# Lead Generation Glossary: Email, Data and Google Maps Terms URL: https://leadraft.co/glossary Summary: Plain-English definitions of the terms behind local lead generation: catch-all emails, MX records, SPF and DKIM, Google Place IDs, CAN-SPAM, MCP and more. Glossary # The words behind local lead generation. 44 terms from finding businesses, finding and checking their emails, and sending to them, each explained in plain English with an example. ## Lead generation [ B2B lead generation B2B lead generation is finding businesses that might buy your product or service, and starting conversations with the people who decide. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/b2b-lead-generation) [ Cold email Cold email is a one-to-one business email to someone you have no prior relationship with, sent to start a conversation about a specific offer. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/cold-email) [ Data decay Data decay is the steady loss of accuracy in a lead list as people change jobs, businesses close or move, and email addresses stop working. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/data-decay) [ Email finder An email finder is a tool that finds email addresses for a business or person, from websites, databases or pattern guesses, usually with verification. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/email-finder) [ Firmographics Firmographics are descriptive facts about a business, such as industry, location, size and age, used to segment and qualify B2B leads. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/firmographics) [ Ideal customer profile An ideal customer profile (ICP) describes the kind of business that gets the most value from your offer and is most likely to buy it. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/ideal-customer-profile) [ Lead enrichment Lead enrichment is adding missing data to a lead, such as emails, social links, categories or ratings, so it can be qualified and contacted. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/lead-enrichment) [ Lead list A lead list is a set of businesses or people you plan to contact, with the fields needed to qualify them and reach them, such as email and phone. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/lead-list) [ Lead scoring Lead scoring is ranking leads by how likely they are to buy, using points for fit and behavior, so you contact the best ones first. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/lead-scoring) [ Local lead generation Local lead generation is finding and contacting businesses in a specific place, such as every dentist in a county, usually starting from Google Maps. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/local-lead-generation) [ NAICS code A NAICS code is a 2- to 6-digit number from the North American Industry Classification System that identifies a business's industry. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/naics-code) [ SIC code A SIC code is a 4-digit Standard Industrial Classification number for a business's industry, an older US system largely replaced by NAICS. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/sic-code) [ Total addressable market Total addressable market (TAM) is the total number of potential customers for an offer, or the revenue they represent, in the markets you can serve. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/total-addressable-market) ## Google Maps & local data [ Google Business Profile A Google Business Profile is the free listing that shows a business on Google Search and Maps, with its categories, hours, phone, website and reviews. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/google-business-profile) [ Google Maps categories Google Maps categories are the fixed labels businesses choose to describe what they do, such as "Plumber" or "Dental clinic," one primary plus extras. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/google-maps-categories) [ Google Maps scraping Google Maps scraping is automatically collecting business listing data, such as names, phones, websites and ratings, from Google Maps search results. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/google-maps-scraping) [ Google Place ID A Google Place ID is a text identifier that uniquely identifies a place in Google's Places database, used to dedupe and look up listings. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/google-place-id) [ Google Places API The Google Places API is Google's official, paid API for searching places and getting details like name, address, phone, website, hours and ratings. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/google-places-api) [ Grid search Grid search (tiling) splits an area into small tiles and searches each one, to get past the result limits of a single Google Maps search. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/grid-search) [ Polygon search A polygon search finds businesses inside a shape you draw on a map, instead of a city name or a radius, so the results match your exact territory. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/polygon-search) ## Email & deliverability [ Bounce rate Bounce rate is the percentage of sent emails that were returned as undeliverable; for cold email, under 2% is a sensible target. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/bounce-rate) [ Catch-all email A catch-all email is an address on a domain whose mail server accepts mail for any address, so a verifier can't confirm the mailbox really exists. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/catch-all-email) [ DKIM DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) is a cryptographic signature added to email so receivers can verify which domain sent it and that it wasn't altered. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/dkim) [ DMARC DMARC is a DNS policy that tells receivers what to do with mail that fails SPF and DKIM alignment for your domain, and where to send reports. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/dmarc) [ Email deliverability Email deliverability is the ability of your emails to reach recipients' inboxes rather than bouncing or landing in spam. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/email-deliverability) [ Email permutation An email permutation is a guessed address built from a name and domain using common patterns, such as first@, first.last@ or flast@. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/email-permutation) [ Email verification Email verification is checking whether an address can receive mail, using syntax, MX and SMTP tests, without sending a message to it. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/email-verification) [ Email warm-up Email warm-up is gradually increasing the volume sent from a new domain or mailbox so mailbox providers learn to trust it before full campaigns. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/email-warm-up) [ Hard bounce A hard bounce is a permanent delivery failure, such as an address that doesn't exist, returned with an SMTP reply code starting with 5. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/hard-bounce) [ Role-based email A role-based email is an address for a function rather than a person, such as info@, office@ or sales@, often read by several people. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/role-based-email) [ Sender reputation Sender reputation is the trust mailbox providers place in your sending domain and IP, built from complaints, bounces, authentication and engagement. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/sender-reputation) [ Soft bounce A soft bounce is a temporary delivery failure, such as a full mailbox or busy server, returned with an SMTP reply code starting with 4. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/soft-bounce) [ Spam trap A spam trap is an email address used to catch senders with poor list practices; mail to one can damage your sender reputation or get you blocklisted. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/spam-trap) [ SPF SPF (Sender Policy Framework) is a DNS record that lists which servers are allowed to send email for a domain, so receivers can spot forgeries. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/spf) ## Compliance [ CAN-SPAM Act The CAN-SPAM Act is the US law for commercial email; it allows cold email without consent but requires honest headers, an address and a working opt-out. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/can-spam) [ CASL CASL is Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation, which requires consent before most commercial emails, including implied consent for published business addresses. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/casl) [ GDPR legitimate interest GDPR legitimate interest is a lawful basis for processing personal data without consent, which can cover B2B direct marketing after a balancing test. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/gdpr-legitimate-interest) [ Suppression list A suppression list is a list of addresses or domains you must never email again, such as opt-outs, hard bounces and complaints, checked before every send. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/suppression-list) ## Technical [ Deduplication Deduplication is finding and merging records that describe the same business or person, so each appears once in a list. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/deduplication) [ KML file A KML file is an XML file that stores map shapes, points and lines, used by Google Earth and GIS tools to share areas like sales territories. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/kml-file) [ Model Context Protocol The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard that lets AI assistants like Claude and ChatGPT connect to external tools and data sources. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/model-context-protocol) [ MX record An MX record is a DNS record that names the mail servers accepting email for a domain, with a priority number for each server. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/mx-record) [ SMTP SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) is the standard, defined in RFC 5321, that mail servers use to send and relay email to each other. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/smtp) [ Webhook A webhook is an HTTP request one app sends to a URL you choose when something happens, so other systems can react without polling. ](https://leadraft.co/glossary/webhook) ## Start with 500 businesses, free. 50 checked emails included. 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