AI SDR Glossary: 25 LinkedIn B2B Prospecting Terms (2026)

This glossary brings together 25 terms that come up constantly for founders, consultants, and B2B SDRs prospecting on LinkedIn in 2026. Every term is defined in plain language, without unnecessary jargon. A number only appears when it has a named public source; Chattie does not publish platform usage data, so none of the figures here come from Chattie.

TL;DR: An AI SDR is AI software that automates prospecting; SSI is LinkedIn's 0–100 social selling score, which LinkedIn itself now says does not necessarily track sales outcomes; a cadence is a structured sequence of outreach touchpoints; acceptance and reply rates are only comparable when you know each one's denominator. There is no reliable public benchmark for LinkedIn sales-cycle length.

This glossary covers the core concepts of AI SDR, Social Selling, Cadence, Automation, Benchmarks, Lead Qualification, and Prospecting Metrics — organized alphabetically for quick reference.

A

AI SDR

AI SDR is artificial intelligence software that automates prospecting, qualification, and engagement on LinkedIn — replacing or amplifying the manual work of a human SDR. Unlike traditional automation tools, an AI SDR reads the context of each conversation and suggests — or executes — personalized messages at scale, without losing relevance per recipient. Chattie is a LinkedIn-native AI SDR built for B2B teams and founders operating globally.

Acceptance Rate (Connection)

Acceptance rate is the percentage of LinkedIn connection requests sent that are accepted by the recipient. It is the first conversion metric in any LinkedIn outreach funnel and directly determines the size of the addressable audience for follow-up messages. As a public reference point, Expandi's 2026 benchmark report measured 28.5% acceptance, calculated as accepted connections divided by connection requests sent, across 13.2 million requests from users of its own tool; it has no country breakdown and does not split requests with and without a note. When your rate is low, the first suspects are ICP targeting, the sender profile, and the note copy. Acceptance rate should never be optimized in isolation — a high acceptance rate paired with a near-zero reply rate signals a disconnect between connection strategy and message quality.

Automation (LinkedIn)

LinkedIn automation is the use of tools or scripts to execute repetitive actions on the platform — connection requests, messages, follows, and profile views — without manual intervention at each step. LinkedIn's help page on prohibited software and extensions says: "we don't permit the use of any third party software, including 'crawlers', bots, browser plug-ins, or browser extensions that scrape, modify the appearance of, or automate activity on LinkedIn's website," and that members who do "risk having their accounts restricted or shut down." In practice no tool carries zero risk; what moves the risk is volume, pacing, and the pattern of actions, along with how the tool connects. The useful question when choosing a tool is which caps it enforces and whether you can raise them.

B

B2B Prospecting

B2B prospecting is the systematic process of identifying, researching, and initiating contact with companies and decision-makers who match an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), with the goal of creating qualified sales opportunities. On LinkedIn, prospecting combines profile-level research, connection outreach, follow-up cadences, and content engagement into a repeatable funnel. Because the platform is both the research database and the messaging channel, the time from finding a prospect to contacting them is shorter than in email-based prospecting.

Benchmark (Prospecting)

Prospecting benchmark is a performance reference used to evaluate whether the results of a LinkedIn outreach operation are within expected ranges for the market and segment. Without a benchmark, it is impossible to determine whether, for example, a 6% reply rate represents strong or weak performance. The catch is that each public report measures something different. Expandi's 2026 report, covering 13.2 million connection requests sent by 13,302 accounts between May 2025 and April 2026, landed on "28.5% connection acceptance, 3.0% connection-note reply, 10.4% message reply," measured on users of an automation tool, from the sender side, with no country data. Results vary by industry and seniority, so the most useful benchmark is your own operation's baseline, always calculated with the same denominator.

C

Cadence (Prospecting)

Prospecting cadence is the structured, repeatable sequence of messages sent to a prospect across multiple touchpoints, with pre-defined time intervals and angle variations. A cadence is not spam — each message carries a distinct angle (value proposition, use case, social proof, urgency) and treats prospect silence as a signal rather than an invitation to repeat the same message. There is no proven touchpoint count for LinkedIn: public sequence studies measure cold email or show association rather than cause, so the number of touches and the spacing between them are decisions to test in your own operation (what is known about which touchpoint gets the most replies).

