Clay Core Concepts

What is Clay?

Clay is a data enrichment and automation platform for sales and marketing teams. It enables:

• Sourcing leads from multiple sources
• Enriching data with 75+ providers (296+ integrations)
• Building automated workflows
• Personalizing outreach at scale
• Syncing with CRMs

Tables

The foundation of Clay. Each table contains data (people, companies, etc.) that you can enrich and manipulate.

Table types:

• People tables (contacts)
• Company tables (companies)
• Custom tables (custom data)

Table actions:

• Rename, Duplicate, Delete
• Edit descriptions
• Convert formats
• Create from template
• Import files (CSV, etc.)
• Export/Download

Columns

Each column represents a data type.

Limits:

• 70 columns max per table
• 30 action/integration columns max (40 with waterfall)
• 8,000 characters max per cell

Column operations:

• Rename, Pin, Duplicate, Delete
• Insert left/right
• Hide, Reorder, Sort, Filter, Merge
• Data type selection (crucial for proper functioning)
• AI-powered columns
• Colored columns for organization

Data types available:

• Text
• Number
• Date
• Text with tokens (default)
• Message drafting
• Enrichment waterfall
• Formula

Changing data type:

• Method 1: Right-click header → Edit Column → Select Data Type → Save
• Method 2: Click column title → hover on current type → dropdown → select

Tips:

• Use colors to group related columns (e.g., all email columns in blue)
• Deduplication is case-sensitive ("Clay" ≠ "clay"), whitespace counts ("Clay " ≠ "Clay")
• Create child columns to map specific enrichment endpoints

Rows

Each row = one record (a person, a company, etc.)

Row management:

• Add rows manually
• Import from files
• Import from integrations
• Format rows (starting point, limits)
• Inspect cell details

Workbooks

Connect and visualize multiple tables together. Useful for complex workflows that pass from one table to another.

Folders

Organize tables by categories/projects.

Clay as Data Intermediary

[INBOUND]                    [CLAY]                    [OUTPUT]
LinkedIn Ads      →          ┌─────────┐              → HubSpot
Organic Content   →          │ Enrich  │              → Salesforce
Newsletter        →          │ Score   │              → SmartLead
Webinars          →          │ Clean   │              → Instantly
Events            →          │ Qualify │              → Outreach
CRM Stale Data    →          └─────────┘              → Salesloft

Key principle: Data flows in → Transformation in Clay → Data flows out to other tools

What Clay is NOT:

• Not a CRM replacement (HubSpot/Salesforce)
• Not an email finder replacement (ZoomInfo/Apollo)
• It's a complementary layer that maximizes all your tools