![What Clay Is aware of That You Do not [+ Video]](https://i1.wp.com/learn.g2.com/hubfs/G2CM_FI1171_Learn_Article_%5BIndustry_Insights_Alex_Lindahl%5D_V1a-2.png?w=1920&resize=1920,1036&ssl=1 "What Clay Is aware of That You Do not [+ Video]")
Your advertising and marketing technique could also be caught in 2025.
Whilst you’re fastidiously crafting segment-based campaigns, your opponents is perhaps deploying AI brokers that know precisely when your prospects are prepared to purchase — typically even earlier than they do.
“Advertising and marketing primarily based on segments is turning into outdated,” says Alex Lindahl, go-to-market (GTM) engineer at Clay. On this unique dialog, he challenges typical advertising and marketing knowledge and introduces a revolutionary strategy that is producing 45% reply charges on chilly outreach. He additionally reveals how AI orchestration is reworking buyer engagement from a scheduled broadcast into an clever dialog.
As somebody deeply concerned in advancing these advertising and marketing frontiers, Alex can also be set to share his insights and hands-on methods throughout an upcoming workshop on the AI in Motion roadshow in Atlanta in June 2025.
This is not simply one other AI assume piece — it is a sensible roadmap for creating what Clay calls “Go-to-Market Alpha,” the aggressive edge that comes from continuous experimentation and adaptation.
This interview is a part of G2’s Q&A collection. For extra content material like this, subscribe to G2 Tea, a e-newsletter with SaaS-y information and leisure.
To look at the total interview, take a look at the video beneath:
Contained in the trade with Alex Lindahl
Many entrepreneurs are drowning in knowledge however nonetheless combating actionable insights. In your expertise working with Clay’s shoppers, how does an AI-first strategy basically change the way in which entrepreneurs ought to take into consideration their buyer knowledge?
When desirous about knowledge utilization, it is essential to contemplate the various kinds of knowledge which can be on the market. We’ve structured knowledge, present in databases, CRMs, and product utilization metrics. Then there’s unstructured knowledge scattered throughout the online within the type of weblog posts, job postings, monetary experiences, and numerous different sources. So you want to acknowledge that every firm has a singular very best buyer profile (ICP) and distinct personas that require particular knowledge units. So the bottom line is determining the place you possibly can supply that knowledge, each internally and externally.
With the appearance of AI, we are able to now deploy brokers to assemble unstructured knowledge from across the internet, analyze it successfully, extract significant insights, and develop actionable suggestions. The true energy comes from bringing these two components collectively and mixing numerous knowledge sources with AI capabilities to speed up understanding and resolution making.
Traditionally, knowledge utilization has largely been guide, typically restricted to primary segmentation for strategic choices. However at the moment, we are able to apply AI throughout totally different components of the GTM funnel and enterprise processes to dramatically enhance how we collect info, analyze patterns, and take motion primarily based on complete knowledge insights.
On condition that the hole between producing insights and really implementing them is a continuing problem in advertising and marketing, what frameworks do you advocate for organizations to show AI-generated insights into concrete enterprise actions systematically? Are there particular instruments or processes that you have seen work significantly properly?
Yeah completely. We consider Clay as a system of motion. So inside Clay, you possibly can have totally different columns powered by AI or knowledge sources, and AI can analyze and construction this knowledge successfully. As an example, for those who’re focusing on a VP of Advertising and marketing, AI can align the proper case examine or weblog put up particularly for that individual. The secret’s making use of AI in a structured manner throughout totally different workflow sorts.
AI brokers additionally come into play right here. Traditionally, ICP personas, and advertising and marketing and gross sales performs have existed individually with out a cohesive timing component connecting them. What I am now calling “very best buyer indicators” defines particular indicators that reveal potential enterprise alternatives or challenges the place your product can present worth. This strategy strikes us away from conventional segments towards signal-based engagement.
And so I got here up with this framework known as “DRIVE” that buildings this strategy.
D – Detect: Determine the sign and decide methods to detect it and the way continuously to seek for it.
R – Overview: Analyze what the sign implies. You possibly can leverage AI right here — for instance, if an organization is hiring DevOps engineers, AI may also help conclude that they are scaling their engineering staff. This evaluate helps decide whether or not the sign warrants motion.
I – Determine: Uncover challenges the corporate could face in reaching its targets. AI excels right here when skilled by yourself knowledge, weblog posts, case research, and their outcomes.