Cadence (Multichannel)

Multichannel cadence is a prospecting cadence that coordinates more than one contact channel — LinkedIn + email, LinkedIn + WhatsApp — in logical sequence, rather than repeating the same channel indefinitely. Channel migration happens in response to prospect behavior triggers, not arbitrary time criteria. A well-structured multichannel cadence increases conversion probability by meeting the prospect on the channel where they are most responsive at each stage of the conversation.

Cold Outreach

Cold outreach is the act of initiating unsolicited contact with a prospect who has had no prior relationship with the sender. On LinkedIn, cold outreach typically begins with a connection request — with or without a note — followed by a structured message sequence after acceptance. The quality of cold outreach is determined not by volume but by relevance: how precisely the message speaks to a specific pain point of the target persona. Personalization is the main lever people test; how much it lifts replies on LinkedIn has no reliable public measurement, so compare personalized and template versions on similar prospects.

Conversion Rate (Funnel)

Conversion rate in a LinkedIn prospecting funnel refers to the percentage of prospects who move from one stage to the next: sent → accepted → replied → meeting booked → deal closed. Each stage has its own conversion rate, and the cumulative product of all stage rates equals the end-to-end funnel efficiency. A common mistake is optimizing only for top-of-funnel metrics (acceptance rate) while ignoring mid-funnel drop-offs (reply-to-meeting rate). A complete picture requires tracking all stage transitions simultaneously.

D

Decision Maker

Decision maker is the individual within a target organization who has the authority — and the budget — to approve a purchase. On LinkedIn, decision makers are identified through a combination of title signals (VP, Director, Head of, C-suite), company size, and department. In B2B sales, the decision maker is not always the first person to respond to outreach; champions and influencers frequently initiate contact before escalating internally. Effective LinkedIn prospecting maps the full buying committee, not just the formal approver. In most B2B purchases several people weigh in, so a single contact rarely carries the decision alone.

F

Follow-Up

Follow-up is any subsequent message sent to a prospect after an initial outreach attempt that did not generate a response or a sufficient response. On LinkedIn, follow-ups are the structural backbone of any cadence. In Expandi's H2 2026 State of LinkedIn Outreach data the opening message collects the most raw replies because everyone receives it, while later messages can perform better per recipient; that is association, not proof that adding a touch causes replies. A follow-up should never be a verbatim repeat of the previous message; each touchpoint must introduce a new angle, piece of evidence, or context shift to justify re-engagement.

I

ICP (Ideal Customer Profile)

ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) is the detailed definition of the company type that generates the most value for a business — and for which the business generates the most value in return. On LinkedIn, ICP is operationalized through filters: company size, industry vertical, geography, growth stage, technology stack, and hiring signals. A well-defined ICP is the foundation of any effective LinkedIn prospecting operation — without it, even a technically perfect cadence will produce low conversion rates because the outreach is directed at the wrong targets. ICP is not the same as a buyer persona; ICP describes the company, while persona describes the individual contact within it.

InMail

InMail is LinkedIn's native paid messaging feature that allows users to send messages to LinkedIn members who are not yet first-degree connections. InMail credits are included in LinkedIn Premium and Sales Navigator plans. InMail bypasses the connection request step and can reach prospects directly — but at higher cost per contact and with no guarantee of higher reply rates compared to connection-based outreach.

L

Lead

Lead is a prospect who has demonstrated some level of interest or qualification that distinguishes them from a cold contact — whether through responding to outreach, engaging with content, or fitting a predefined ICP threshold. In LinkedIn B2B prospecting, the term is used loosely and often conflated with MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead) or SQL (Sales Qualified Lead). A rigorous definition separates leads by stage: a connection who accepted a request is not a lead; a connection who replied and expressed interest in a conversation is. Clarity on what constitutes a lead in each organization is essential for accurate pipeline forecasting.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is LinkedIn's premium prospecting tool, offering advanced search filters, lead and account saving, InMail credits, and CRM integration. Sales Navigator provides access to filters unavailable in the free version — such as company headcount growth and recent leadership changes — enabling more precise ICP targeting. Some features, like TeamLink and CRM sync, sit in the Advanced and Advanced Plus plans rather than Core. The tool is most valuable when paired with a structured prospecting cadence rather than used for ad hoc outreach.

