Clay + n8n: How to Build a Sales Tech Stack That Runs on Autopilot

One thing we always notice when we start working with sales teams is that their sales tech stack only comprises basic tools.

Often, their tech stack is only made up of a CRM, usually HubSpot, a data source like Apollo or Lusha, and then an email outreach tool like Outreach, and they’re set.

Then they’d have to manually juggle between tools to keep their systems updated and running smoothly across tools.

On the other hand, when doing business with bigger, enterprise-scale companies, they typically have a lot of tech tools. Usually, more than they need.

We’ve found sales teams from big companies simultaneously juggle a:

• data source tool where they can scrape lead lists like Apollo.io LinkedIn Sales Navigator or both together
• CRM system to store customer data, HubSpot, Pipedrive, or Salesforce
• separate email automation platform for sequences, likely Salesloft or Lemlist
• LinkedIn automation tool for social outreach like Hey Reach or Periodix, 
• data enrichment service to enhance contact information, usually Cognism or ZoomInfo
• meeting scheduling app, Calendly 
• conversation intelligence platform to analyze calls, like Fathom or CallMiner
• and separate analytics tools to make sense of everything, like Salesforce Sales Cloud or HubSpot Sales Hub.

And sometimes, there is more. 

Further adding to the problem, we find that each of these tools operates in silo, with its separate UI and data structure, and of course, its own subscription cost. 

The result is both financial inefficiency and a deeply broken workflow for your sales team. 

Your sales reps have to constantly switch between tools, manually transfer information, and piece together fragmented data to understand the complete customer journey and get things done.

There’s more because: 

• delayed responses and missed follow-ups since information fails to transfer correctly between systems
• the training and adoption burden grows with each new tool
• what if information becomes inconsistent across platforms?
• and more.

But it gets worse because the customer experience gets shattered:

• disjointed communication, 
• repetitive outreach, 
• interactions that fail to acknowledge their previous engagements with the company,
• and more. 

The least we can assume is that it leaves you frustrated. 

In this post, we’ll teach how we build the best sales tech stack that works for you to automate both your outbound and inbound sales. 

We’ll tell you what tools you need, why, and when. You’ll then learn how to bring all together into a sales tech stack that eliminates most of the manual work.  

Note: Struggling to connect with decision-makers in your target market? We’ll run a completely done-for-you outbound campaign to transform your sales pipeline with prospects ready to engage. Book a 15-minute call now to discuss your unique business needs and discover our flexible packages.

Step 1: Choosing data source tools based on your business needs and ICP complexity

The foundation of any effective sales tech stack begins with data sources. That’s where you get all the data and lead lists you use for your outreach campaigns. 

Why most sales reps’ outreach campaigns bring poor results

Your business, what you sell, and the complexity of your ICP should dictate which tools make sense for you to use.

The problem is that most businesses lean towards the most talked about options like Apollo.io or LinkedIn Sales Navigator without considering their ICP. 

From our experience, if you go for the wrong data source, your campaign won’t necessarily go downhill, because even then you might get a lead or two out of your campaigns, but that’s where the lack of precision which later results in poor results starts. 

And there’s more to it. 

Because to some extent, what that means is that you are overlooking some—if not your best—prospects to the benefit of your competitors and missing a considerable percentage of your total addressable market (TAM) at the same time. 

Our point is that these tools are good. But, the thing that most people who aren’t outbound lead generation and sales experts can’t see is that these tools only turn up surface-level results like general firmographic data at scale. Let alone the fact they’re super expensive.  

You can only find great results if you’re using broad filters or search parameters like “companies generating over 1 million YoY and who also use HubSpot”.

If you have an ICP that’s a lot more niche and forces you to get granular in your search parameters and criteria, then these tools aren’t the best for your needs. 

What are the best data sources to include in your sales tech stack for precise targeting

Everything depends on your business and ICP. The tools below are not the only tools we use. These are just some of the best examples to make our point of precise data collection for precision outreach. 

PandaMatch.io

PandaMatch.io is an AI-powered prospecting platform that helps sales and marketing teams discover hidden business opportunities that traditional databases often miss.