V – Worth: Align your answer’s worth to the particular scenario the corporate is experiencing.
E – Execute: Take acceptable motion primarily based on the sign.
The perfect implementation includes always-on indicators consistently monitoring outlined account lists. This lets you goal particular accounts exactly when related indicators emerge, indicating well timed alternatives for engagement.
Rework your AI advertising and marketing technique.
Be a part of trade leaders at G2’s free AI in Motion Roadshow for actionable insights and confirmed methods to reimagine your funnel. Register now
Many entrepreneurs are experiencing “immediate fatigue” from frequently refining their AI directions. What frameworks or approaches do you advocate for creating extra sustainable, reusable immediate methods?
I personally discover immediate engineering extremely enjoyable and highly effective. Particularly as a non-technical individual, as a result of now principally everybody’s turning into an engineer. You need to use platforms like Lovable to even immediate your method to creating an utility. However within the GTM world, there are tons of prompts which you could create, tons of prompts which you could motion.
So, how do you go from simply taking a immediate and refining it over time?
There are a number of approaches to create repeatability along with your prompts. One methodology is growing a customized GPT by embedding your refined immediate right into a specialised mannequin, enriching it with contextual supplies and studying assets. This creates a reusable instrument that constantly generates advertising and marketing property or offers aggressive evaluation with out requiring you to recreate the immediate every time.
One other implementation technique includes AI brokers. At Clay, we make the most of an AI agent that executes customized prompts for analysis functions. As an example, you may direct the agent to find out whether or not a selected firm has a buying cart on its web site. The agent will go to the positioning, analyze it, and return with a definitive reply or related clarification.
The true energy comes from making use of this functionality throughout a number of accounts — whether or not a whole lot, 1000’s, and even a whole lot of 1000’s — permitting you to scale your immediate’s performance effectively.
The third strategy integrates these prompts straight into operational workflows. Take into account a easy instance: When an inbound lead arrives, you may apply a immediate to categorize the individual’s title primarily based on seniority or job operate. A subsequent layer may then advocate essentially the most acceptable case examine to ship them. This creates a sequence the place AI interventions result in progressively higher knowledge or motion outputs.
The method requires some preliminary funding in creating, refining, and testing your prompts. Nevertheless, as soon as optimized, you possibly can deploy them by way of customized GPTs, AI brokers, or workflow integrations the place they will operate repeatedly inside their designated context. This eliminates the tedious cycle of repeatedly copying and pasting prompts into ChatGPT, which shortly turns into exhausting.
Your “Construct the Prompts & Motion the Insights” session within the “AI in Motion Roadshow” guarantees to assist entrepreneurs rethink their present strategy. What transformation do you sometimes see in entrepreneurs’ considering from the start to the tip of this workshop?
I feel what lots of people are realizing is that advertising and marketing primarily based on segments is turning into outdated. The brand new strategy is utilizing indicators to align the proper advertising and marketing or gross sales play to your ICP or persona. So, we’re seeing a shift in considering — indicators are actually taking priority over segments.
Fairly than creating typical campaigns the place you may ship one message this week and a distinct one two weeks later with maybe just a few variations, we’re now focusing extra on listening to the market, accounts, or people. This enables us to use actions or ship advertising and marketing messages exactly after they’re almost certainly to resonate with the recipient. That is one of many key insights folks sometimes take away from our workshop.
One other realization is that immediate engineering, whereas sounding complicated or intimidating, is definitely fairly accessible. You solely want to grasp some fundamentals to enhance your prompts over time. You possibly can start with a primary immediate and easily ask AI methods to improve it or what components is perhaps lacking. This back-and-forth dialogue with the AI helps refine your immediate primarily based on its suggestions, and you’ll incorporate these solutions and even have the AI rewrite the immediate fully for you.
You simply have to ask the proper questions and take into consideration what the output is that you really want, so you possibly can articulate that clearly to AI. And maybe essentially the most important takeaway is discovering how simply you possibly can create a customized GPT, apply your refined immediate, and use it constantly to make that immediate repeatable.
This additionally accompanies the broader notion that everybody is actually turning into an engineer at the moment. You possibly can create purposes, construct merchandise, present AI directions, and develop AI brokers — capabilities that weren’t beforehand accessible to non-technical folks.
It is thrilling that people with out technical backgrounds can now carry out extra technical features by leveraging AI, making your entire course of not simply productive however pleasing as properly.