M

Message Personalization

Message personalization is the practice of tailoring outreach content to specific characteristics of each prospect — their role, recent activity, company news, content they've published, or pain points relevant to their profile — rather than sending a generic template to everyone. On LinkedIn, personalization operates on a spectrum: from simple variable substitution (first name, company) to contextual references that demonstrate genuine research. AI SDR tools aim to deliver the contextual end of that spectrum at scale. In Chattie's Copilot mode, for example, the AI writes the message and a human approves it before it is sent.

MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead)

MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead) is a lead that has been assessed by marketing criteria as ready for sales engagement — typically based on engagement with content, fit with ICP filters, or a combination of behavioral and demographic signals. In LinkedIn-driven prospecting, the MQL concept is often compressed or eliminated because outreach is inherently targeted: the SDR or AI SDR already applies ICP criteria before initiating contact, so the marketing qualification step is embedded in targeting rather than applied afterward. In outbound-heavy LinkedIn operations, the practical equivalent of MQL is a prospect who has both accepted a connection and replied to at least one message.

O

Outbound Prospecting

Outbound prospecting is seller-initiated contact with potential buyers who have not expressed prior interest — as opposed to inbound, where the prospect initiates contact. LinkedIn is primarily an outbound channel for most B2B sales teams, with sellers identifying targets and initiating conversations. Effective outbound on LinkedIn requires a clear ICP, a structured cadence, and message personalization to overcome the inherent cold-contact barrier.

P

Pipeline

Pipeline is the aggregate of all active sales opportunities at various stages of the sales process, quantified by expected revenue and probability of close. In LinkedIn B2B prospecting, pipeline is built through the consistent conversion of cold contacts into qualified conversations. A healthy pipeline requires both volume (sufficient number of opportunities) and velocity (opportunities moving through stages at expected rates). How many open opportunities you need per closed deal depends on your own stage conversion rates, so derive it from your funnel rather than from a generic ratio.

Prospecting (LinkedIn)

LinkedIn prospecting is the end-to-end process of using the LinkedIn platform to identify, evaluate, contact, and advance potential buyers through a sales funnel. It encompasses profile optimization (to establish credibility before outreach), ICP-based targeting (to select the right contacts), connection outreach (to initiate the relationship), cadenced follow-up (to advance the conversation), and pipeline tracking (to measure outcomes). LinkedIn prospecting differs from other outbound channels in that the platform itself serves both as a research database and a communication channel — compressing the research-to-contact workflow relative to email-based prospecting.

Q

Qualification

Qualification is the process of determining whether a prospect has the characteristics — budget, authority, need, and timeline (BANT) — that make them a viable sales opportunity worth investing further time in. On LinkedIn, initial qualification happens through profile research before outreach and deepens through the conversation itself. An AI SDR can assist with pre-qualification by filtering prospects against ICP criteria before any human time is invested, and with in-conversation qualification by flagging responses that indicate fit or disqualification signals. Accurate qualification prevents pipeline inflation — the common problem of counting prospects who will never buy as active opportunities.

R

Reply Rate

Reply rate is the percentage of messages sent that receive a response from the prospect. It is the primary mid-funnel conversion metric in any LinkedIn outreach operation and a more meaningful indicator of message quality than acceptance rate alone. The denominator changes from source to source (messages sent, conversations started, accepted connections), so two reply rates are only comparable if they are calculated the same way. Expandi measured 10.4%, calculated as replies divided by outbound messages sent, and that count includes InMails and emails, not only LinkedIn DMs. Reply rate is also worth analyzing by message position in the cadence.

S

Sales Cycle

Sales cycle is the elapsed time between first contact with a prospect and deal close, measured in calendar days. On LinkedIn, the sales cycle is shaped by deal complexity, number of decision makers involved, and the level of trust established through the outreach sequence. There is no reliable public figure for the length of a LinkedIn-sourced B2B sales cycle, so measure your own, from first contact to close (how to measure your sales cycle).

