How to Build an ABM Engine with Salesflow + Clay: The ClayBM Playbook

Outbound, the way we know it, is working less and less. Yet here we are, tweaking subject lines and A/B testing openers, as if that’ll save the day.

The real issue goes way deeper. 

Buyers are overwhelmed, under-pleased, and bored. And while most outbound today is mass-personalized, it is not truly researched. 

Even with all the tools at our fingertips, outbound misses the mark because it’s not aligned with account-level strategy, timing, or intent.

That’s why fast-moving teams are shifting to ABM. And since you’re here, you’re probably one of them.

If you want to understand what ABM really is, why it matters, and how to do it right using Salesflow and Clay, you’re in the right place.

But before we dive in, let’s clear up what isn’t ABM, and why it doesn’t work for some teams.

Why Most People Are Doing ABM Wrong

In most companies, revenue teams aren’t aligned. 

(Yeah, okay, and that has anything to do with ABM, outreach, or sales, because?)

This matters because more often than not, the key data about intent, motivations, why users churn, why they moved to a competitor, what ticks the buyers, etc, is gated by marketing, CS, and product teams. 

Data that you, as an SDR, need if you want to do personalized outreach. And we get it, over the last few years, “personalized” has become the most overused word in outbound.

But when we say personalized, we don’t mean the same old first-name logic, a field for the company’s headcount growth, and a mention of a recent funding round. (Usually pulled from the same three data tools.)

We mean on signal-driven targeting, contextual messaging, and timing that makes sense. And that needs data, lots of it.

That’s what this playbook is about.

So that you have a system for building high-conviction outbound campaigns that make selling to complex accounts easier. 

It starts with the foundations of ABM. What is ABM, why it should matter to you, and how to get it right. 

Then, and only then, we move to the tools. 

First, Clay, where you enrich and segment based on real data like firmographics, hiring trends, tech stack, LinkedIn activity, and more. 

Then Salesflow, where that data is activated through multi-step LinkedIn and email outreach.

This ClayBM guide teaches you how to build an ABM engine with Salesflow + Clay, so hang tight.

Why You Need to Build an ABM Engine (And Why Salesflow + Clay Are the Stack to Do It)

Before we get into workflows and tooling, let’s take a second to define what we’re actually building.

Most people hear “ABM” and think of a list upload and some intent data layered on top. That’s not ABM. That’s a renamed lead list.

Real ABM starts with knowing who you're selling to, why they should care, and how to engage them in a way that matches the way they buy.

It’s not just about picking accounts with high ACV. It’s about understanding how those accounts behave when they’re in a buying cycle. Who's involved. What signals show up early. What jobs they’re hiring for. How they talk about their problems.

It’s primarily research-oriented. And that is the biggest piece of the puzzle.

Done right, ABM is a strategy, not a sequence. You need:

• A clear ICP + Buying committee
• Multi-threading across multiple buyers
• Messaging that adapts to the buying committee member
• Motions that match your ACV and deal complexity
• And plays that align with the seniority of the buying committee member

This is especially critical in 2025.

Budgets are tighter and sales cycles are getting longer. Which means more scrutiny, more stakeholders, and a lot more silence.

And yet, most ABM plays fall apart because of one thing: a gap between data and execution.

The sales team has enrichment tools. The marketing team has intent platforms. CS has user complaints and data. Product has user behavior data. But no one’s actually aligning around accounts.

Enrichment ≠ engagement.‍

You can have the right contact, the right title, the right company, and still run a generic sequence that gets ignored.

Why? Because most outbound happens in isolation. Sales is reaching out without knowing what marketing is doing. Marketing is pushing content without knowing what sales is hearing on calls. And neither is tailoring anything to the account’s actual context.

This is where ABM done with Salesflow + Clay flips the model.

Clay gives you the targeting intelligence, real-time enrichment, signal detection, and segmentation that doesn’t rely on hunches.

