By Adam Glazer, Chair, PMA B2B Council, and Founder and President, Partner Commerce
Anyone who has negotiated a B2B partner agreement has had some version of this conversation. What exactly counts as a qualified lead? Does a referral partner get paid when the meeting is booked, when the opportunity opens or when the contract is signed? Is a reseller a channel partner, or something else?
The answers usually depend on who you ask, which platform they use and which side of the deal they sit on. Today the PMA B2B Council is publishing the first PMA B2B Partnerships Glossary: 36 terms, defined in plain, platform-neutral language, for anyone building, running or working in a B2B partner program. You can find it here: PMA B2B Partnerships Glossary
Why we built it
B2B partnerships have grown up borrowing words from two worlds. From affiliate marketing came links, commissions and publishers. From the channel came resellers, deal registration and MDF. Somewhere in between, each platform, network and agency started writing its own definitions, usually to describe how its own product works.
That is reasonable for a platform, but it leaves the industry without a shared reference. An advertiser moving from one platform to another finds the same words carry different meanings. A partner working with five programs learns five versions of "qualified." New hires learn whatever their first employer happened to use. And payout disputes often come down to two sides reading the same term differently.
The PMA already maintains a well-used master glossary, but it was built mostly around traditional affiliate marketing. Many of the terms that decide how B2B partners are credited and paid, such as SQO, deal registration, ACV or CAC payback, are not in it, or they mean something different in a long, multi-stakeholder sales cycle. When the B2B Council formed this year, a glossary was the obvious first deliverable. It is hard to set standards or share benchmarks until everyone agrees on what the words mean.
What it covers
Version 1 defines 36 terms in four groups, following a B2B deal from the type of partner involved to the revenue it produces.
| Group | What it defines | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Partner types | The kinds of partners in a B2B program and how they differ | Affiliate, referral, agency, reseller, technology (ISV), MSP |
| Program and motion | How advertisers and partners work together | Co-selling, co-marketing, channel sales, partner manager |
| Pipeline and key events | The stages where partners are credited and paid | Qualified lead, SQO, closed-won, deal registration, free trial |
| Revenue and value metrics | How partner programs are measured | ARR, CAC, LTV:CAC, CAC payback period |
It deliberately leaves out general affiliate terms such as CPC, CPL and the publisher sub-types. Those already live in the PMA master glossary, and we link back to it rather than redefine them. Where a shared term works differently in B2B, such as CAC or lifetime value, the entry adds an "In a B2B context" note instead of a competing definition.
How we approached it
We started by agreeing on the list. Council members proposed terms, and we cut the list down to the ones that matter most in B2B and are most often misunderstood. Then we drafted definitions, reviewed them together and revised them line by line in a shared document. A few rules shaped every entry:
- Neutral, not platform-shaped. No definition should track any single platform's or vendor's published glossary. These are the industry's terms, not anyone's product documentation.
- One-to-many versus one-to-one. The most useful distinction in B2B partnerships is how a partner reaches buyers. An affiliate partner reaches many prospects through content and audiences. A referral or channel partner introduces specific prospects, one at a time. The partner type entries make that difference explicit.
- B2B, not only SaaS. Subscription software is a big part of B2B, but so are marketplaces, fintech and business services. We say "subscription" only where it applies.
- No unsourced numbers. You will not find "a healthy LTV:CAC is 3:1" here. Benchmarks need real data behind them, and that is a project for a future deliverable.
- One term per entry. Combined entries are harder to read, harder to link to and harder for AI tools to cite accurately.
- One word for the company running the program. We use "advertiser," matching the PMA master glossary, rather than "brand," "merchant" or "vendor."
We also built it as a web page, not a PDF. More and more people look up a term by asking an AI assistant, and a public page with one term per entry is far easier for those tools to find and quote correctly.
How to use it
The glossary is free and open to everyone, PMA member or not. Some ways we hope it gets used:
- In partner agreements. Point to a shared definition of a qualified lead, a deal registration or a new paying customer, so both sides check against the same standard.
- When onboarding. Give new partner managers, sales teams and partners one place to learn the vocabulary.
- When comparing platforms or programs. Use neutral definitions to compare like with like.
- In your own content. Link to it, quote it and cite it. That is the point.
Who built it
This was a group effort by the members of the PMA B2B Council, who come from advertisers, agencies, networks and platforms across the industry. Thank you to Bonnie D'Amico (Round Barn Labs), Christie Frazer (CJ), Jim Nichols (Exclamation Marketing Solutions), Lee-Ann Johnstone (KonverJ.io), Shayna Massey (Shopify), Tracy Volker (IntegriShield), Tali Chester (Semantic Labs) and Brean Wilkinson (Rightlander). A special thanks to Taylor Kendrick (PartnerStack), who wrote the first full draft of definitions and gave us a real head start. And thanks to Tricia Meyer and the PMA team for making it easy to publish.
What comes next
This is version 1, and it will change. Terms will be added, definitions will be sharpened, and some we got wrong will be fixed. If you think a term is missing or a definition doesn't match how B2B partnerships actually work, tell us at yourboard@thepma.org.
The council is also starting to plan its next deliverable. Benchmarks are one candidate, now that there is a shared vocabulary to report them consistently.
If you work in B2B partnerships and want to help shape what comes next, join us. Starting in January, council meetings move to 11:30 a.m. Eastern, which makes it easier for our members in the UK and Europe to take part. [HOW TO JOIN]
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