SDR (Sales Development Representative)

SDR (Sales Development Representative) is a sales role focused exclusively on the top of the funnel — prospecting, outreach, and qualification — with the goal of generating meetings or opportunities for Account Executives to close. SDRs do not own the full sales cycle; their output is qualified conversations, not closed deals. The distinction between SDR and AE (Account Executive) reflects the specialization logic of modern B2B sales teams: separating pipeline generation from deal closing increases efficiency in both roles. AI SDR tools are designed to augment or replace the most repetitive components of the SDR function — message sequencing, follow-up, and initial qualification — while keeping human judgment in the loop for complex conversations.

Social Selling

Social selling is the practice of using social media — primarily LinkedIn for B2B — to build relationships, establish authority, and generate pipeline through genuine engagement rather than cold-call-style interruption. Social selling is not content marketing; it combines profile presence, proactive outreach, and reactive engagement (commenting, reacting, sharing insights) into a coordinated strategy. The often-quoted "45% more opportunities, 51% more likely to hit quota" for high-SSI sellers is a LinkedIn Sales Blog claim from 2014–2015 with no published methodology, and LinkedIn's current SSI page now says a high score doesn't always correlate with measurable sales outcomes.

SQL (Sales Qualified Lead)

SQL (Sales Qualified Lead) is a lead that has been assessed by sales criteria as ready for a direct sales conversation — typically because they have expressed intent, confirmed budget authority, or acknowledged a relevant need. On LinkedIn, an SQL is most commonly identified when a prospect responds to outreach with a request for more information, asks for pricing, or agrees to a call. The MQL-to-SQL conversion rate is a key efficiency metric: it measures how well the prospecting process is pre-qualifying targets before sales time is invested.

SSI (Social Selling Index)

SSI (Social Selling Index) is LinkedIn's proprietary 0–100 score that measures a user's social selling effectiveness across four dimensions: establishing professional brand, finding the right people, engaging with insights, and building relationships. Each pillar is scored from 0 to 25, and the dashboard shows your rank against your industry and network. Since mid-2025 the dashboard at linkedin.com/sales/ssi requires Sales Navigator. LinkedIn's official SSI page now states that "a high SSI score doesn't always represent the efficacy of a sales person or correlate with measurable sales outcomes." Since 2015 the formula has included connection acceptance and InMail response rates, so any correlation between SSI and replies is partly circular.

T

Touchpoint

Touchpoint is any individual point of contact between seller and prospect within a prospecting cadence — a connection request, a follow-up message, a content interaction, or a channel switch. Each touchpoint should serve a distinct purpose and introduce a new angle rather than repeat previous messaging. The cumulative effect of multiple touchpoints, spaced appropriately and varied in approach, is what converts a cold contact into a qualified conversation. How many touchpoints are worth sending has no proven answer for LinkedIn; measure replies by position in your own cadence.

W

Warm Outreach

Warm outreach is contact initiated with a prospect with whom there is some prior connection or shared context — a mutual connection, a LinkedIn content interaction, a conference encounter, or a referral. The working assumption is that warm outreach outperforms cold outreach on acceptance, reply, and meetings; how large that gap is has no reliable public measurement, so tag warm and cold contacts separately and compare. On LinkedIn, warm outreach opportunities can be systematically created by engaging with a prospect's content before sending a connection request — a practice meant to establish recognizability before the outreach message arrives. Some tools can track engagement signals and flag prospects who have interacted with content, enabling sellers to prioritize warm contacts at scale.

Quick Reference Table

Term	Category	Key Metric
AI SDR	Technology	Automates prospecting at scale
Acceptance Rate	Metric	Accepted ÷ requests sent; Expandi 2026: 28.5%
Cadence	Process	Touch count and spacing: test, no proven number
ICP	Strategy	Foundation of all targeting
Reply Rate	Metric	Check the denominator; Expandi 2026: 10.4% of messages sent
Sales Cycle	Metric	No reliable public figure; measure your own
SSI Score	Metric	0–100; requires Sales Navigator since mid-2025
SQL	Classification	Prospect confirmed intent or agreed to call
Touchpoint	Process	Each message needs a distinct angle
Social Selling	Methodology	Relationship and content before the pitch

FAQ

What is the difference between an AI SDR and a traditional automation tool?