Salesflow gives you the execution layer, multi-touch outreach across LinkedIn and email that adapts to the account’s motion.

Together, they give you a working system:

• Account-first targeting
• Signal-triggered timing
• Multi-threaded outreach
• And a feedback loop that helps every touch get smarter

This is what we mean by an ABM engine.

One that starts with data, flows through to execution, and doesn’t break in the middle.

And you don’t need a giant team to run it. You just need the right process, the right signals, and the right tools. 

Let’s get into it.

Step-by-Step: The ClayBM Playbook to Build an ABM Engine with Salesflow + Clay

Now that we’ve covered the why, let’s get into the how.

This is a hands-on, step-by-step breakdown of how to build and run a real ABM engine, one that’s lean, signal-driven, and built for how sales cycles actually work in 2025.

We’re not starting with messaging. We’re starting with your ICP. Then we layer in signals, enrich contacts, sync them into campaigns, and activate outreach at exactly the right moment.

Step 1: Define Your Ideal Customer Profile and Buying Committee Members 

Defining your ICP isn’t about picking a headcount range, an industry, maybe a tech stack or two, and calling it a day. It requires a lot of context and background work.

And the only way to figure that out?

You have to go backwards. Not from a spreadsheet, but from the people closest to your customers.

Before you even start strategizing, know that the real data is sitting in Notion docs, Gong calls, post-mortems, and Slack threads across your CS, Product, and Marketing teams.

This is about collecting that information and curating it to make the most sense. 

Start with Closed-Won Forensics

Start with the data you have yourself. Pull up your deals from last quarter. Doesn’t matter if they’re in HubSpot, Salesforce, or a Google Sheet; get the raw data. You’re not looking at how you sold yet. You’re looking for buying patterns.

Things to note and find patterns in:

• Deal velocity: Which deals moved the fastest? What made them low-friction? What is the average time it took for a deal to close? (Maybe the CEO got involved early, so the deal closed fast, or maybe the CFO is usually the blocker.)
  
• Team structure: Who was in the room? Just a VP of Sales? Or did a RevOps lead join in halfway through? (Who are the people involved in these deals?)
  
• Objections: What came up often? What didn’t? (This will help with creating battle-cards and facing objections early on)
  
• Average Contract Value: Which deals had the highest ACV? (Were they all from a certain industry, company size, location, etc?)
  
• Onboarding and expansion: Which customers became power users or expanded fast? (Who are end users, and what is affecting their adoption rates the most?)

You're trying to map the kind of company that not only buys, but gets value fast.

Interview Your Internal Teams

Next comes asking the right teams the right questions. While it may not be your job to get the revenue team aligned, it does work in your favour if you have the right data.

• Your marketing team knows what messages landed.
• Your CS team knows what made customers churn or stay.
• Your product team knows which customers push for which features

They’re sitting on a goldmine of data. Use it.

Here’s a rough interview guide you can use to run 30-minute deep dives with each function:

For CS:

• What patterns do you see in accounts that expand quickly?
• What are the most common reasons accounts churn?
• Which customers “get it” from day one?
• Who are the best stakeholders to work with during onboarding?

For Marketing:

• Which types of campaigns generate high-intent leads?
• What pain points get the most engagement on LinkedIn or email?
• Which personas respond best to content?
• What messaging consistently fails?

For Product:

• What feature requests come up most often?
• Which segments push hardest for roadmap updates?
• Are there tools or integrations our best-fit customers always ask for?

For Sales (AE perspective):

• Which personas bring deals to a halt?
• Who are your “easy champions”? What do they care about?
• Are there specific title combos that usually show up together?
• What are your top “aha” moments on calls?

You’re not looking for perfect consensus.

You’re looking for themes. Clusters. Patterns. Outliers that signal nuance.

Documenting Your ICP the Right Way

Once you’ve done your homework, move everything into one place. At this stage, your ICP should include more than headcount and industry. It should include:

And don’t stop at the account level. Go deeper.

