Conditional Loop in Table Columns for AI Email Enrichment Guidance | Clay

Conditional Loop in Table Columns for AI Email Enrichment Guidance

Clay team - I have what may be a strange request... I'm curious if I can create a conditional loop in a series of table columns. Essentially, I have criteria of a company and context where I'm using AI to search for people. I'm taking the recommended person and enriching for email address. But if the enrichment can't find an email address, I want to automatically circle back and look for another person who might have an address. Any ideas on this? I had the idea that I might be able to write to a table separate conditionally and then do enrichment, but I don't want to create something overly complex.

7 comments

Channeled
APP
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You can create this workflow using conditional runs in Clay. Here's how: 1. Set up your initial AI search for people 2. Add an email enrichment column for the recommended person 3. Create a second AI search column with a conditional run 4. In the "Run Settings" of this column, click "Use AI" 5. Create a formula that only runs if the first email enrichment is empty (e.g., "Only run if /email is empty") This ensures your second search only triggers when the first email enrichment fails, creating your desired conditional loop.
Sources: Conditional runs | Documentation | Clay University AI Formulas + Conditional Runs [CRM Enrichment] - Clay University AI Formulas + Conditional Runs [Clay 101] - Clay University Conditional Formulas
Andrew T.
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I'm happy to jump on a call to explain what I'm trying to accomplish as well.
Bo (.
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Hi there! You can't create circular workflows within a single table in Clay. Each table has a limit of 100 columns and 40 enrichments, and the system doesn't support looping back to previous steps. The table-to-table approach also has limitations - Clay works best with linear flows like Table A → Table B → Table C rather than circular patterns like Table A → Table B → Table A. For your use case of finding backup contacts when email enrichment fails, I'd recommend using conditional runs with multiple Find People enrichments in sequence. You can set up conditions so the second Find People only runs if the first person's email enrichment comes back empty. This keeps everything in one table while achieving your goal of finding alternative contacts. You could structure it like: Find People 1 → Email Enrichment → Find People 2 (conditional on email failure) → Email Enrichment 2. But you'd be capped at two people only (not multiple). Let me know if you have more questions!
Andrew T.
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This all makes sense. Thanks for the info Bo (.! On a product development note, it would be interesting to be able to implement a loop that runs "until" a condition is met. Maybe something for the product team to consider?
Munnawar H.
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Hi Andrew, I'm glad everything worked out! We also really appreciate your feedback, I'll be sure to pass this on to the product team. I'll use the use case you laid out in your initial message as context. Before I send this off, are there any other specific use cases or workflows or challenges, where these updates would be especially helpful for you? Any additional context is welcome, so we can keep your situation in mind as we build out the roadmap.
Andrew T.
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Sure thing! Two use cases that come to mind...
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Find a contact and enrich to find email. Loop through this process until you find a contact with an email address.
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Take a company. Search for news and loop through article analysis (using AI) until you find an article that meets X criteria.
I imagine there are more use cases, but the idea I had was to use a loop to get hyper narrow or hyper accurate results within a specific row that you're working on. Let me know if you have other questions!
Munnawar H.
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Thank you for the context, I’ll pass this along to the team. While we can’t make any promises about what will make it into a final product release, this kind of feedback is incredibly valuable to us. I'll close this ticket out now, but feel free to reach out again if you need any further assistance!
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