An account is a formal record used to track transactions and activities for a specific person, item, or entity. While commonly associated with banking and finance for tracking money, the concept also extends to business for managing client relationships and to the internet for providing access to digital platforms.
The word "account" first appeared in 14th-century English, borrowed from the Anglo-French 'acunte'. This term originated from the Latin verb 'computare', which means "to count" or "compute". Its etymology underscores the word's foundational link to the act of tallying and reckoning values.
The practical application of accounts evolved with the rise of double-entry bookkeeping. For centuries, transactions were meticulously recorded in manual ledgers. As commerce grew more complex, these physical books gave way to the sophisticated digital accounting systems used today.
The term 'account' is versatile, appearing in various aspects of daily life and business. Its meaning shifts depending on the context, but it always refers to a record or arrangement for a specific purpose.
While both are core accounting concepts, an account and an accrual serve distinct functions in financial reporting.
The concept of an account is central to accounting, operating within a broader framework of related terms. These concepts work together to ensure financial activities are recorded accurately and systematically, forming the backbone of any financial reporting system.
This is how you can scale personalized outbound campaigns.
How does an "account" in a CRM differ from a "lead"?
A lead is an unqualified prospect, while an account is a qualified organization you have a business relationship with. Leads are typically converted into accounts, contacts, and opportunities after they have been vetted by your sales or marketing teams.
What is the significance of parent-child account relationships?
This hierarchy links a main corporate headquarters (parent) with its subsidiaries or branches (children). It provides a complete view of a business entity, which is crucial for strategic selling, identifying cross-sell opportunities, and understanding complex organizational structures.
Why is enriching account data so important for sales?
Enriched data provides a 360-degree view of a prospect, including firmographics, technographics, and buying signals. This enables highly personalized outreach, better lead scoring, and ultimately, higher conversion rates for outbound campaigns.
User interaction is any action a user takes within a digital interface, like clicking a button, scrolling a page, or filling out a form.
“End of Quarter” (EOQ) refers to the final weeks of a business quarter when sales teams rush to meet quotas, often leading to a flurry of deals.
A Call for Proposal (CFP) is a document that solicits proposals, often through a bidding process, for a specific project or service.
Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) is a web security vulnerability that allows attackers to inject malicious scripts into trusted websites.
Enrichment is the process of adding third-party data to your existing customer profiles to get a more complete picture of your leads.
Generic keywords are broad search terms that lack specific details like brand or location. They attract a wide audience with less specific intent.
Ramp-up time is the period a new hire takes to get fully up to speed and become a productive member of your go-to-market team.
A sales lead is a potential customer—an individual or organization that has shown interest in your company's products or services.
Customer retention refers to the strategies and activities a company uses to prevent customer churn and encourage them to continue buying.
A headless CMS is a back-end content repository that delivers content via API to any front-end, decoupling the content from its presentation layer.
Learn about B2B marketing attribution, including challenges in B2B marketing attribution, & key metrics for effective attribution.
De-duping, or data deduplication, is the process of eliminating duplicate copies of data within a dataset to improve accuracy and save space.
Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) is the predictable, recurring income a business expects to receive each month from all active subscriptions.
Trigger marketing uses customer actions or events to automatically send highly relevant, personalized messages at the perfect moment.
A Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) is a prospect who has shown interest based on marketing efforts but isn't yet ready for a sales conversation.
A sales coach is a mentor who trains and guides sales reps to enhance their skills, boost performance, and ultimately close more deals effectively.
Logo retention is a key B2B metric that measures a company's ability to retain its customers, or 'logos,' over a specific period.
An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is a software application that manages your entire hiring and recruitment process from a single dashboard.
Email verification is the process of confirming that an email address is valid and deliverable, which helps improve campaign performance.
A marketing play is a repeatable tactic used to achieve a specific marketing goal, like generating leads or driving engagement.
A sales demo is a presentation where a sales rep shows a prospect how a product or service works and solves their specific problems.
A performance plan is a formal document outlining an employee's goals, expectations, and metrics for success over a specific period.