The platform analyzes data from over 300 million companies and two petabytes of web pages to allow users to identify lookalike companies that resemble their ICP.

The best feature we’ve found about PandaMatch is that its proprietary AI model goes beyond basic filters by analyzing patterns, concepts, and ideas to deliver accurate data.

What that means is that it can (for example) help you identify businesses that are misclassified or missing from traditional platforms. 

For example, a fintech SaaS company might be listed under “Financial Services” on LinkedIn but invisible in “SaaS” searches. And because you’re mostly scraping a long list of companies, you can easily miss it or overlook it. 

PandaMatch’s AI cross-references data from websites, keywords, and context to find these hidden opportunities

The best use case we’ve found for PandaMatch at Utmost Agency is when we have a client who’s selling an interesting product, has excellent customers with great case studies, and wants to find similar companies to sell to. 

Using PandaMatch’s powerful search filters and AI-backed parameters, we can easily find the companies that match our client’s best customers in every aspect of the ICP you can imagine and start reaching out to them. 

TryTelescope.io

TryTelescope digs deeper than PandaMatch.io and lets you find deep niche companies that the general data sources would NEVER find. 

It is an AI-driven lead generation platform that uses advanced machine learning algorithms to enable users to input descriptions of their ICP using natural language. 

The platform then interprets these inputs to generate highly targeted lead lists, which you can export directly to your CRM or as a CSV file.

What we love and find fascinating about TryTelescope is that beyond standard filters, it lets you define highly specific search parameters using natural language rather than checking pre-existing criteria checkboxes to achieve a more precise targeting of potential leads.

You can use TryTelescope to run searches as specific as finding “companies with warehouses over 500 square meters”. 

You can provide feedback and it’ll refine its output based on it and provide even more satisfying results. Think about it like ChatGPT on steroids for finding your ICP. 

Also, it provides access to verified contact data from over 15 providers. This ensures comprehensive and up-to-date information for your outreach efforts.

Industry-specific data sources

This is the point we were making at the start of this section about the best data sources and vendors. Nothing is set in stone and there is no one-best-for-all-audiences tool. 

The best tool you use as a data source will always depend on your product or solution and your target ICP, and sometimes, it needs to be industry-specific. 

Even the amazing tools we just mentioned aren’t sometimes the best for your needs because there is just one that is more specific and all-around better for your use case.

For example, we have a client that offers an event solution software to businesses hosting events with exhibitors and preferably with sponsors as well. 

For this specific ICP, we had to use 10times.com which is an information that specializes in this particular domain. 

10times in this context offered us far better results for companies hosting events with exhibitors and sponsors than PandaMatch.io or TryTelescope. And these are some results you wouldn’t find with tools like Apollo.io. 

Understand that it’s not really a tool and doesn’t do any data scraping. It is just an information source that is very niche and specific to the events industry. 

We next had to use the “Instant Data Scraper” Chrome extension to avoid doing manual work when getting data from these websites. 

Here are some more industry-specific data source tools and vendors you can consider:

• 10times: best for finding companies hosting events in all industries around western the world 
• EdSurge: best for scraping EdTech companies
• SifData or Clay: great for tracking job changes and sales trigger events at SaaS companies
• ConstructConnect: for construction project and contractor database
• Definitive Healthcare: best for rich profiles on healthcare providers, hospitals, and payers
• Data Axle: excellent for legacy B2B sectors like manufacturing and distribution
• StoreLeads: great for data on Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce stores
• Crunchbase: best for startup and venture funding data
• CB Insights: excellent for private company insights like fintech trends and funding
• BuiltWith or Wappalyzer: best for tracking tech stacks on websites 

There are a lot more tools out there. We recommend that you talk to an outbound sales expert before choosing your data source. 

That’s because Google search will only turn up the jack of all trades and masters of none like Apollo, Cognism, or ZoomInfo. 

And there are several amazing, niche-specific tools you wouldn’t hear about unless you are in closed-door conversations with outbound sales experts. 

Note: Struggling to connect with decision-makers in your target market? We’ll run a completely done-for-you outbound campaign to transform your sales pipeline with prospects ready to engage. Book a 15-minute call now to discuss your unique business needs and discover our flexible packages.

