The Founder's Marketing Glossary
Plain-English definitions of the distribution, SEO, outreach, and growth terms founders actually use. No jargon, no fluff — just clear answers you can act on.
61 terms
Activation Rate
Activation rate is the percentage of new users who reach the moment they first experience a product's core value, often called the aha moment.
AI Citation
An AI citation is when an AI search engine like ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google AI Overviews references your website as a source in its generated answer.
AI Citation Readiness
AI citation readiness is how prepared a website is to be cited by AI search engines, based on crawler access, structured data, content structure, and technical health.
Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR)
Annual recurring revenue is the yearly value of all active subscriptions, calculated as MRR multiplied by 12.
Backlink Building
Backlink building is the process of acquiring links from other websites to your own through directory submissions, content creation, outreach, and partnerships.
Backlinks
Backlinks are links from other websites that point to your website, serving as votes of confidence that improve search engine rankings.
Buyer Persona
A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of an ideal customer based on real data about demographics, behavior, goals, and pain points.
Call-to-Action (CTA)
A call-to-action is a prompt on a web page, email, or ad that tells the user what to do next, such as sign up, buy now, or learn more.
Channel-Market Fit
Channel-market fit is when a business finds the specific marketing channels where their ideal customers are most active and reachable.
Churn Rate
Churn rate is the percentage of customers who cancel their subscription or stop using a product within a given time period.
Cold Outreach
Cold outreach is the practice of contacting potential customers who have no prior relationship with your business, typically through email, LinkedIn, or direct messages.
Community-Led Growth
Community-led growth is a strategy where a business builds and engages a community of users or prospects who become advocates and drive organic acquisition.
Content Calendar
A content calendar is a schedule that plans what content to publish, when to publish it, and which keywords or topics each piece targets.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is creating and distributing valuable content such as blog posts, videos, and guides to attract, engage, and convert a target audience.
Conversion Rate
Conversion rate is the percentage of visitors or leads who complete a desired action such as signing up, purchasing, or subscribing.
Core Web Vitals
Core Web Vitals are a set of Google metrics measuring page loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability that impact search rankings.
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
Customer acquisition cost is the total cost of sales and marketing efforts divided by the number of new customers acquired in a given period.
Daily Distribution Routine
A daily distribution routine is a structured set of marketing tasks completed every day to build consistent customer acquisition momentum.
Distribution Debt
Distribution debt is the gap between a product being ready and the business having a reliable way to reach customers.
Distribution OS
A distribution OS is a system that turns marketing strategy into daily executable tasks across multiple channels.
Distribution Strategy
A distribution strategy is the plan for how a business reaches potential customers across multiple channels consistently.
Dofollow Link
A dofollow link is a hyperlink that passes ranking authority from the linking page to the destination page, helping improve search engine rankings.
Domain Authority (DA)
Domain authority is a metric developed by Moz that predicts how likely a website is to rank in search engine results on a scale of 0 to 100.
Domain Rating (DR)
Domain rating is a metric developed by Ahrefs that scores a website's backlink strength on a scale of 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating stronger authority.
Drip Campaign
A drip campaign is a series of automated emails sent on a schedule to nurture leads or onboard new users with relevant content over time.
Email Deliverability
Email deliverability is the ability of your emails to reach recipients' inboxes instead of being blocked or sent to spam.
Engagement Rate
Engagement rate is the percentage of people who interact with a piece of content through likes, comments, shares, or clicks relative to the total audience reached.
First 100 Customers
The first 100 customers milestone represents the early validation phase where a startup proves demand through manual sales, outreach, and community engagement before scaling.
Founder-Led Sales
Founder-led sales is when the founder personally handles selling, outreach, and customer conversations instead of hiring a sales team.
Go-to-Market Strategy
A go-to-market strategy is the plan for launching a product or service to a specific audience through targeted channels, messaging, and pricing.
Growth Loop
A growth loop is a self-reinforcing cycle where one user's action leads to new user acquisition, creating compounding growth over time.
Landing Page
A landing page is a standalone web page designed for a specific marketing campaign with a single call-to-action such as signing up or purchasing.
Lead Generation
Lead generation is the process of attracting and capturing interest from potential customers through content, ads, outreach, or free tools to build a pipeline of prospects.
Lead Magnet
A lead magnet is a free, valuable resource offered in exchange for a prospect's contact details, used to turn anonymous visitors into known leads.
Lifetime Value (LTV)
Lifetime value is the total revenue a business expects to earn from a single customer over the entire duration of their relationship.
LinkedIn Outreach
LinkedIn outreach is using LinkedIn's messaging and connection features to initiate business conversations with potential customers, partners, or collaborators.
llms.txt
llms.txt is a text file placed at the root of a website that describes the site's content in a format optimized for large language models to read and cite.
Long-Tail Keywords
Long-tail keywords are specific, multi-word search phrases with lower search volume but higher conversion intent and less competition.
Nofollow Link
A nofollow link is a hyperlink with a rel=nofollow attribute that tells search engines not to pass ranking authority to the destination page.
North Star Metric
A north star metric is the single measure that best captures the core value a product delivers to customers, used to align a team's growth efforts.
Page Speed
Page speed is how quickly a web page loads and becomes usable, which affects both search rankings and the experience of every visitor.
Positioning
Positioning is how a business defines what it is, who it is for, and why it is different, so the right buyers instantly understand where it fits.
Product-Led Growth
Product-led growth is a business strategy where the product itself drives acquisition, activation, and retention through free trials, freemium models, or self-serve onboarding.
Reddit Marketing
Reddit marketing is the practice of engaging in Reddit communities to build brand awareness and drive traffic by providing genuine value in relevant discussions.
Referral Program
A referral program is a structured system that rewards existing customers for introducing new customers, turning satisfied users into an acquisition channel.
Referring Domains
Referring domains are the number of unique websites that link to your site, which is a stronger ranking signal than total backlink count.
Rich Snippets
Rich snippets are enhanced search results that display extra information like star ratings, FAQs, prices, or images, driven by structured data on the page.
robots.txt
robots.txt is a file at the root of a website that tells search engine crawlers and AI bots which pages they are allowed or not allowed to access.
Search Intent
Search intent is the underlying goal a user has when typing a query into a search engine, categorized as informational, navigational, commercial, or transactional.
SEO Content
SEO content is written material specifically optimized to rank in search engines by targeting specific keywords, answering user questions, and following on-page best practices.
Social Proof
Social proof is evidence that other people use and trust a product, shown through testimonials, reviews, user counts, and case studies to build credibility.
Social Selling
Social selling is the practice of building relationships with potential customers on social platforms through valuable content and genuine engagement before selling.
Structured Data (Schema Markup)
Structured data is code added to a web page in JSON-LD format that helps search engines and AI systems understand the content's meaning, type, and relationships.
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