Every industry has its acronyms. B2B marketing has more than most - and the pace at which new ones are appearing (AEO, GEO, RAG, llms.txt) is accelerating. This glossary covers 40 of the terms that come up most in conversations between marketers, agencies, and the operators trying to figure out whether they're being helped or talked at.
AI & Search
The terms that matter most right now - and the ones most likely to be misused by people trying to sell you something. Know these before your next agency conversation.
AEO
Answer Engine Optimisation
Structuring your content so AI tools (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews) cite you when answering a buyer's question. The goal isn't a ranked link - it's being the answer.
GEO
Generative Engine Optimisation
Same discipline as AEO, different acronym. GEO is more common in US/UK circles; AEO in AU/NZ. Both mean: optimising to appear in AI-generated responses, not just traditional search results.
LLM
Large Language Model
The AI technology behind ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. Trained on vast amounts of text, these models generate human-like responses. Understanding how they read and cite content is the foundation of AEO.
llms.txt
LLM Site Instruction File
A plain-text file at yoursite.com/llms.txt that tells AI crawlers what your site is about, who it's for, and which pages matter. The robots.txt of the AI era. Almost no NZ B2B sites have one.
RAG
Retrieval-Augmented Generation
A technique where an AI pulls live content from the web before generating a response. When an AI tool searches your site to answer a question, that's RAG in action - why your content structure matters right now.
Schema Markup
Structured Data (JSON-LD)
Machine-readable metadata embedded in your site that tells AI engines and Google what your content is - a product, an FAQ, an organisation. Without it, AI has to guess. With it, you're explicit.
Entity Authority
Brand Entity Trust Signal
How consistently and credibly your company is described across the web. AI engines build a model of who you are from all available signals. Inconsistent descriptions lower trust and reduce citation frequency.
AIO
AI Optimisation (broad)
A catch-all term for any optimisation work targeted at AI systems - including how your brand appears in AI training data, live retrieval, and AI-generated summaries.
SEO
Traditional search optimisation terms - still relevant, but increasingly insufficient on their own. Know the difference between what moves Google rankings and what moves AI citations.
SEO
Search Engine Optimisation
Improving your site's visibility in traditional search results (Google, Bing). Still relevant - but increasingly insufficient as buyers shift to AI tools for vendor research.
E-E-A-T
Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness
Google's framework for evaluating content quality. Increasingly relevant for AI citation too - AI engines favour content demonstrating genuine expertise over content optimised for keyword density.
DA / DR
Domain Authority / Domain Rating
Third-party metrics (Moz/Ahrefs) estimating how well your site will rank in Google. Useful proxies for traditional SEO. Have almost no direct relationship to AI citation frequency.
Topical Authority
Subject-Matter Depth Signal
How comprehensively your site covers a topic area. A site with 20 deep, interlinked articles on B2B SEO has more topical authority than a site with 200 thin pages on unrelated topics. AI engines respond to this.
Technical SEO
Site Infrastructure Optimisation
The behind-the-scenes work: site speed, crawlability, URL structure, schema, sitemaps, mobile optimisation. Overlaps significantly with AEO - a technically sound site is easier for both Google and AI to read.
SERP
Search Engine Results Page
The page Google shows after a query. Knowing your SERP position matters for traditional SEO tracking - though AI tools increasingly bypass the SERP entirely, delivering answers directly.
Backlink
Inbound Link from Another Site
A link from another website pointing to yours. A core traditional SEO signal. Much less relevant to AI citation - don't let anyone sell you "AI SEO" that's primarily a backlink campaign.
Anchor Text
Clickable Link Text
The visible text of a hyperlink. Exact-match anchor text manipulation was an SEO tactic in 2012. If an agency still leads with this as a primary strategy, walk away.
GTM & Revenue
The strategic and financial terms that come up in investor conversations, board decks, and sales planning. Know these before your next funding round or agency brief.
GTM
Go-to-Market Strategy
The plan for how you bring a product to market - who you're selling to, through which channels, at what price, with what messaging. Marketing, sales, and product all intersect here.
ICP
Ideal Customer Profile
A detailed description of the company (or person) most likely to buy, get value from your product, and stick around. Not "SMBs" - something specific: "Series A SaaS companies with 10–50 employees expanding into AU."
CAC
Customer Acquisition Cost
How much it costs to win one new customer. Total marketing and sales spend ÷ new customers in a period. The ratio of LTV to CAC is one of the most important metrics in B2B. Aim for LTV:CAC of at least 3:1.