Alex Lindahl
GTM Engineer at Clay
Your workshop covers “AI orchestrations.” May you clarify how this idea particularly applies to advertising and marketing workflows and supply an instance of how this has improved marketing campaign efficiency?
So, plenty of the orchestrating of AI brokers will be completed by way of a number of approaches. In Clay, it is fairly easy — you arrange a column that applies your AI agent directions repeatedly throughout an account checklist. Alternatively, you may deploy an ambient agent that displays for particular indicators or implement a chat agent that engages with clients to qualify leads.
One among my favourite examples includes configuring a customized sign to trace sure key phrases on LinkedIn. When these key phrases seem in posts, each the content material and poster are routinely imported into Clay. The system then makes use of AI to investigate the individual’s title, persona, and message content material. Based mostly on this evaluation — significantly specializing in persona and title — it determines whether or not to proceed with message creation or take no motion.
The subsequent section includes AI analyzing the put up and finishing a easy template like, “I simply noticed your put up on [blank].” with AI filling in that clean area. This creates a customized snippet which you could incorporate into your outreach. From there, an automation can set off both a connection request, a LinkedIn message, or an electronic mail to that particular person.
For this explicit marketing campaign, I truly noticed a outstanding 45% reply fee, which is totally insane by trade requirements. This success stems from incorporating timing components and just-in-time messaging by utilizing the detected sign to find out the optimum second for outreach. After all, we’re leveraging AI to filter prospects and guarantee we’re connecting with the suitable seniority ranges.
As you possibly can see, this strategy considerably boosts the general marketing campaign effectiveness as a result of it is extra personalised, well timed, and basically extra related to what that individual is considering or experiencing in that particular second.
For individuals who acknowledge the potential of an AI-first strategy however work in conventional organizations, what sensible recommendation would you give to somebody who needs to champion these strategies inside their staff however faces institutional inertia or skepticism from management?
I might say first develop some stage of consolation and data round AI itself. Take a process you imagine could possibly be automated and experiment with instruments like ChatGPT or a customized GPT to streamline it. This preliminary step focuses on enhancing your individual productiveness whereas gaining invaluable prompting expertise and understanding what’s doable and what is not.
Via this course of, you will naturally grow to be extra environment friendly and develop shortcuts for particular duties, corresponding to changing name transcripts into follow-up emails. This hands-on expertise builds your basis in immediate engineering.
Subsequent, determine a challenge inside your staff the place you possibly can create a immediate that is going to assist speed up that challenge and transfer it ahead. And thru that, you are going to begin to expose your teammates to prompting and AI, and so they’ll in all probability be fairly shocked. As soon as you have established this foothold, decide methods to combine AI into your staff’s common operations — their day by day or weekly workflows. This gradual enlargement demonstrates worth at more and more broader ranges: first private productiveness, then challenge acceleration, and at last, team-wide implementation.
These progressive successes present the proof wanted to construct a compelling enterprise case. Now you can make knowledgeable suggestions primarily based on demonstrated outcomes: “We have efficiently utilized this at particular person, challenge, and staff ranges. Let’s scale this strategy to different departments to realize related return-on-investment (ROI), productiveness positive aspects, and efficiencies.”
If readers might take away only one perception from this text, what would you need them to recollect?
I’d say crucial takeaways are actually two issues. First, have enjoyable with AI as a result of AI exploration will be genuinely pleasing. Second, experiment with your individual use instances and inside your organization’s GTM technique.
At Clay, we have developed this idea of “Go-to-Market Alpha,” which is actually discovering methods to do issues otherwise to achieve aggressive benefits. You possibly can’t uncover these benefits with out experimenting. Some experiments will not present ROI, however by way of this course of, you will uncover approaches that work remarkably properly.
The previous playbooks aren’t working as a result of we have stopped experimenting. We have to frequently experiment to search out that new playbook, that new wedge, that new ‘Go-to-Market Alpha’.
Alex Lindahl
GTM Engineer at Clay
So maintain experimenting each personally and along with your staff and firm. You may begin to uncover totally different pockets of “alpha” — aggressive benefits that profit each you and your group.
Should you loved this insightful dialog, subscribe to G2 Tea for the newest tech and advertising and marketing thought management.
Observe Alex Lindahl on LinkedIn to be taught extra about sign primarily based advertising and marketing.
Edited by Supanna Das