A traditional automation tool executes pre-programmed sequences — send connection request, wait X days, send message — without reading conversational context. An AI SDR reads the prospect's profile, recent activity, and conversation history to suggest or generate contextually relevant messages. The practical difference is personalization quality at scale: automation tools send the same template to everyone; AI SDRs adapt the message to each recipient. Neither type is risk-free on LinkedIn; account risk depends mostly on volume, pacing, and the caps a tool enforces.

What is a realistic connection acceptance rate for cold LinkedIn B2B outreach?

One large recent public dataset, Expandi's 2026 report, measured 28.5% acceptance across 13.2 million requests from users of its tool, with no country split. Treat it as a rough reference, not a target: your number depends on industry, seniority, and how warm the list is. If your rate is low, check three things first: ICP fit (are you targeting the right people), a note that reads as promotional, and an incomplete sender profile with no mutual connections.

How many touchpoints does a LinkedIn B2B cadence need?

There is no proven number for LinkedIn. Public sequence studies mostly measure cold email, and the LinkedIn data that exists shows association, not cause. Start with a short cadence, track replies by position, and add a touch only if the later positions still produce replies without complaints. Each touchpoint must have a distinct angle: repeating the same message is not a cadence, it is spam.

What is the difference between MQL and SQL in a LinkedIn prospecting context?

An MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead) has been assessed as fitting ICP criteria — the right company size, industry, and role — but has not yet expressed active interest. An SQL (Sales Qualified Lead) has both fit criteria and demonstrated intent — they responded to outreach, asked a question, or agreed to a conversation. In outbound LinkedIn prospecting, the MQL-to-SQL step is compressed because targeting is applied before outreach; a prospect who replies and engages is effectively an SQL by the time human sales time is invested.

When should a LinkedIn prospecting cadence migrate to another channel?

Channel migration — from LinkedIn to email or WhatsApp — should be triggered by behavior, not time. Typical triggers are: the prospect accepted the connection but has not replied after a few touchpoints (email follow-up), or the prospect has expressed interest in a call and a more immediate channel would accelerate scheduling (WhatsApp). Arbitrary time-based migration ("after 7 days, switch to email") ignores the prospect's engagement state at the moment of the switch, which is why behavior is the better trigger to test.

How Chattie Applies These Concepts

Understanding the terms in this glossary is the starting point. Applying them in a systematic, scalable daily operation is the execution challenge.

Chattie is a LinkedIn AI SDR with two sending modes you can switch mid-conversation: Autopilot, where the AI sends the message, and Copilot, where the AI writes and a human approves before sending. In both modes it automates connection requests, campaigns, withdrawing invitations still pending after 10 days, and meeting scheduling.

On the account-risk side, Chattie enforces fixed daily caps that users cannot raise (25 connection requests, 40 conversations, and 200 LinkedIn actions per day), sends only during business hours, and does not use a Chrome extension. That keeps the risk low and bounded, not zero. Chattie does not publish platform usage data, so the metrics in this glossary are yours to measure.

→ See how Chattie works

This glossary is updated periodically to reflect platform changes and emerging terminology in the AI SDR and LinkedIn B2B prospecting space. Last updated: October 2026.

References

The outside sources cited in the body of this article, in the order they appear.

LinkedIn Help, "Prohibited software and extensions" (linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a1341387)
Expandi, "LinkedIn Outreach Benchmarks 2026" (Stefana Zarić, May 19, 2026; expandi.io/blog/linkedin-outreach-benchmarks-2026/): 13,218,869 connection requests, 6,730,447 outbound messages, 13,302 accounts, May 2025 to April 2026; sender-side data from users of the tool
LinkedIn, Social Selling Index page (business.linkedin.com/sell/resources/SSI)
Expandi, "State of LinkedIn Outreach H2 2026" (expandi.io/state-of-linkedin-outreach-h2-2026): observational data on reply rate by message position

A