LTV
Lifetime Value
The total revenue you expect from a customer over the entire relationship. Should be at least 3× CAC. If it's not, your unit economics don't work at scale - no amount of growth marketing fixes broken fundamentals.
PLG
Product-Led Growth
A GTM model where the product drives acquisition, conversion, and expansion. Freemium, trials, viral loops. Contrasts with sales-led growth where humans close every deal. Often combined at scale.
ACV
Annual Contract Value
The average revenue from a single customer contract per year. Used alongside ARR to understand deal size and mix. High ACV typically means longer sales cycles and more complex buying committees.
NRR
Net Revenue Retention
Revenue retained from existing customers after expansions, contractions, and churn. Above 100% means existing customers are spending more over time - the holy grail for SaaS businesses.
SLG
Sales-Led Growth
A GTM model where a sales team drives revenue. Common in enterprise B2B. Often combined with PLG at scale - product generates leads, sales closes the larger contracts that require human relationships.
Marketing & Pipeline
The operational terms your marketing team uses daily - and the ones that cause the most confusion when marketing and sales try to talk to each other.
ARR
Annual Recurring Revenue
The annualised value of all active subscriptions. The primary revenue metric for SaaS. MRR × 12. Investors, acquirers, and partners will ask for this first - have a clean number ready.
MQL
Marketing Qualified Lead
A lead marketing has determined is worth passing to sales based on behaviour or profile. The definition varies wildly between companies - which is often why marketing and sales don't trust each other's numbers.
SQL
Sales Qualified Lead
A lead sales has accepted and is actively working. The gap between MQL and SQL is where most B2B pipeline programmes break down. Closing it requires shared definitions and honest attribution.
ABM
Account-Based Marketing
A strategy where marketing and sales align to target specific high-value accounts rather than individual leads. Resources go deep on a short list. Common in enterprise B2B where deal sizes justify the effort.
CRO
Conversion Rate Optimisation
Improving the percentage of visitors who take a desired action - sign up, book a call, download a resource. Often neglected in favour of driving more traffic. Usually the higher-leverage move.
CTR
Click-Through Rate
The percentage of people who click a link or ad after seeing it. Relevant for email, paid ads, and organic search. High impressions + low CTR = a messaging or positioning problem, not a traffic problem.
Churn
Customer Attrition Rate
The percentage of customers (or revenue) lost in a period. Fixing churn is almost always a higher-leverage move than acquiring new customers at the same rate churn is occurring. Fix the leaky bucket first.
ToFU / MoFU / BoFU
Top / Middle / Bottom of Funnel
Categorising content and tactics by buyer stage. ToFU: awareness (blog posts, AEO content). MoFU: consideration (case studies, calculators). BoFU: decision (demos, proposals, pricing pages).
Content & Creative
The terms that come up when planning, briefing, and measuring content programmes. Including a few that are used loosely enough to mean almost anything.
Brand Voice
Tonal and Stylistic Identity
The consistent personality and style of your written communications. Not just what you say but how you say it. Document it - it's the first thing you load into any AI writing tool to stop outputs sounding generic.
Interactive Tool
Engagement-First Content Asset
A calculator, assessment, or configurator that gives a buyer personalised output based on their inputs. Drives 10–14× more time on page than a whitepaper. The best-performing lead asset in B2B content marketing right now.
Gated Content
Email-Required Content
Content requiring a form submission to access - whitepapers, reports, templates. Generates leads but reduces reach and SEO value. Increasingly challenged by interactive tools that deliver immediate, personalised value.
Thought Leadership
Expert POV Content
Content demonstrating genuine expertise and a clear market point of view. At its best, it shifts how buyers think about a problem. At its worst, it's corporate blog posts that say nothing and cite nobody.
Case Study
Customer Success Story
A structured narrative of how a specific customer solved a specific problem using your product, with measurable outcomes. The most credible content type in B2B. Also the hardest to get customers to participate in.
One-Pager
Single-Page Sales Asset
A concise, designed document that communicates your value proposition, key benefits, and CTA on a single page. Used in sales conversations, partnership decks, and event materials.
Hero / Hub / Help
Content Architecture Framework
Hero = big campaign content (1–2 per year). Hub = regular series content (monthly). Help = evergreen answer-led content (ongoing). AEO and GEO content fits primarily in the Help layer.
Content Strategy
Planned Content Programme
A deliberate plan for what content you create, why, for whom, and how it connects to business outcomes. Not a content calendar. The strategy is the "why and for whom" - the calendar is just the schedule.