Step 2: Contact enrichment and verification solutions

Side note: We do know that you’d need a central intelligence tool or CRM to bring all the lead lists you scraped together before you can start enriching them. 

But we believe that the central intelligence tool does so much in providing a single UI for everything and allowing you to make the different tools communicate that if we mention it at this stage, we’d be leaving most of its value out to make sense. 

So, first, we’ll mention all the tools you need in the process and then show you how it brings them all together using our workflow as examples.

After scraping the right data source for your ICP, you’ll need to enrich the data to add all the relevant contact and profile information about each lead. 

Here, we recommend that you use multiple specialized tools rather than a single source to ensure that you have an excellent package of contact data. 

Contact enrichment tools

For profile and email contacts, we use several tools at Utmost Agency and it always depends on the ICP and which tools are the best equipped to bring you results. 

The picture below shows just some of the tools we use here. 

We recommend that you use a combination of LeadMagic.io, Findymail, and FullEnrich. 

LeadMagic.io

LeadMagic helps you enrich your data with firmographics by automatically enriching company data (industry, size, funding stage, etc.) so that you can easily prioritize high-fit accounts. 

It also helps you find the right point of contact and enriches the data about each account as well. Think job title, LinkedIn profile, first name, last name, email address, and more. 

Findymail

Findymail also helps you find and verify professional email addresses and contacts based on a person’s name and company domain. It also allows bulk prospecting and domain search.

We love Findymail because it prioritizes data accuracy, and integrates seamlessly with platforms like Clay, LinkedIn, and Apollo.

FullEnrich

If you believe you need the highest quality data, especially mobile phone numbers, then we recommend FullEnrich. It is more expensive but you will get better data.

LeadMagic and Findymail also provide mobile phones but you typically need more than just one provider for mobile phones and that’s where FullEnrich shines.  

FullEnrich aggregates contact info from 15+ premium vendors to ensure accuracy. It even succeeds where the other tools fail. 

Using all these tools together offers you a multi-source approach that ensures higher connection rates and deliverability compared to relying on a single provider’s database.

Note: Struggling to connect with decision-makers in your target market? We’ll run a completely done-for-you outbound campaign to transform your sales pipeline with prospects ready to engage. Book a 15-minute call now to discuss your unique business needs and discover our flexible packages.

Verification tools to ensure deliverability

Beyond just finding contact information, your tech stack also needs to incorporate verification tools that prevent bounces and protect your sender’s reputation. 

Here, we recommend Debounce.io, ZeroBounce, or our personal favorite, BounceBan. 

DeBounce and ZeroBounce are email verification and deliverability tools that play a backend role in your outbound sales process by ensuring your messages actually reach inboxes and your domain reputation stays clean.

Here is how each tool helps:

Debounce.io

DeBounce verifies emails in real-time or via bulk upload. It identifies and removes:

• invalid emails
• temporary/disposable emails
• role-based addresses (like info@, support@)
• spam traps

It also checks against blacklists and DNS records to ensure higher inbox placement so that your emails don’t bounce and actually get delivered. 

Email finder tools can also do this, but we’ve found that specialized tools like DeBounce work better here and flag emails and contacts that other tools miss. 

ZeroBounce

ZeroBounce does everything DeBounce does, plus:

• email scoring to predict the likelihood of inbox placement
• AI-based catch-all detection for smarter analysis of risky emails
• activity level tracking to tell you if an email has been used recently (active = better)

BounceBan

BounceBan is the tool we primarily use here at Utmost Agency. 

It combines most of the features of the other tools but it is particularly renowned for its exceptional ability to validate challenging email types, particularly “catch-all” addresses and those protected by Secure Email Gateways (SEGs). And that’s why we love it.

There are mainly two options for whether an email is valid or not. Either it is valid, or it is a catch-all. There are different criteria for a catch-all, but when you hear catch-all just think “risky”. 

BounceBan does an amazing job at making sure that the catch-all emails are verified to make sure there are no “risky” emails in there. It gives us up to 30% more emails in any given list if not more. 

