---
title: "Getting more value from Clay: the people, data and operating decisions that matter"
description: Get more value from Clay with internal ownership, cleaner CRM data and expert GTM engineering. Practical advice for building workflows that last.
---

[Articles and News](https://www.infinityn.com/articles-and-news)

# [Getting more value from Clay: the people, data and operating decisions that matter](https://www.infinityn.com/articles-and-news/getting-more-value-from-clay)

 Written by [Tamás Motajcsek](https://www.infinityn.com/articles-and-news/author/tamás-motajcsek) | Oct 28, 2026, 2:07:41 PM

Clay creates exciting possibilities for GTM teams. It can support prospect research, market mapping, CRM enrichment, campaign preparation, and many other workflows.

That flexibility makes it easy to identify an attractive first use case. The more difficult questions concern what happens around it: who owns the work, how reliable the underlying data is, how the output reaches the team, and who keeps the workflow running.

Based on our experience at Infinityn, three areas deserve particular attention when introducing Clay: internal capability, the CRM data foundation, and access to experienced GTM engineering support.

Together, they also expose several operational questions worth addressing early.

## 1. Give an internal builder ownership and time to learn

A company can engage an excellent external partner and still struggle to develop lasting capability if nobody internally owns Clay.

The external team builds workflows. Requests accumulate. Eventually, even small changes depend on someone outside the business.

Assigning an internal builder helps prevent this. That person needs protected learning time, access to the relevant systems, and responsibility for understanding how the workflows serve the business.

Clay University is a useful starting point. Pairing structured learning with real work makes it more valuable: build a small workflow, review it with an experienced practitioner, understand the decisions behind it, and improve it.

The internal builder does not need to become an expert immediately. They do need a clear path towards greater independence.

External support should make that progression faster. Shared build sessions, documented decisions and practical handovers should be part of the engagement from the beginning.

## 2. Improve the data your workflows depend on

Campaign support, prospect sourcing, and SDR/BDR enablement are legitimate starting points for Clay. However, these use cases often depend on CRM data that has received too little attention.

In one client example, we found that 5% of companies in the CRM were already out of business. More than 70% of contacts no longer worked at the organisations recorded against them.

Those figures describe one client’s situation, rather than an industry benchmark. But they show why checking the existing database can be so valuable.

Outdated records affect account selection, segmentation, personalisation, routing and reporting. Adding fresh contacts does not resolve those underlying problems.

Clay can help teams assess, clean, normalise and enrich existing company and contact records. The important decisions start before enrichment: which records matter, which fields are needed, and what evidence is sufficient to justify an update?

This does not require a months-long effort to perfect the entire CRM. Start with the segment and fields needed for a priority use case. Establish a baseline, address the most consequential issues, and extend the approach as you learn.

## 3. Combine Clay knowledge with broader GTM engineering expertise

Learning the interface is one part of using Clay well.

Building dependable workflows also requires understanding how systems connect, how CRM records relate to each other, and how business rules should translate into automation.

An experienced GTM engineer brings several capabilities together:

Practical knowledge of Clay and its enrichment options.

CRM architecture and integration experience, particularly with HubSpot and Salesforce.

Strong AI prompting and output evaluation skills.

Familiarity with tools such as ChatGPT and Claude.

An understanding of the sales and marketing processes the workflow supports.

For example, identifying a contact’s new employer raises several questions. Should the existing record change? How should historical relationships be preserved? What happens to account ownership or an open opportunity? What if the evidence is inconclusive?

Those decisions require more than a successful enrichment result.

A developing internal builder can make useful progress independently. Pairing that person with an experienced specialist helps them recognise these issues earlier and build more sophisticated workflows with greater confidence.

## 4. Agree on how information becomes action

Before building a workflow, identify its user and the decision it should support.

If Clay identifies accounts that fit a target profile, who reviews them? Where will those accounts appear? What qualifies them for action? Who owns the follow-up?

Without clear answers, useful information can remain in a table that sits outside the team’s daily work.

Define the destination, owner, and next action alongside the enrichment logic. Involve the people who will consume the output while designing it.

Sometimes, a small amount of well-placed information is more useful than an extensive research summary. A sales rep may need a verified trigger, supporting evidence, and a clear reason to act.

The design should reflect that need.

## 5. Set rules for CRM updates before scaling

An enrichment result is a candidate update. The team still needs to decide when it is trustworthy enough to change the CRM.

For important fields, agree on the source of truth, the evidence required, and whether existing values can be overwritten. Decide how conflicting results and uncertain matches should be handled.

AI-assisted research needs similar discipline. Define acceptable sources and structured outputs, and allow an explicit “unknown” result when the evidence is insufficient.

Test these rules on a limited set of records before expanding. Review both correct updates and the cases where the workflow should have left a record unchanged.

This makes it easier to automate with confidence and to explain changes when someone questions them later.

## 6. Treat maintenance as part of implementation

A successful first run demonstrates that a workflow can work. Operating it over time requires further attention.

Providers return incomplete results. Source websites change. CRM fields are modified. Business priorities evolve. A prompt that performed well on one segment may struggle with another.

Every important workflow should have a named owner, concise documentation, a review schedule, and a way to identify failures.

Costs also deserve explicit design decisions. Enrich the records and fields needed for a defined purpose. Check existing information before purchasing it again. Use more expensive research where the expected value justifies it.

Measure performance beyond rows processed. Useful measures might include the share of records fit for use, manual research time saved, cost per usable record, or adoption by the intended team.

Where possible, connect these measures to downstream commercial outcomes without assuming that enrichment alone caused them.

## A practical way to start

Choose one commercially useful workflow with a manageable scope.

Assign an internal builder and pair them with experienced GTM engineering support. Assess the data the workflow needs, define its output and owner, and agree on the rules for updating connected systems.

Build and review a limited version together. Expand once its accuracy, usefulness, and running costs are understood.

As the workflow develops, document the decisions and transfer responsibility into the business.

This approach produces something valuable twice: a working use case today and stronger internal capability for tomorrow.

At Infinityn, we recommend treating Clay implementation as part of building a dependable GTM operation. That means bringing together the data, systems, expertise, and everyday working practices needed to turn its capabilities into business results.

If you are introducing Clay or reassessing an existing setup, those are the foundations we would start with.

[View full post](https://www.infinityn.com/articles-and-news/getting-more-value-from-clay)

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