Map your buying committee.

Use your call notes, CRM timelines, and AE debriefs to answer:

• Who initiates interest?
• Who champions internally?
• Who signs the contract?
• Who can kill the deal?

Write these out as rough personas. Not just by title, but by role in the process. For example:

• “The Skeptical Ops Lead”: cares about integrations and workflow fit
• “The Overloaded VP Sales”: only cares about speed to ramp and visibility
• “The Junior SDR Manager”: becomes your champion if you help them hit targets faster

Here’s a quick cheatsheet you can use to map your ICP and Buying Committee Members. Just make a copy and fill it in.

This is the foundation of ABM, getting your basics right. For now, you just need this on paper. Properly.

Step 2 is segmentation.

Step 2: Segmenting Your ICP into Strategic ABM Tiers

So, you've mapped out your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and identified the key players in the buying committee. Great start. But here's the thing: not all accounts are created equal.

To allocate your resources wisely and maximize impact, it's time to segment your accounts into tiers.

Why Tiering Matters

Imagine trying to outreach to a Fortune 500 company with the same approach you'd use for a scrappy startup. Doesn't make sense, right? Tiering allows you to:

• Prioritize Efforts: Focus your energy where it counts.
• Customize Outreach: Tailor your messaging to resonate with different account types.
• Optimize Resources: Allocate time and budget effectively.

The Three-Tiered Approach

ABM experts usually prescribe a 3-tiered approach to ABM. Here's how you can segment your accounts:

Tier 1: The VIPs

• Who They Are: Enterprise-level companies with the potential to bring in significant revenue.
  
  
• Characteristics:
  
  • High Annual Contract Value (ACV)
  • Complex buying committees
  • Strategic importance to your business
    
    
• Approach:
  
  • 1:1 Personalization: Craft bespoke campaigns for each account.
  • Deep Research: Understand their pain points, goals, and decision-making processes.
  • Multi-Channel Engagement: Combine email, LinkedIn, direct mail, and even personalized gifts.
    
    
• Resource Allocation: High-touch, high-investment.

Tier 2: The Mid-Range Movers

• Who They Are: Mid-sized companies that align well with your ICP.
  
  
• Characteristics:
  
  • Moderate ACV
  • Smaller buying committees
  • Potential for growth
    
    
• Approach:
  
  • 1: Few Personalization: Group similar accounts and tailor campaigns accordingly.
  • Targeted Content: Use industry-specific messaging and case studies.
  • Efficient Outreach: Balance personalization with scalability.
    
    
• Resource Allocation: Moderate-touch, balanced investment.

Tier 3: The Broad Base

• Who They Are: Smaller companies or those with lower immediate potential.
  
  
• Characteristics:
  
  • Lower ACV
  • Simpler buying processes
  • Higher in volume (numbers game)
    
    
• Approach:
  
  • 1: Many Campaigns: Use automated, scalable outreach methods.
  • General Messaging: Focus on broader value propositions.
  • Inbound Strategies: Leverage content marketing and SEO.
    
    
• Resource Allocation: Low-touch, minimal investment.

Step 3: Enrich Accounts, Score Them, and Find Contacts in Clay

So, you've got your ICP mapped out and your accounts tiered. Now, it's time to roll up your sleeves and get into the nitty-gritty: enriching those accounts, scoring them, and finally, identifying the right contacts. Let's break it down.

1. Enrich Accounts: Build a 360° View

Before reaching out to anyone, you need a comprehensive understanding of each account. This means gathering data points that give you insights into their business, challenges, and potential needs.

Key Data Points to Enrich:

• Firmographics: Industry, company size, revenue, location.
• Technographics: Technologies they use, recent tech stack changes.
• Hiring Trends: Recent job postings, growth in specific departments.
• News and Events: Recent funding rounds, mergers, acquisitions, product launches.