A product champion is an internal evangelist who drives a product's adoption and success by ensuring it solves real problems for their team.
Workflow automation uses rule-based logic to run a sequence of tasks that would otherwise require manual human effort to complete.
Account-Based Sales (ABS) is a focused B2B strategy where sales and marketing teams treat high-value accounts as individual markets of one.
Personalization in sales means tailoring outreach to a prospect's specific needs, interests, and context to make communication more relevant.
Shipping solutions are services or software that streamline the logistics of getting products to customers, from label printing to final delivery.
Demand is the economic principle describing a consumer's desire and willingness to purchase a specific good or service at a particular price.
Email personalization uses subscriber data—like their name, interests, or past behavior—to create highly relevant and targeted email campaigns.
An API (Application Programming Interface) is a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other and exchange information.
Intent data tracks a user's online behavior—like searches and site visits—to identify signals that they are ready to make a purchase.
A sales methodology is the framework that guides how your sales team approaches the entire sales process, from prospecting to closing deals.
A cold email is an initial outreach sent to a potential customer with whom you've had no prior contact, aiming to introduce your business.
Learn about buyer, including identifying your ideal buyer, understanding buyer's journey, & evaluating buyer decision processes.
An Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is a detailed description of the perfect, hypothetical company that would get the most value from your product.
Responsive design is an approach where a website's layout adapts to the user's screen size, providing an optimal experience on any device.
CRM integration connects your CRM software with other tools, creating a unified system for all your customer data and business processes.
Lead enrichment adds third-party data to your raw lead lists, creating fuller prospect profiles for more effective and personalized outreach.
AI data enrichment uses artificial intelligence to automatically enhance and update raw data, making it more complete, accurate, and valuable.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a premium tool helping sales teams find and engage with the right leads and accounts on the LinkedIn network.
Docker is a tool that packages applications and their dependencies into isolated environments called containers for easy deployment and scaling.
Email marketing is a digital strategy where businesses send targeted emails to prospects and customers to build relationships and drive sales.
An elevator pitch is a short, memorable summary of what you do, designed to be delivered in the time it takes to ride an elevator.
A Letter of Intent (LOI) is a document declaring the preliminary commitment of one party to do business with another, outlining the chief terms.
Retargeting marketing is a digital advertising strategy that targets users who have previously interacted with your website or brand online.
End of Day (EOD) refers to the close of business hours. It's a common deadline for tasks and reports to be completed before the workday ends.
A channel partner is a company that works with a manufacturer or producer to market and sell their products, software, or services to customers.
Website visitor tracking collects and analyzes data on user behavior to understand their journey and improve the overall user experience.
A sandbox is an isolated testing environment where new or untrusted code can be run safely without affecting the host device or network.
Lead nurturing is the process of developing and reinforcing relationships with buyers at every stage of the sales funnel.
Microservices is an architecture where apps are built as a collection of small, independent services that communicate with each other over APIs.
Chatbots are AI-powered programs that simulate human conversation. They interact with users via text or voice, typically for customer support.
User-generated content (UGC) refers to any form of content, like images, videos, or text, created and shared by users on online platforms.
A sales dashboard is a visual tool that centralizes and displays key sales data, metrics, and KPIs to help teams track performance and goals.
Lead generation is the process of identifying and cultivating potential customers for a business's products or services.
The marketing mix is the set of marketing tools a company uses to sell products, defined by the 4Ps: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion.
A go-to-market (GTM) strategy is an action plan that outlines how a company will reach target customers and achieve a competitive advantage.
A RESTful API is a web service interface that uses HTTP requests to access and use data, adhering to the constraints of REST architecture.
Cohort analysis is a behavioral analytics tool that groups users with common traits to track their actions and engagement over time.
Learn about B2B intent data providers, including evaluating intent data quality, leveraging intent data for growth, & B2B intent data: key providers comparison.
Customer buying signals are the actions, behaviors, or statements a prospect makes that indicate they are moving towards a purchase decision.
NoSQL ("Not only SQL") databases offer a flexible alternative to relational models, excelling at managing large and unstructured data sets.
