Clay
An introduction to Iron Horse · Your Claygency

You've got Clay. Here's how we put it to work.

Clay gives you a remarkable platform. Iron Horse is the team that turns it into running pipeline. We help you refine the audiences worth paying for, run multichannel ads against them, and evolve your ABM programs into real pipeline.

Audiences drive outcomes

Get the data foundation right to optimize your GTM.

What is Clay?

Clay is a data marketplace and an intelligent orchestration layer in one — sitting between raw data and your GTM outcomes. 150+ providers and AI agents that research, enrich, score, and act on your data, all in one platform. Clay connects your first-party data, third-party providers, and AI agents in one workspace — then syncs the scored, normalized output back into your CRM, sequencer, and warehouse.

From spaghetti workflows to one orchestrated system.

Stop stitching tools together. Clay sits between raw data and GTM outcomes — every layer in one platform.

Before Clay
Intent vendor
Contact data
Enrichment
Identity
Web intent
Social data
Vendor sprawl Brittle ops Inconsistent results
With Clay
Clay
Data marketplace Waterfall enrichments AI research agent

Current GTM platforms primarily rely on third-party intent data married to your first-party data — firmographic, technographic, and search keywords. The trouble: everyone has the same data, so you and your competitors are running the same plays.

The unlock is layering inferred signals about your ICP and personas that are unique to you — pulled from many data sources and surfaced by AI, all in one platform. That's what Clay enables, and where Iron Horse turns it into a motion that actually books pipeline.

We map the signals that matter most for your business as part of onboarding. The use cases below are how that audience layer activates into ads, ABM, and account follow-up.

1

Data foundation

Clean accounts and contacts plus the inferred signals unique to you — layered from content syndication, web visits, ad engagement, and third-party intent. So you talk to buyers who might actually want to hear from you, instead of spraying and praying.

2

Multichannel ads

Clay audiences piped to LinkedIn, Meta, Google, Vibe.co, and your DSPs — refreshed daily as accounts move, with higher match rates and the web experience matched to who's arriving.

3

ABM & orchestration

Turn a static account list into a signal-driven motion: triggers fire automatically, account tiers shift as signals change, and the right play follows the account.

4

Account follow-up

Account dossiers write themselves and reps reach out with context, not a cold open — delivered where they already work (Slack, SEP), so programs turn into booked meetings and pipeline.

How it works

A sample Clay-enabled demand gen workflow

From getting discovered to closing and growing, here's how the pieces connect across the funnel — with Clay as the signal layer wiring intent, enrichment, and routing into one motion.

Sample Clay-enabled demand gen workflow spanning Get discovered, Get chosen, and Close & grow stages
Get discovered  →  Get chosen  →  Close & grow — tailored to your tech stack and ICP.
Motion

Audience refinement

Decide who's worth reaching before you spend a dollar. Clay becomes the audience layer behind your paid media and your website.

4 use cases
AUD-1 Audience refinement
Always-On

Fix your data foundation

The audience layer powers your entire GTM motion. Clean your accounts and contacts data, refine your audiences by layering in inferred signals about your ICP and personas that are unique to you — continuously refreshed across 150+ providers, with AI surfacing the signals everyone else misses.

Impact High Stage Full Funnel

How it works

We start by auditing what's in your CRM and MAP today — stale records, missing buying team members, broken account-to-contact links. Clay refreshes the base across the right data providers in sequence (no waste, including first using what you may already have subscription to), then Iron Horse working with your team will use Claygent and AI agents to layer in inferred signals from sources third-party intent feeds don't touch such as hiring patterns, regulatory filings, public commitments, web behavior, role-specific intent. The result is an audience layer that both Sales and Marketing agree on and will use to activate all GTM activations with confidence.

Pipeline impact metrics

  • Match rates lift across every paid channel built on top of it
  • Inferred signals unique to your business replace generic third-party intent and create a moat for you
  • Fewer dropped leads and stalled deals from missing or stale contacts
AUD-2 Audience refinement
Always-On

ICP-refined paid audiences

Stop paying to reach lapsed contacts, existing customers, or accounts that will never buy. Clay refreshes the contact base, layers ICP and intent signals on top, and builds tiered audiences synced daily to LinkedIn, Meta, Google, Vibe.co, and DSPs. Suppression is always on.