How to Gather This Data:

• Internal Sources: CRM data, previous interactions, notes from sales or customer success teams.
• External Tools: Platforms like Clay can integrate with over 75 data providers to enrich your CRM data seamlessly.

Let’s look at mock data and an example company to make this easier. 

Let’s say a GTM/Sales lead at a B2B SaaS startup, a workflow automation tool for revenue teams, wants to run ABM campaigns. 

They’ve got a lean sales team, ambitious ACV goals, and a short list of companies they’d kill to land.

They've done the groundwork and defined their ICP and buying committee members. Here's what that looks like:

And,

2. Score Accounts: Prioritize Your Efforts

Not all accounts are equal. Scoring helps you prioritize which accounts to focus on based on their potential value and likelihood to convert.

Scoring Criteria:

• Fit Score: How well does the account match your ICP?
• Engagement Score: Have they interacted with your content or website?
• Intent Score: Are there signals indicating they're in the market for your solution?

Implementing Scoring:

• Assign numerical values to each criterion.
• Use tools like Clay to automate scoring based on real-time data.
• Regularly update scores as new data comes in.

If we were to go by the mock company’s example we described above, it would look something like:

Goal: Decide which accounts are worth your sales team’s time, and how much effort each deserves.

We’ll use five practical criteria based on the mock company’s ICP and real-world buying triggers. You score each criterion from 1 to 5, then tally it up. The higher the total, the more effort the account deserves.

Here’s what the score is likely to tell you:

3. Identify contacts from the accounts and enrich them

We’ve enriched the account. We’ve scored it.

Now it’s time to zoom in and revisit out who to reach out to.

Remember, you’re not looking for job titles. You’re looking for functions, influence, and relevance to the deal.

Using our mock example from earlier, here’s how that looks:

4. How to do all 3 in Clay:

You’re building your ABM engine. That means:

1. You start with a list of accounts.
2. You enrich them with useful data.
3. You score them based on fit + signals.
4. Only then do you find people to talk to.
   

All of this is doable in Clay. Here’s how to do it.

‍
Step 1: Enrich Accounts (aka pull in useful data)

Start with your list of target accounts, either from Sales Navigator (or anywhere else), either uploaded manually or imported from your CRM.

In Clay:

1. Add the “Enrichment” blocks to pull data like:
   
   • Firmographics: industry, size, HQ location
   • Technographics: what tools are in their stack (Salesforce, HubSpot, etc)
   • Hiring trends: are they hiring in sales, ops, or RevOps?
   • Funding news: recent rounds, acquisitions, new leadership
     
     
2. Use the following Clay blocks:
   
   • Clearbit or Apollo for firmographics
   • BuiltWith or G2 for tech stack
   • Jobs Search block for hiring trends
   • Clay AI for summarizing events/news from LinkedIn or Google

You now have rich, live data that tells you who’s worth your time.

An enriched data table will look something like this: 

Step 2: Score Accounts Based on Fit

Now that your spreadsheet is full of smart data, it’s time to score it.

In Clay:

1. Create a new column called “Qualification Score”
   
2. Add logic using the Formula block or Scoring block: Here, use the scoring criteria you noted down in #3
   
3. Output: a simple number (e.g., 7/10) or alternatively, if you were looking for fit/unit, then that.

Sort the list. Now you know which accounts are Tier 1 and which are Tier 3.
A table with scoring criteria will look something like this:

Step 3: Enrich Contacts (only after scoring)

Once you've decided which accounts to go after, then and only then, start pulling contacts.