That means that with the combination of these tools, you can focus your outreach on the most engaged or deliverable contacts and block risky catch-all domains better than most tools to ensure your sender rep is protected. 

The best part is that they work well with outbound platforms and enrichment tools so you can easily integrate them. 

Step 3: Multi-channel outreach and message automation tools

At this step, you have the right data sources. You have the right tools to enrich your ICP lists and clean them. You also have the right tools to ensure your emails stay on the right side of inboxes and that your sender’s reputation is protected. 

Now, you need the tools to automate writing your emails or messages and the tools to send them at scale. 

For writing your messages and emails, we recommend OpenAI’s ChatGTP and Anthropic’s Claude.ai. Or you can do it yourself. 

Message and copywriting automation tools (ChatGPT and/or Claude.ai)

Before we describe what each tool can actually bring at this stage, let’s discuss personalization. 

Some people would prefer to write their messages themselves for either personalization or some personal integrity reasons and we understand it very well. 

At Utmost Agency, we believe that personalization is not as much personalization as it is relevance. Relevance and timing are everything. Let’s show you 2 of the many positive replies we got from a campaign.

The point we’re making is that if you get the ICP, the point of contact (buyer persona), the pain points, and the offer right, then that’s all that matters. That’s what wins you clients. 

Also, the offer is a key factor. Our experience has proven that sometimes, a “so-great” offer requires no personalization. And sometimes, an offer is so impossible all the personalization in the world couldn’t save it.

So, both ChatGPT and Claude.ai are powerful AI copilots for automating and personalizing outbound sales messages. 

Here is how we use each tool:

The primary use is to ask the AI tools to generate a personalized cold email and LinkedIn outreach copy based on:

• The prospect’s job title
• Company size/industry
• Recent funding or news
• The tech stack or tools they use
• Pain points inferred from content
• etc

ChatGPT and Claude both integrate natively with our central intelligence hub. So, it’s easy to set up the command. 

But first, you need to understand that we’d need to specify the pain points, and challenges or scrape the web and find intent data triggers or buying signals that are relevant to the prospect and the product we are selling. 

LLMs are only being fed with the data so they can craft pieces of text (emails, LinkedIn, or cold calling scripts). 

Now, given that we create different segments and constantly test offerings and messages, we tell it to create different:

• email subject lines for each segment 
• personalized intro lines
• call-to-actions tailored to prospect roles
• multi-step sequence content
• follow-ups that reference prior emails or objections

Now, after the first few campaign rounds and when we find what works or which testing segments bring the best results, we can then go for batch automation. 

Then it can automatically (from our central intelligence tool):

• pull company and contact data with all enrichment data
• auto-generate a cold email or LinkedIn outreach copy based on that context
• output personalized messages at scale, not just templated text

Here is how both tools compare.

We don’t have any preferred tool or one specific tool set up for one channel. 

We choose which tool to use based on our client’s needs and which company’s latest model performs best. Currently, we leaned towards ChatGPT and just a few weeks back it was Claude.ai. 

Domains and mailbox tool

We use Zapmail.ai or ScaledMail to buy sending domains and mailboxes for both Google and Microsoft. You should NEVER EVER use your primary domain to run outbound campaigns!!!!! 

That’s because it exposes you to several risks like being blocked or getting flagged as spam—which in turn can ruin your SEO score or website reputation.

So, tools like Zapmail let you buy several look-alike sending domains and mailboxes you can use instead.   

Here, it’s super important that the domains are aged. That means that they should have already existed for some years. Also, they need to be warmed up and set up for a long time to get through spam filters and increase deliverability.

Email and LinkedIn automation tools

We use different tools for cold email and LinkedIn outreach rather than all-in-one platforms like Lemlist that offer both capabilities because we’ve learned from experience that specialized tools deliver better results. 

Here are the tools we use: 

Instantly.ai for email automation

Instantly.ai is a powerful cold email automation platform that helps you scale, personalize, and optimize outbound outreach without hurting your sender reputation. 

It’s designed specifically for modern outbound teams that want to send thousands of emails per day across multiple inboxes, safely and efficiently.

