Hey great question! What you’re describing is basically the “holy grail” Clay workflow: automated outbound from discovery → enrichment → outreach. The high-level flow looks like this:
Find companies:
Use Clay’s Find Companies or import from LinkedIn / Apollo / Google Maps based on your ICP filters.
Enrich the companies:
Add data like industry, employee size, tech stack, funding, etc. (helps with personalization).
Find decision makers:
Use Find People (with title filters like “Head of Marketing” or “VP Sales”) linked to the company domain.
Get verified emails:
Run the Work Email waterfall to find accurate, validated contact emails.
Personalize at scale:
Use Claygent or custom AI prompts to generate one-liners, intros, or first-touch messages based on the company site or recent signals.
Send emails automatically:
Push the enriched + personalized leads into your sequencer (Instantly, Smartlead, or HubSpot).
If you want, search “Full outbound workflow” in Clay University or check out the Outbound GTM Starter Template in your dashboard it’s prebuilt and covers all 6 steps.
Just DM you Garrett W.
That’s a really solid early-stage GTM stack 👏. A few of us have run something similar, and the biggest pitfalls tend to come from data sync and ownership rather than tool choice. Here are a few lessons from experience:
Use Clay as your enrichment & orchestration layer, not your CRM. Keep Attio as the source of truth and pipe enriched data into it via API or CSV syncs.
Standardize IDs early (email, domain, or LinkedIn URL). That’s what’ll keep Apollo, Clay, and Attio aligned.
Avoid duplicating workflows across tools. Let Apollo handle cold calling and Clay handle sourcing — don’t try to overlap.
Document your flow. Early clarity on “who owns what data and where it lives” will save you a massive headache later when integrations get messy.
If you wire Clay → Attio with a simple automation, it can still give you clean, enriched contact info without risking duplicate systems.
Hey! 👋 If you only have the domain names, there are still a few solid ways to pull agency emails it just depends on what kind of address you want:
Generic emails (info@, hello@, contact@) —
Use Clay’s “Find Business Email” or “Find Email Patterns” enrichments. These pull public or guessed domain-level emails that are often listed on the agency website.
People-level emails (decision makers) —
Run “Find People” → Job Title: Founder, CEO, Managing Director, Head of Marketing (depending on your target) and then “Find Work Email (Waterfall)” on those rows.
This gives you more personalized outreach options vs. generic inboxes.
Backup strategy:
If you’re still getting too few results, you can layer data providers like Dropcontact, SMARTe, or LeadMagic via Clay’s waterfall. They’re usually better for agency-type businesses where domains are small and data coverage is patchy.
Hey! 👋 This is a very common HubSpot + Clay workflow, and you’re not missing anything — it’s just not as plug-and-play as it should be. The right approach is exactly what you described: match on domain to decide whether to update or create records. Here’s a clean, low-maintenance setup that works well for ongoing syncs:
Pull HubSpot companies into Clay:
Use “Import HubSpot Objects” → Company.
Make sure you include both the domain and record ID columns.
Match your Clay table to HubSpot data:
In your enrichment table, use a “Lookup Row” action where Company Domain = HubSpot Domain.
This will attach the HubSpot Record ID to each row if it exists.
Conditional sync:
Add two action columns:
If HubSpot ID exists → “Update Object (enrich only)”
If HubSpot ID is empty → “Create Object (enrich only)”
Use a formula column to conditionally trigger each one, e.g.
{{HubSpot Record ID ? "Update" : "Create"}}
Always-on updates:
Make sure your “Lookup Row” is dynamic (auto-runs when new data is added).
Then the updates/creates can run automatically via an automation or a manual run when needed.
This setup keeps your records clean, avoids duplicates, and only updates HubSpot fields that are blank or outdated.
Hey! 👋 That’s a common hiccup when using Influencers Club’s “Enrich influencer details” inside Clay — especially if you’re running several rows in parallel. The Gateway Timeout (504) usually means Clay’s request to Influencers Club is expiring before their API returns all results. A few fixes that usually help:
Batch smaller: Run 5–10 rows at a time instead of dozens. Influencers Club’s API can be slow for larger data pulls.
Add delays: You can use Clay’s “Run Step After Delay” or stagger runs manually to avoid rate-limit overloads.
Retry logic: If you see partial failures, right-click the errored rows and select “Retry failed rows.”
Check Influencers Club status: Sometimes their API queues requests; if it’s slow, retries after 10–15 mins usually resolve it.
If you’re planning to run large volumes (hundreds+), it’s best to contact Influencers Club support to ask about your API rate limit — Clay can only process as fast as their backend allows.
Hey, sounds like you’ve got a solid project in motion that’s a great use case for Clay. You’ll definitely want someone comfortable with data cleanup + enrichment logic (company ↔️ domain matching, location parsing, LinkedIn enrichment, etc.) and cold outreach stack setup (Clay → Zoho → warmup). A few things to keep in mind while you look for help:
You can enrich your existing dealer list by chaining “Find Company from Email Domain” → “Enrich Company Data” → “Find LinkedIn Profile”.
For missing locations, a quick AI Enrichment using website or email domain context can fill those gaps.
When you set up cold outreach, don’t skip domain warmup — Zoho can work, but you might want to test Instantly or Smartlead for reliability.
If anyone here has Clay + Zoho + outreach experience, this sounds like a straightforward 3–5 hour consulting gig — jump in if you’re free today!
Totally understand your frustration this catches a lot of people off guard. Clay’s pricing tiers don’t make it obvious that certain key automations (like HTTP API actions or advanced integrations) are gated behind the Explorer plan. The UX during the trial gives full access, so you only hit that wall after upgrading, which feels terrible after you’ve invested so much time building. Here’s what most folks in the same boat do:
Reach out to Clay support directly they’re usually open to offering a temporary plan bump or discounted Explorer access if it’s just for a specific use case.
Alternatively, use a free intermediary like Make (Integromat) or n8n to run those API calls outside Clay, and then feed results back via a webhook. It’s a solid workaround if you just need a single HTTP action.
You’re definitely not alone the community’s been vocal about wanting a middle tier for API access.