In Clay:

1. Use the Find People feature on your scored accounts.
   
   
2. Use filters like:
   
   • Seniority: Director, VP, Head
   • Roles: Revenue Ops, Sales, GTM, CS
   • Department: Sales, Operations, Marketing
   • Optional: only show people active on LinkedIn
     
     
3. You’ll now get:
   
   • Full name
   • Title
   • LinkedIn URL
   • Verified email (if available)
   • Tenure at company
   • LinkedIn activity score

A people table imported in a “new table” will look something like this:

You can further score contacts too, using Clay logic:

• +1 for VP or above
• +1 if tenure > 1 year
• +1 if they’ve posted in the last 30 days

And then, use a waterfall enrichment system to get contact information. An enriched people table with contact details will look like:

Now you’re ready to push the right contacts, from the right accounts, into Salesflow.

Note: If this Clay workflow was too advanced for you, we break down how to use Clay from scratch in our LinkedIn outreach ebook. Just scroll down towards the bottom of the ebook and find the “Using Clay to Enrich Company and Personal Details” section, and you will see a step-by-step guide there.

Step 4: Push Contacts Into a Salesflow + Launch the ABM Sequence in Salesflow

By this point:

• You’ve enriched and scored your accounts in Clay
• You’ve identified and prioritized your contacts
• Now you need to activate this with a campaign that feels personal, without doing everything manually

Here’s how to do it.

For starters, step 1 is a no-brainer. 

Create an account on Salesflow and import your lead list from Clay via CSV.

To set up a campaign, you need to first decide the steps you want to add to the sequence. Here’s a tried-and-tested, 4-touch example ABM sequence that blends Clay’s data with Salesflow’s automation.

Here’s how to set-up a campaign in Salesflow in a few easy steps:

What Makes This Work

• Clay powers the relevance: You’re not saying “Saw your Series B” like everyone else, you’re using a real insight, like “noticed your RevOps headcount just doubled after Series B.”
  
  
• Salesflow powers the timing: Campaign steps are spaced out, multi-channel, and automatically paused on reply. You're scaling with precision.
  
  
• It doesn’t scream “automation”: The timing feels human. The message references context. And your targeting is tight, so it actually lands.

Pro Tips for ABM Campaigns in Salesflow

• Tag contacts by tier (1, 2, 3) and adjust your sequence depth accordingly
• Use variables in Salesflow that match fields from Clay (e.g., {pain_point} or {recent_hiring})
• A/B test your Touch 3 message, try different insight types (team growth vs. funding vs. tech)

If Salesflow is on your mind, and you’re wondering whether we’re the right addition to your tech stack, try us out. We offer a 7-day free trial, no credit card required. Sign up here.

Step 5: Track and Analyze in Salesflow

You’ve launched the campaign. Great.

But great outbound isn’t just about sending messages, it’s about learning what’s landing, what’s not, and tweaking as you go.

And the best part? You don’t need a separate analytics platform, spreadsheet, or Slack thread to figure that out.

Salesflow’s native analytics dashboard gives you everything you need to:

• Spot what’s working (and what’s falling flat)
• Prioritize high-interest accounts based on actual replies and activity
• Recycle colder leads without starting from scratch

You get 45+ real-time metrics, right out of the box, so you can track everything from connection acceptance rates to reply types, per step, per campaign, and per sender.

Here’s a quick look into what our analytics dashboard looks like:

Plug-and-Play Templates to Launch Your ClayBM Motion

Life gets easier when you have a template to go by. Here’s a few templates that will help you:

• ICP & Buying Committee Worksheet. Get clarity on who you’re targeting and why, before you build your list.
  
• Clay List-Building Template for ABM. Segment and enrich high-fit accounts with the right filters and signals.

Salesflow + Clay Is the Future of ABM Execution

ABM isn’t new. But how we do it, especially in lean teams with limited time and high targets, needs to evolve.

What used to take spreadsheets, endless back-and-forths with marketing, and a bunch of duct-taped tools, you can now run with two tools: Clay + Salesflow.

Now you’ve got the playbook. All that’s left is to run it.

Join 10,000+ users and experience firsthand just how powerful sales automation can be. Sign up for our 7-day free trial today, no card required.