Account-Based Marketing and Clay
AI agents, enrichment, and intent data to turn insights into relevant, timely action.
Account-based marketing is evolving fast, and AI is leading the charge. With 91% of buyers more likely to engage with vendors who educate them and 80% of marketers saying personalisation improves results, the challenge is scaling relevance without losing the human touch.
That's why tools like Clay are transforming Account-Based Marketing (ABM) by combining AI, enrichment, and intent data to automate insights, boost deliverability, and help teams act on the right signals at exactly the right time.
What is Clay, and why does it matter for ABM?
Clay is a go-to-market data and AI enrichment platform. It pulls information from dozens of data sources — firmographic, technographic, and behavioural — into one workflow, then uses AI agents to research, score, and act on accounts automatically. For account-based marketing teams, that means the manual work of list-building, research, and personalisation can happen at a fraction of the time and cost.
Where traditional ABM relies on static lists and manually-built account plans, an AI-powered approach with Clay treats your target account list as a living thing: constantly enriched, constantly re-scored against intent signals, and constantly feeding fresh, personalised messaging back into your outbound and ads programs.
Traditional ABM
- Lists built and refreshed manually
- Intent inferred from static firmographic fit
- Personalisation limited to a handful of "tier 1" accounts
- Sales and marketing working from separate data
AI-powered ABM with Clay
- Enrichment and scoring run continuously in the background
- Real-time signals — hiring, funding, tech changes — trigger action
- Every account gets a tailored message, page, or sequence
- One enriched record flows into CRM, ads, and outbound together
Cracking the ABM Code: How AI and Clay Are Redefining Account-Based Marketing
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) has always promised precision — the idea that marketing and sales teams can finally align, focus, and act on the accounts that matter most. But for many marketers, that promise still feels out of reach. Data is messy. Intent signals are vague. Personalisation feels impossible to scale.
That's why our team set out to crack the ABM code. In our recent live webinar, "Cracking the ABM Code," we demonstrated how the right blend of AI, automation, and Clay can transform how you identify, engage, and convert your ideal customers at scale.
See Clay in action for your accounts
Book a private walkthrough with our team and find out exactly how AI-powered enrichment and intent data could work inside your ABM program.
Inside Clay's AI-Powered ABM Workflows
AI-led ICP Development
Clay's AI agents analyse hundreds of signals — from company headcount to tech stack — to help you identify which accounts actually match your ideal customer profile.
Dynamic Intent Signals
Clay constantly monitors activity across your target accounts, surfacing the signals that matter most: new hires, funding rounds, competitor engagements, job postings, and past champions moving roles. It's intent data reimagined — real-time, relevant, and ready to act on.
Hyper-Personalisation at Scale
Clay's AI writes context-aware messages that speak directly to each account's current challenges. It can even generate one-to-one landing pages, email sequences, or slide decks tailored to each company, automatically.
Seamless GTM Integration
Push everything into your CRM, email sequencer, or ad platform with a single click.
Where Clay fits in a broader ABM strategy
Clay isn't a replacement for your ABM strategy, your CRM, or your sales team — it's the enrichment and intent layer that makes all three work harder. Most of the B2B SaaS and tech teams we work with plug Clay in alongside HubSpot or Salesforce, using it to keep account and contact data fresh, then routing enriched records straight into existing outbound, ads, and lifecycle programs.
The businesses getting the most out of it tend to combine three things: a clearly defined ideal customer profile, a short list of intent signals worth acting on, and a content and messaging library that can be personalised quickly rather than rebuilt from scratch for every account.
Account-Based Playbook: Understand, Engage and Retain the Modern B2B Consumer
From Joana Inch, best-selling author of Go To Market, this book reveals how today's smartest marketers are combining data, AI, and account-based strategy to target, engage, and retain the modern B2B buyer. Packed with insights from real campaigns and new-era tools, Account-Based Playbook is your blueprint for building intelligent, scalable, and human-centred ABM programs that actually deliver results.
6 Best Practices to Elevate Your Account Based Marketing
DOWNLOAD GUIDE →Proof it works
Clay and AI-powered enrichment are only as good as the strategy behind them. See how a content-led, ABM-first approach helped Lenovo generate a US$66m return — no AI hype required, just the right accounts, the right signals, and the right message at the right time.
Frequently asked questions
What is Clay, and how does it work with account-based marketing?
How is AI changing account-based marketing in 2026?
Is Clay a replacement for my CRM or existing ABM platform?
What data signals does Clay track for intent-based ABM?
How long does it take to see results from an AI-powered ABM program?
Do I need a dedicated data or RevOps team to run Clay effectively?
How does Hat Media help B2B SaaS companies implement Clay for ABM?
What's the difference between traditional ABM and AI-powered ABM?
Curious about how we can work together?
Book a private Clay demo, or get in touch to talk through what an AI-powered ABM program could look like for your business.
Resources
© Hat Media Pty Ltd.
