Mastering CRM Data Export in Clay: Streamlining Your Workflow

Once you’ve built a high-quality prospect list in Clay, the next step is exporting that data into your CRM. Proper CRM hygiene ensures that you're keeping records de-duped, maintaining data integrity, and only adding net new contacts.

In this lesson, we’ll cover: 

1. Checking for existing contacts in your CRM before adding new ones
2. Conditionally adding only net new contacts to prevent duplicates

For this demonstration, we’ll use HubSpot, but the same process applies to Salesforce, PipeDrive, Close, Copper, and any other CRM supported by Clay. If your CRM isn’t listed, you can use HTTP API to connect to it.

How It Works: CRM Export in Clay

Watch the guided demo below or skip ahead for a step-by-step breakdown. 

‍How to Check Your CRM Before You Update Data

Before adding new contacts, first check if they already exist in your CRM. This ensures you’re not creating duplicate records. Here’s how: 

1. Open the Enrichment Panel: Navigate to the CRM integrations section.
2. Select the Lookup Action: Choose “Lookup Contact” in HubSpot (or your preferred CRM).
3. Use Email as the Unique Identifier: Since contact ID isn’t available, we use email addresses as the primary lookup field.
4. Run a Test: Execute a 10-row test run to check if contacts exist in the CRM.

💡 Pro Tip: If your CRM isn’t well-maintained, you can also try looking up contacts by full name. However, this isn’t always reliable due to duplicate names across different companies.

To improve accuracy, you can use an AI formula to compare the email domain of the existing contact with the domain of the company you’re enriching. This helps confirm if the contact truly belongs to the target organization.

‍How to Add New New Contacts Conditionally

Once we’ve double checked to see if a contact exists, we’ll make use of AI formulas + conditional runs to only update the contacts that we know for certain are net new - preventing us from clogging up the CRM with messy duplicate data. 

Once you know which contacts don’t exist in your CRM, you can conditionally add only net new contacts. Here’s how: 

1. Create a New Column: Select the “Create or Update Contact” action in HubSpot. Select the data you want to send to your CRM with each new contact. 
2. Set Up a Conditional Run: Configure the action to only run if no matching contact ID is found from the CRM lookup. 
3. Test Before Running in Bulk: Run 10 rows to confirm that only net new contacts are being added.

By following this method, you ensure that your CRM remains clean and duplicate-free, improving data integrity and preventing unnecessary clutter.

Congrats!

With Clay’s CRM integration, you can streamline data exports, ensure high-quality CRM hygiene, and keep your sales pipeline clean. By following these steps, you prevent duplicate entries and maintain accurate lead data.

Next up: Integrating Clay with email sequencing tools to automate your outbound campaigns. See you there!

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