Your sales team spends hours researching leads before they even pick up the phone. Job title, company size, funding stage, tech stack — all manually copy-pasted from five different tabs. Here's how to make that happen automatically with Clay.
I build enrichment pipelines for startups and growth teams for a living. The pattern is almost always the same: a rep gets a list of 200 names and spends two days Googling each one before doing any actual selling. Clay fixes that. This guide walks you through exactly how to set it up.
What you'll build: a pipeline that takes a raw list of leads — from a CSV, your CRM, or a scraping tool — and automatically fills in job title, company info, funding, tech stack, email, and a fit score. What used to take a full day now runs in minutes.
What is lead enrichment (and why it matters)
Lead enrichment is the process of adding missing data to your contacts. You start with a name and a company; you end with their title, seniority, company revenue, headcount, funding round, tech stack, LinkedIn URL, verified email, and whatever else your team needs to decide if someone is worth reaching out to.
Without enrichment, one of two things happens:
- Your reps spend hours researching manually, which doesn't scale.
- They skip the research and spray generic messages, which doesn't convert.
Good enrichment gives your team the context to personalize at scale — without the manual work.
Why Clay
There are plenty of enrichment tools. What makes Clay different is that it's not a single data provider — it's a table that connects to 100+ providers at once. Instead of switching between Apollo, ZoomInfo, Clearbit, LinkedIn and ten browser tabs, you build one pipeline that pulls the best data from each source automatically.
Think of it like a spreadsheet with superpowers. Each column can call a different API, run an AI prompt, or apply a formula. The result is a single, clean table with everything your team needs.
How to build it: step by step
Start with your source
Every pipeline starts with a list. This can be:
- A CSV export from LinkedIn Sales Navigator or an event attendee list
- A live sync from your CRM (HubSpot, Salesforce)
- A scraping output from PhantomBuster or Apify
- A manual list your team built in Google Sheets
Import it into a Clay table. You need at minimum a name and a company name (or a LinkedIn URL). Everything else gets filled in automatically.
Enrich the company
Before you research the person, research the company. Add columns that pull:
- Company size — headcount range from Apollo or LinkedIn
- Industry and description — what the company actually does
- Funding stage and amount — from Crunchbase or PitchBook
- Tech stack — what tools they use (BuiltWith, Wappalyzer)
- Location — HQ city and country
Clay's "waterfall" enrichment tries multiple providers in order and uses the first one that returns data. You don't pay for duplicates, and you get better coverage than any single source.
Enrich the person
Now layer in the person-level data:
- Current job title and seniority — to confirm they're still at that company
- LinkedIn profile URL — for outreach and research
- Verified work email — waterfall across Apollo, Hunter, Dropcontact
- Phone number — if your team does cold calls
Pro tip: always verify emails before sending. Clay has built-in verification, or you can route through NeverBounce or ZeroBounce. Sending to bad emails tanks your domain reputation.
Score and qualify
This is where most teams stop — and where the real value starts. Add an ICP score column that grades each lead based on your criteria:
- Company size between 20–500? +10 points
- Series A or B funded? +15 points
- Title contains "Head of" or "VP"? +10 points
- Uses HubSpot or Salesforce? +5 points
You can do this with Clay formulas or, even better, with an AI prompt that reads all the enriched data and returns a score + one-line reason. This is what I build for most clients — a scoring model that adapts to their specific ICP.
Route to your outbound tool or CRM
The enriched, scored list needs to land somewhere your team actually works:
- CRM — push to HubSpot or Salesforce as new contacts with all the enriched fields mapped
- Outbound tool — send hot leads directly to Lemlist, Salesloft, or Outreach as a ready sequence
- Slack — ping the rep in real-time when a high-score lead comes in
Use Clay's native integrations or connect through n8n/Zapier for more complex routing logic. The goal: a lead enters the top of the pipeline and comes out the other end enriched, scored, and in front of the right rep — without anyone touching a spreadsheet.
What this looks like in practice
Here's a real example. A startup I worked with had two SDRs spending about 3 hours a day researching accounts before writing outbound emails. The process was: export from Sales Navigator → open each profile → check company on Crunchbase → look up tech stack → find email → update the Google Sheet → write the email.
We replaced that with a Clay pipeline connected to their HubSpot. Now a lead comes in, gets enriched in under a minute, scored against their ICP, and if it's a fit, drops into Lemlist with a personalized first line written by AI based on the enriched data.
Result: those 3 hours a day became 15 minutes of review. Same two SDRs, 4x the outbound volume, better personalization.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Enriching everything at once. Start with company data, then person data. If the company doesn't fit your ICP, don't waste credits enriching the person.
- Skipping email verification. One bad batch can damage your sending domain for months. Always verify before you send.
- Over-engineering the score. Start with 3–5 criteria that actually matter. You can always add more later. A simple score that ships beats a perfect one that lives in a doc.
- Not connecting to the CRM. If enriched data lives only in Clay, your reps won't use it. Push it where they already work.
FAQ
What is lead enrichment?
Lead enrichment is the process of adding missing data to your contacts — job title, company size, funding, tech stack, intent signals — so your sales team knows who to prioritize and what to say.
Why use Clay for lead enrichment?
Clay connects 100+ data providers in one table. Instead of switching between Apollo, ZoomInfo, LinkedIn and others, you build a single pipeline that pulls from all of them automatically.
How long does it take to set up?
A basic pipeline takes a few hours. A full system with scoring, routing and CRM sync usually takes 1–2 days to build and test properly.
Can Clay replace my existing tools?
Clay doesn't replace data providers — it sits on top of them. It calls Apollo, ZoomInfo, Clearbit and others through one interface, so you get the best data from each without managing them separately.
In short
Lead enrichment is the foundation of any scalable outbound system. Done manually, it burns hours every day. Done right with Clay, it runs in the background while your team focuses on selling. If you want to see how an enrichment pipeline would work for your team, check out what I build for startups or book a 15-minute call and I'll walk you through it.
Next up: once your leads are enriched, you need something to reach them. Read how to build an AI SDR agent or how to automate your pipeline with n8n.