Impact High Stage ToFu / MoFu

How it works

We define your ICP and the signals that actually predict buying — funding, hiring velocity, tech adoption, third-party intent (firmographic, technographic and AI-inferred). Clay builds the audience and pushes it to your ad platforms daily. As accounts move through funnel stages, audience membership updates automatically.

Pipeline impact metrics

  • 30–50% less wasted ad spend on non-ICP accounts
  • Higher CTR and ROAS from buyer-matched audiences
  • Suppression keeps budget on what you care about and puts an end to spraying and praying
AUD-3 Audience refinement
Always-On

Visitor identification & retargeting

Most of your site visitors leave without a trace. Clay Website Intent identifies the companies — sometimes individuals — landing on your site, filters them against your ICP, and routes only the signal worth acting on to your ad platforms and sales teams.

Impact Medium Stage ToFu

How it works

We deploy the pixel, build the ICP overlay so only relevant traffic reaches reps, and wire identified visitors into your CRM, paid retargeting, and Slack. Noise like vendors, competitors, and off-ICP traffic gets filtered before anyone sees it.

Pipeline impact metrics

  • Pipeline from previously anonymous visitors
  • Higher conversation-to-meeting rate than cold outbound
  • Better retargeting performance against real buyers across paid media channels
AUD-4 Audience refinement
Always-On

Personalized buyer journeys

One coordinated curated journey instead of disconnected campaigns: paid discovery, first-visit personalization on the site, retargeted nurture, and conversion testing — all running off the same Clay signal layer.

Impact High Stage Full Funnel

How it works

We map the journey for each persona and tier, then orchestrate the touchpoints. Clay audiences target the right ICP in paid; Webflow Optimize personalizes the first visit; retargeting audiences across paid media shift as the account moves; CRO runs continuously.

Pipeline impact metrics

  • 10–20% lift in full-funnel pipeline efficiency
  • First-visit personalization lifts form conversion 15%+
  • Lower CAC from coordinated paid + web + outbound
Motion

ABM

Run account-based programs that adapt to what each account is doing right now, instead of a static list and a quarterly review.

4 use cases
ABM-1 ABM
Always-On

Layered signal-driven ABM

Run account-based programs that adapt to what each account is doing right now — not a static list and a quarterly review. Tiered orchestration (1:1, 1:few, 1:many) with intent triggers wired in, so the right play fires the moment a signal hits.

Impact High Stage Full Funnel

How it works

We build the dynamic scoring model from signals (AI inferred + technographic + firmographic) that actually predict closed-won in your data — fit, funding, hiring velocity, tech adoption, intent surges, champion job changes. Scoring happens at the contact level in real time, not just at the account level — and lands inline in Slack or your SEP, not in a CRM tab nobody opens. As an account moves up or down a tier, the ad audiences, content, and orchestration reconfigure automatically.

Pipeline impact metrics

  • 2x+ pipeline from Tier-1 accounts vs. undifferentiated outreach
  • Trigger-sourced AI-informed personalized outreach converts 2–3x cold outbound
  • Signal-to-rep time drops from days to under an hour
ABM-2 ABM
Always-On

Buying-group multi-threading

Most accounts come in single-threaded through one contact, then stall. Clay builds the full buying committee — champion, economic buyer, technical evaluator, user — and routes a persona-specific message to each at the right time in the buying process.

Impact High Stage MoFu / BoFu

How it works

When an account qualifies, Clay auto-builds the committee from LinkedIn, contact data, and Claygent research. We design the per-persona playbook and sequence so reps multi-thread with context, instead of guessing who else to email. We also enrich the contacts with Clay data to drive digital outreach via paid media channels so the Accounts and contacts are warmed up when the reps reach out.

Pipeline impact metrics

  • 3–5x more contacts engaged per account
  • Multi-threaded deals close ~35% faster
  • Fewer deals lost to invisible influencers
ABM-3 ABM
Always-On

Contact & account enrichment

Cascade across 150+ data providers so every record in your CRM and MAP is complete, accurate, and routable — no more dropped leads or half-filled accounts. Ensure buying groups contacts are complete and available for paid media and sales outreach.

