- The rules and notes that fire follow-up from events, not from someone remembering.
- UTM tags
- Bits added to a link so your tools can note which ad, place, and kind of post brought the visit.
- Opt-in
- Clear say-so from a person that you may market to them. The legal and real basis for follow-up.
- Do-not-contact list
- The record of folks you must not reach. Honored on every channel and every ad, with no exceptions.
Key takeaways
- Agree what "lead" means with anyone you work with before you compare a single number.
- Always say which two steps a pass rate covers.
- Cost per lead is an input. Cost per buyer against what a buyer is worth is the call.
- Last-touch credit is the norm in most tools, and it always gives the last click too much credit.
- Do-not-contact lists and opt-ins are the law, not a nice-to-have.
