Clay + Smartlead with n8n: A Fully Automated B2B Enrichment and Outreach Pipeline
The modern outbound stack is powerful but disconnected. Clay enriches leads beautifully. Smartlead sends cold email at scale with great deliverability. But gluing them together — moving enriched, personalized leads from one into the other on a schedule — is usually a manual copy-paste job that breaks the whole "automated" promise.
n8n is the glue. It turns Clay + Smartlead into a single pipeline that runs without you: raw leads in, enriched and personalized sequences out.
The full pipeline
- A list of target companies/leads enters the workflow
- Clay enriches each with firmographics, contact data, and signals
- AI writes a personalized first line for each lead from the enriched data
- Qualified, personalized leads are pushed into Smartlead
- Smartlead runs the multi-step sequence with proper deliverability handling
- Replies and positive responses sync back for the team
Ready to automate?
Get the ready-to-import n8n workflow — Clay enrichment → AI personalization → Smartlead, automated.
Building it node by node
1. Lead intake
Feed the pipeline from a Google Sheet, an Apollo export, or a webhook. Each lead needs at minimum a name, company, and domain or email.
2. Clay enrichment
Use an HTTP Request node to push leads into a Clay table (or pull enriched results via Clay's API/webhook). Clay returns the firmographics, verified contact info, and intent signals that personalization depends on.
3. AI personalization layer
For each enriched lead, prompt an LLM to write a personalized opening line grounded in a real detail — a recent hire, a tech-stack signal, a funding event. Generic "I loved your website" lines get ignored; specific, true observations get replies.
4. Push to Smartlead
Use Smartlead's API to add the lead to the right campaign with the personalized variables mapped in. Smartlead handles inbox rotation, warmup, and sending limits so you stay out of spam.
5. Close the loop
When Smartlead reports a positive reply, sync it to your CRM and alert the rep on Slack. The human only enters when there's an interested prospect to talk to.
What makes this convert
- Personalization at the lead level — every first line is unique and true
- Deliverability is respected — Smartlead's warmup and rotation aren't bypassed
- Quality gating — leads that don't enrich cleanly are dropped, not emailed
The honest caveat on cold email
Automation amplifies whatever you point it at. Point it at a bad list with a weak offer and you'll scale your spam complaints. Point it at a tight ICP with a real offer and genuine personalization, and you scale meetings. The workflow is the engine — your targeting and offer are the fuel.
Ready to automate Clay + Smartlead B2B Agent — Enrichment & Outreach Fully Automated?
This ready-to-import n8n workflow saves you hours of setup time. Just import, connect your accounts, and you're live.