With Instantly, you can:

• Send automated cold email sequences across multiple domains/inboxes.
• Personalize emails using merge tags and AI
• Track opens (though we don’t track open rates because it hurts deliverability), clicks, replies, bounces, and interested leads.
• Warm up your email accounts automatically to build a domain reputation.

Instantly also supports inbox rotation and smart sending schedules. They even offer lead database and enrichment as an optional paid add-on.

What we love about their platform is the dynamic customization capability that lets you create multiple sequence variations based on prospect data from your enrichment process. 

All you have to do is to connect Instantly with your central intelligence tool and you can launch segmented and personalized campaigns from there.  

Here are more interesting features of Instantly.ai

Periodix for LinkedIn outreach automation

Periodix is a not-so-well-known but powerful tool in the LinkedIn automation space.

It uses AI and behavioral analytics to help you automate and optimize outreach to decision-makers—without getting flagged by LinkedIn’s algorithms as spam or a bot.

Periodix lets us do the same work we do with Instantly.ai but on LinkedIn instead. 

So, here again, you’ll have to integrate it with your central intelligence platform and you can run things from there. Periodix will help you target all your accounts with connection requests and outreach messages based on your enriched data. 

Here are some more interesting features you’ll love about Periodix.

The best part here is we can set up Periodix and Instantly.ai to work together instead of separately.

For example, we had a client whose target audience heavily used Outlook. We know that Outlook is the worst inbox provider. So, we set things up so that when our system picks up on that, the messages are sent through Periodix on LinkedIn instead.

Step 4: Central intelligence hub: Why Clay is the backbone of modern sales tech stacks

Clay serves as the command center for your data management and automation. It is good for almost any use case because it allows you to do so many things. 

At Utmost Agency, we love Clay because it transforms the scattered, fragmented tools and processes of outbound sales into a unified, intelligent, and automated system.

Here is a breakdown of its best features for us: 

While it may not completely replace a CRM for large organizations, it can serve as the primary data repository to run campaigns before sending sales-qualified leads to the CRM.

The platform’s true power comes from its native integrations with numerous specialized tools that would otherwise require manual data transfer between systems.

Think about all the tools we’ve mentioned so far and all their capabilities and what it would be like to bring them together into a single UI of a spreadsheet from which you can make them work together through API integration and N8N.io. 

The value of N8N here is that it helps you make tools that are not necessarily designed to work together, work together through non-native APIs. 

Combined, the ecosystem allows for seamless data flow and work getting done with minimal manual intervention. Here is a full automation workflow example: 

Now, the automation sequences can kickoff: 

First, in Instantly:

• Clay natively sends enriched lead + message sequence to Instantly 
• Chooses the right campaign (e.g., based on title, persona)
• Adds to appropriate warm inbox pool

Next, LinkedIn automation with Periodix:

• N8N sends LinkedIn URL + message sequence data to Periodix
  • Optionally triggers:
    • Connect request → Day 1
    • Follow-up messages → Day 3, Day 7
• Periodix handles smart timing & detection-proof behavior

Note: Struggling to connect with decision-makers in your target market? We’ll run a completely done-for-you outbound campaign to transform your sales pipeline with prospects ready to engage. Book a 15-minute call now to discuss your unique business needs and discover our flexible packages.

Step 5: Intent data monitoring systems for real-time buying signal detection

As we always argue in almost all of our articles, intent data completely changed how businesses find sales opportunities. 

Instead of reaching out to prospects we find only on data sources and hoping for the best, we use the tech tools we already have to pinpoint potential customers who are ready to buy—often before they’ve even hit the market.

Let’s break down how this works.

We’ve built a system using several tools that work together here again. 

We combine Trigify.io and PhantomBuster or Apify to automatically collect data from social media that would be impossible to track manually. 

All these tools almost do the same thing, so, we choose contextually. Here is what the workflow looks like:

Using ourselves as an example here, we set up Apify to track LinkedIn job posts for SDRs every day at 9 AM. 

Every time a company posts about needing to hire an SDR, it scrapes this data and N8N pushes it directly into our Clay table because we integrate them. 

