Growth Marketing: A Brief Reference Guide
Simple, to the point reference guide to key concepts and metrics for those of us outside of the sales/marketing/growth world.
Notice: This list was curated through discussions with AI models. It’s for reference purposes only.
General Strategy & Targeting
Value Proposition: The core statement explaining exactly what problem your product solves, how it benefits the customer, and why you are better than the alternatives.
Ideal Customer Profile (ICP): A detailed description of the perfect company that gets maximum value from your product and provides maximum value to your business.
TAM / SAM / SOM: A framework measuring your total market size: everyone who could theoretically buy (TAM), the portion your business model can actually reach (SAM), and your realistic short-term target audience (SOM).
Marketing & Demand Generation
Channels: The specific pathways, platforms, or networks (like Google Ads, LinkedIn, or events) you use to reach and communicate with your audience.
Campaigns: Focused, time-bound marketing initiatives designed to drive a specific action or outcome from a targeted audience.
Inbound Motion: A strategy focused on pulling customers in naturally by creating valuable content, SEO, and tools that draw them to your website.
Outbound Motion: A strategy where you actively push outward to reach specific prospective customers via cold email, direct mail, or phone calls.
Product-Led Growth (PLG) Motion: A go-to-market strategy where product usage—through self-serve onboarding, built-in viral loops, or collaboration—is the primary driver of customer acquisition, retention, and expansion.
Campaign Feedback Loop: The process of analyzing marketing campaign performance data to optimize ad spend, messaging, and creative choices.
ICP Feedback Loop: The continuous cycle of updating your ideal customer definition based on which types of buyers achieve ideal activation and other product-level metrics.
Sales Pipeline & Qualification
Prospecting: The active process of searching for, identifying, and reaching out to potential new buyers to start a sales conversation.
Qualified Prospects: Potential buyers who have been verified to match your basic ICP criteria and have a high likelihood of needing your solution.
MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead): A prospect who has engaged with marketing content enough to indicate interest, signaling they are ready for sales outreach.
SQL (Sales Qualified Lead): A lead vetted by sales and confirmed to have a genuine business fit, an active need, and an interest in talking.
SAL (Sales Accepted Lead): A prospective deal officially accepted into the sales pipeline after an initial conversation confirms budget, authority, need, and timeline.
PQL (Product Qualified Lead): A user of a free trial or freemium product who performs key actions inside the software that signal they are ready to upgrade.
Pipeline: The visual tracking system that shows exactly where every active sales deal sits in your sales process from discovery to close.
Pipeline Coverage Ratio: The ratio of active pipeline value compared to your sales quota, showing how much safety buffer you have to hit your revenue targets.
Sales Cycle Length: The average number of days it takes for a prospect to move from their first sales conversation to a finalized contract.
Win Rate (Close Rate): The percentage of qualified sales opportunities that successfully convert into paying customers.
Lead Velocity Rate (LVR): The month-over-month growth rate of qualified leads, serving as a leading indicator of future revenue growth.
Product & Customer Success
Visitor-to-Signup Rate (VSR): The percentage of website visitors who convert into registered users or trial signups.
Activation: The specific moment or milestone when a new user experiences the core value of your product for the first time.
Activation Rate: The percentage of total signups who successfully complete the onboarding milestone required to reach activation.
Time-to-Value (TTV): The amount of time it takes for a customer to move from signing a contract to realizing actual, measurable value from your software.
Feature Adoption Rate: The percentage of active users engaging with a specific feature, measuring whether shipped code drives actual value.
DAU/MAU Ratio (Stickiness): The proportion of monthly users who log in daily, indicating how essential the product is to daily routines.
Free-to-Paid Conversion Rate: The percentage of freemium or trial users who transition to a paid subscription.
Net New ARR: Additional recurring revenue generated from existing customers through feature upgrades, seat additions, or cross-sells.
Churn Rate: The percentage of your customer base or revenue that cancels their subscriptions over a specific period.
Unit Economics & Unit Efficiency
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): The total amount of sales and marketing spend required to acquire a single new paying customer.
Average Revenue per User (ARPU): The average amount of revenue generated per customer over a specific month or year.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): The total net profit or revenue a business expects to earn from a single customer relationship over its entire duration.
CLV:CAC: An efficiency metric comparing a customer’s total value to the cost of acquiring them, used to gauge long-term marketing ROI.
Payback Period: The number of months it takes for a customer to generate enough revenue to fully pay back their initial acquisition cost (CAC).
Net Dollar Retention (NDR): The percentage of recurring revenue retained from existing customers over time, factoring in churn, downgrades, and expansion.
SaaS Quick Ratio: A metric that measures a company’s growth efficiency by comparing new recurring revenue gains against recurring revenue lost to churn.
Bonus: Corporate Finance & Accounting
ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue): Your predictable, recurring subscription revenue normalized to an annual basis, usually calculated from the trailing quarter.
Gross Revenue (The “Top Line”): The total amount of money brought in from all sales before deducting any costs, discounts, or refunds.
COGS (Cost of Goods Sold): The direct, variable costs required to host and deliver your software, such as cloud infrastructure and customer support.
Gross Profit: Total Gross Revenue minus your direct COGS, showing what money is left to fund operations.
Gross Margin: Gross Profit expressed as a percentage of revenue ($Gross\ Profit / Revenue$), tracking how much profit remains after delivering the software.
OPEX (Operating Expenses): The day-to-day fixed costs of running the company, including payroll for R&D, sales and marketing, and administrative tools.
Burn Rate & Runway: The net amount of cash a company spends monthly (burn rate) and the remaining months of operation before capital is exhausted (runway).
EBITDA: Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization; it represents the raw cash profitability of your core business operations.
Interest, Taxes, Depreciation & Amortization: Non-operating accounting expenses representing debt service, government taxes, and the asset devaluation of equipment over time.
Net Profit (The “Bottom Line”): The ultimate remaining profit left for shareholders or reinvestment after absolutely all operating and non-operating expenses have been paid.