Impact Medium Stage ToFu / MoFu

How it works

We design the enrichment waterfall for target audiences — provider order, fallback rules, validation logic, and cost guardrails. It runs continuously: new records enriched on creation, existing records refreshed on a schedule, with confidence scores so downstream systems know what to trust.

Pipeline impact metrics

  • 20–30% fewer leads dropped from missing data
  • Higher match rates for ad targeting and personalization
  • More accurate routing and scoring
ABM-4 ABM
Campaign

Competitive displacement

Technographic and AI-inferred signal data surfaces every ICP account using a target competitor. We map the buying committee, write the displacement story, and run multi-touch outreach across paid, outbound, and personalized landing pages.

Impact High Stage ToFu / MoFu

How it works

Clay identifies the target account audiences. Claygent researches each account for key signals. We author messaging variants by persona, build the rep playbook, and run paid displacement ads with vertical-specific personalized landing pages.

Pipeline impact metrics

  • Net-new pipeline from a competitor's customer base
  • Higher win rate when messaging matches the persona
  • Captures deals that didn't exist as a pipeline category before
Motion

Account follow-up

Give reps context before they reach out. This is where an account list becomes a working outbound motion that books meetings.

3 use cases
SALES-1 Account follow-up
Always-On

Rep enablement, inbound + outbound

Reps walk in with full context, not a blank screen. For outbound: Claygent account dossiers and persona sequences ready before they dial based on prioritized account readiness intent signals. For inbound: a 30-second enrichment waterfall the moment a form is submitted or a meeting is booked.

Impact High Stage ToFu / MoFu

How it works

For outbound, we build the dossier templates, persona sequence library, and Day-1 email drafts informed by your top reps' outreach messaging. For inbound, Clay fires waterfall enrichment on a form submit or calendar event, posts an account brief to Slack, and writes a pre-call brief into the rep's inbox 24 hours before the meeting. Account briefs land where reps already work — Slack, SEP — not in a CRM tab they never open.

Pipeline impact metrics

  • Pre-call research collapses from 45 minutes to 3
  • 2–3x reply rate from context-driven outreach
SALES-2 Account follow-up
Campaign

Event/Webinar-driven pipeline

Every webinar, conference, and field event becomes measurable pipeline — pre-event ICP targeting, on-site enablement, and 24-hour follow-through per persona.

Impact High Stage ToFu / MoFu

How it works

Six-eight weeks out, we build the attendee target list against your ICP — including speakers and sponsors scraped from event sites by Claygent. Personalized invites go out via paid and outbound. Goldcast (virtual) and on-site capture (in-person) feed engagement back into Clay. Post-event, persona-specific follow-up fires within 24 hours. Live attendees re-enriched and rescored at the contact level the moment they show up, so the highest-priority follow-ups surface to your reps instantly.

Pipeline impact metrics

  • 3–5x more meetings per event vs. spray-and-pray
  • Follow-up fires within 24 hrs vs. 5-day industry average
  • Full attribution from first touch through closed-won
SALES-3 Account follow-up
Campaign

Direct mail + gifting to book meetings

Direct mail and gifting work when the list is right. We use Clay's layered ICP and persona signals to build precise US account and contact lists, then run digital retargeting alongside personalized direct mail or gifting — so reps follow up with AI-informed, human-in-the-loop emails that actually land meetings.

Impact High Stage MoFu

How it works

We start with your ICP and persona signals in Clay, then layer the inferred-intent signals that suggest readiness — job changes, hiring, web behavior, funding — to score a US-only target list. Clay automates the personalization: addresses, gift selection, and message variants per persona, triggered into your direct mail or gifting platform. Digital retargeting runs in parallel against the same audience so the brand is already familiar when the package lands. Reps get a Slack alert when a gift is delivered, with an AI-drafted follow-up email they review, edit, and send — human in the loop, every time.

Pipeline impact metrics

  • Higher meeting rates than cold outbound or paid alone
  • Multi-touch (paid + direct mail + email) lifts reply rates vs. single-channel
  • Spend lands on accounts that match your ICP, not random recipients
Where to start

Pick one motion. We'll have it running in weeks.

You don't need to boil the ocean. Most teams start with refining their audiences with layered intent signals that matter and use those to create audiences for syndicating ads that enhance their ROAS and accelerate their pipeline. Tell us what's most painful right now and we'll scope a starting point against your stack.

Start the conversation →