Then the entire process repeats. In other words, the tools and systems here pick up the intent data (like from a data source) then pushes into the already-running Clay table. 

The Clay table then (with all the tools integrated) automatically rolls out the workflow to find the contact, enrich, clean, create messages, reach out, etc. 

And because this is set up to run automatically, sometimes the only time you see it working is when you get a response from prospects. 

The value here is that basic intent tools like the ones you get when you upgrade to ZoomInfo or Cognism only track when someone reads your content. That’s just noise.

Our system is much smarter because it identifies real business signals that show when companies are actually qualified to buy.

More importantly, it’s not about the tool but knowing how to find which signals matter for your business in the noise. 

Here are a few more examples of unique and smart ways we set it:

1. For a cybersecurity client, we use Apify to monitor funding announcements to detect IT companies raising capital—a signal they’re about to expand their security needs. 
2. For a client offering AI-powered furnishing solutions, we monitor RSS feeds from property development publications like Multi-Housing News, Chicago Yimby, and Property Week and automatically detect new development announcements. 
3. For a client offering tax incentive solutions to enterprises, we use Trigify.io to monitor Fortune 500 financial announcements for companies reporting sudden profit margin increases. It’s the perfect time to discuss tax optimization strategies and we reach out right then.

As you can see, it’s not just social media, we can basically utilize all data that is publicly available.

What makes this approach special is that you have to tailor it specifically to your business. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach.

Note: Struggling to connect with decision-makers in your target market? We’ll run a completely done-for-you outbound campaign to transform your sales pipeline with prospects ready to engage. Book a 15-minute call now to discuss your unique business needs and discover our flexible packages.

Step 6: Marketing and inbound lead qualification automation tech stack

We’ve found that while your website, blog, and social media build awareness, they also create the challenge of figuring out which visitors are actually worth your sales team’s time.

The typical scenario here is that your sales reps likely spend hours each week sorting through everyone who downloads content or engages with your posts. 

This manual process:

• takes up time that could be spent closing deals
• often ends in reaching out too early or too late in the buying cycle
• makes them miss important signals about who’s truly interested

Without automation here, your sales reps get stuck doing this low-value work instead of selling to qualified prospects.

The sales tech stack in our workflow can help here as well. 

All you have to do is push all the data from your CRM or from whatever tool you use to collect inbound leads from your socials and website and push it into Clay and watch the system run the automated workflow. 

Or, if you don’t have a solid system for collecting your inbound data, you can use PhantomBuster for socials and RB2B for your website. 

Though it only works for US-based visitors, RB2B allows you to identify your anonymous website visitors, enrich them with contact details and profile data, and push them to Clay or your CRM to trigger workflows.

Recap: You should build your sales tech stack based on your company size

There you have it. What we’d like to leave you with here is that your tech stack complexity should align with company size. 

For smaller organizations with just one BDR, is it really worth setting up an entire CRM just for that one BDR? Probably not. 

For these companies, a minimal stack with Clay’s free tier for data management, LeadMagic’s lowest package for contact discovery, and a basic CRM like HubSpot’s free version will do just fine. 

You can export and import everything manually, and it will work just fine.

On the other hand, if you have a big sales team, with up to 8 people working there, and you need to keep track of everything that’s going on, you’re going to need all the tools.

For such organizations, HubSpot or Salesforce become central components, connected to Clay for advanced automation. 

You’ll need the complete workflows where leads flow automatically from CRM or data source to Clay for enrichment, then to outreach tools, with results feeding back into the CRM without manual intervention. 

This level of integration eliminates the friction between tools that typically slows down larger sales organizations.

One thing you must never forget is that automation is not a set-it-and-forget-it system. To some extent, you should always be doing some testing and optimizing campaigns for better results.

No sales tech stack eliminates the need for sales professionals. We believe it simply transforms their role from manual data entry and prospecting to strategy, relationship building, and true sales. 

Note: Struggling to connect with decision-makers in your target market? We’ll run a completely done-for-you outbound campaign to transform your sales pipeline with prospects ready to engage. Book a 15-minute call now to discuss your unique business needs and discover our flexible packages.