Once you have a list of leads, the next step is usually to add more context — verified data, contact information, and specialized details you can sync back into Salesforce or your CRM. This is where Clay comes in.
Clay is one of the most powerful platforms I’ve used for enriching lead data and building automated sales workflows. It takes a raw spreadsheet and turns it into an actionable dataset by layering in third-party data, verified contacts, and even AI-generated enrichments.
What makes Clay stand out is that it pulls from dozens of premium data sources in one place. That means you can grab firmographic details, verify contacts, and build dynamic sales pipelines without juggling ten different tools. Its waterfall enrichment system ensures each prospect is backed by accurate, up-to-date information, everything from job roles to verified email addresses.
Getting Started
Getting going with Clay is simple. You create a new table and upload a list of target companies or contacts. From there, you can enrich with data like headcount, industry, recent hiring trends, or even a company’s tech stack.
Clay supports manual uploads, but it also integrates directly with HubSpot, Salesforce, and SalesLoft. If you want to create your own list from scratch, check out our guides on using ChatGPT and Paradigm.
Enriching Your Data
After importing, you can start adding enrichment columns: job titles, emails, company size, funding history, decision-makers, intent signals, and more. Clay pulls from over 100 data providers like LinkedIn, Dropcontact, and Crunchbase, stitching everything together and verifying key fields like emails and phone numbers.
The end result: your basic spreadsheet of names turns into a rich, filterable database with all the context you need for outreach.
Automate and Segment Workflow
Clay really shines once you start setting up automations. You can create rules to score prospects, segment lists, and push leads into campaigns automatically.
Examples:
Assign points to leads that recently visited your site.
Group companies by geography, recent funding, or employee size.
Sync the best-fit contacts straight into your cold email tool or CRM.
This saves hours of manual research and ensures your team only sees the most relevant leads.
Integrations and Advanced Uses
Clay plugs into Salesloft, Outreach, Google Sheets, HubSpot, and more. That means your enriched lists are always in sync with the systems your team already uses.
Advanced users can take things further by setting up custom logic for waterfall enrichments and conditional flows. This flexibility makes Clay just as useful for a solo founder running outbound campaigns as it is for a RevOps team building at scale.
Why It Matters
Using Clay turns static spreadsheets into dynamic, "living" lead databases, where each data point can be automatically updated and enriched with the latest information. This enables a shift from basic research to automated, high-impact sales campaigns, helping teams identify, qualify, and reach prospects with speed, precision, and context.
Clay is a game-changer for anyone aiming to scale lead research, enrich contact information, and automate sales workflows—all without the need for code or switching between multiple tools.
Need Help?
Another thing I LOVE about Clay is the number of resources available online to help you get started. It is a complicated product to use, but the online resources are abundant. Check out this video as a guide:
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