Revenue forecasting is the process of estimating a company's future revenue, using historical data and market trends to guide strategic planning.
Sales enablement technology refers to software and tools that equip sales teams with the resources they need to close more deals efficiently.
Sales enablement content refers to the materials and tools that empower your sales team to engage prospects and close deals more efficiently.
Lead qualification is the process of determining which prospects are most likely to become paying customers based on predefined criteria.
Contact data is the set of details, like names, emails, and phone numbers, used to get in touch with a person or business for outreach.
Social proof is a psychological phenomenon where people assume the actions of others reflect correct behavior for a given situation.
Learn about buyer intent data, including sourcing and interpreting buyer intent data, & key metrics in buyer intent analysis.
Regression testing ensures that new code changes don’t negatively impact existing features. It's a key step to maintain software quality after updates.
A value statement is a clear, concise declaration of the unique benefits a company provides to its customers, outlining its core purpose.
Learn about B2B data enrichment, including benefits of B2B data enrichment, implementing B2B data enrichment strategies, B2B data enrichment vs. data cleaning.
Programmatic display campaigns use automation to buy and sell digital ad space in real-time, targeting specific audiences across the web.
Learn about B2B, including what is it, its key elements, the benefits of B2B partnerships, the differences between B2B and B2C, and strategies for effective marketing.
Key accounts are a company's most valuable customers, vital due to their significant revenue contribution and strategic importance for growth.
Affiliate marketing is a performance-based model where affiliates earn a commission for promoting another company’s products or services.
A Salesforce Administrator is a certified professional who manages and customizes the Salesforce platform to meet a company's specific business needs.
A Single Page Application (SPA) is a web app that interacts with the user by dynamically rewriting the current page rather than loading new pages.
Persona-based marketing uses fictional customer profiles, or personas, to create targeted messaging for specific audience segments.
Programmatic advertising uses AI and real-time bidding to automate the buying and selling of digital ad space, targeting specific audiences.
Sales and marketing analytics involves measuring and analyzing performance data to maximize effectiveness and optimize return on investment (ROI).
Intent leads are prospects who show buying signals through their online actions, indicating they're actively looking to make a purchase.
A Marketing Qualified Opportunity (MQO) is a lead vetted by marketing as a genuine sales opportunity, ready for direct sales follow-up.
Customer centricity is a business approach that puts the customer at the heart of every decision, aiming to build loyalty and long-term value.
An Operational CRM is a system that automates and improves customer-facing business processes like sales, marketing, and customer service.
Gamification applies game mechanics like points, badges, and leaderboards to non-game activities to boost engagement and motivate users.
Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) are websites that look and feel like native mobile apps, offering features like offline access and push notifications.
Stress testing is a type of software testing that determines a system's robustness by pushing it beyond its normal operational capacity.
Learn about big data, including understanding big data characteristics, benefits of leveraging big data, & challenges in managing big data.
Objection handling in sales is the process of responding to a prospect's concerns about a product or service to move the deal forward.
Firmographics are descriptive attributes of organizations, used to segment companies by characteristics like industry, size, and location.
Direct sales involves selling products directly to consumers in a non-retail setting, such as at home, online, or person-to-person.
Site retargeting is a marketing strategy that shows ads to people who have previously visited your website but left without converting.
Lead generation software helps businesses automate finding and capturing potential customers' contact information to build sales pipelines.
A lead generation funnel is a systematic process that guides potential customers from initial awareness of your brand to becoming qualified leads.
A Sales Development Representative (SDR) is a sales specialist who finds and qualifies new leads, building a pipeline for the sales team.
Learn about B2C2B, including how B2C2B transforms sales, key strategies for B2C2B success, & differences between B2C2B and B2B2C.
A knowledge base is a self-serve online library of information about a product, service, department, or topic.
A sales pipeline is a visual representation of where prospects are in the sales process, from the first contact to the final sale.
Data enrichment is the process of enhancing raw data by adding missing information from other sources, making it more complete and actionable.