Most GTM teams enrich too much data and use too little of it.
When everything is “on,” it looks clean inside Clay, but most of those fields never power any logic.
They don’t change routing.
They don’t change copy.
They don’t change scoring.
They just sit there.
And you pay for every one of them.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been auditing enrichment setups across several stacks.
I found that 40–60% of the fields most teams enrich don’t do anything measurable.
That’s wasted spend, clutter, and slower automations.
So in this issue, I’ve broken down the only fields that matter and when you’d actually need them.
The Clay Enrichment Field Checklist
Field | Used For | When You’d Need This | Category |
|---|---|---|---|
Job Title / Seniority | Routing, Copy | When your routes or copy change by persona like SDR, VP, or Founder | ✅ Must Have |
Company Size / Headcount | Routing, Copy | When your AE pods, pricing, or tone change between SMB, Mid-Market, and Enterprise | ✅ Must Have |
Email Verification | Deliverability, Routing | When sending outbound at scale or protecting domain reputation | ✅ Must Have |
Tech Stack (Integrations / Competitors) | Copy, Qualification | When your product connects with or replaces specific tools | ⚠️ Conditional |
Geo / Timezone | Routing, Send Logic | When territories, ownership, or send-times depend on region | ⚠️ Conditional |
Industry / Vertical | Routing, Copy | When your messaging or ownership is split by industry like SaaS, Fintech, or Health | ⚠️ Conditional |
Hiring Velocity / Open Roles | Scoring, Timing | When your product depends on team growth or expansion | ⚠️ Conditional |
Funding (Recent Rounds) | Timing, Copy | When new capital changes buying power or timing for your ICP | ⚠️ Conditional |
Intent Data (G2 / Bombora / 1P) | Scoring, Copy | When mapped topics match your product and feed scoring or copy | ⚠️ Conditional |
LinkedIn URL / Profile Data | Copy | When you pull posts or headlines for manual or AI personalization | ⚠️ Conditional |
Website Traffic / Digital Footprint | Scoring | When growth or digital maturity influence your scoring or tiering | ⚠️ Conditional |
Revenue Estimate | Routing | When routing decisions depend directly on revenue bands | ❌ Skip |
Account Hierarchy (Parent / Subsidiary) | Routing, Dedupe | When handling multi-entity accounts or ABM routing | ❌ Skip |
Catch-All Firmographics (Founded Year, Type, etc.) | — | When your ICP logic filters by company age or structure | ❌ Skip |
How to use this checklist
Use this as a pre-filter before every enrichment flow you build.
When you set up a Clay table, label each field with one of three tags:
✅ Must Have – Directly changes logic or copy
⚠️ Conditional – Useful only when your flow or messaging consumes it
❌ Skip – Never impacts anything downstream
If you do this once, you’ll clean up your workspace and stop wasting enrichment credits every month.
The result is faster runs, fewer empty variables, and a much tighter signal chain.
Closing thought
When you’re building GTM systems, you need clarity, not coverage.
Collecting more data doesn’t mean you understand your leads better.
It just means you’ve added more noise between a signal and its outcome.
A strong enrichment setup is lean, intentional, and connected directly to workflow logic.
Everything else is clutter.
Clean data compounds.
It keeps your automations predictable, your routing clean, and your spend efficient.
And that’s what separates a GTM stack that scales from one that bloats.
