How to set up automatic account enrichment with Clearbit in Tray

If you're tired of wrangling incomplete account records and want your sales or marketing team to stop chasing bad leads, this one's for you. Setting up automatic account enrichment with Clearbit should save you a ton of manual work—if you do it right. I’m going to show you how to wire up Clearbit with Tray so new or updated accounts in your CRM get enriched instantly. No more copy-paste, no more guesswork.

This guide is for hands-on folks—ops, admins, or anyone who’s had to build a Zapier or Tray workflow before. If you want to actually use your data, not just collect it, keep reading.

Why bother with automatic enrichment?

Here’s the thing: sales and marketing tools are only as good as the data you feed them. If your account records are missing company size, industry, or website, you’re flying blind. Clearbit fills in those blanks automatically, but doing it by hand is a slog.

Automating enrichment means: - No more manual data entry (which never scales). - Sales gets context on every lead, right when they need it. - Less time on data cleanup, more time on work that matters.

But automation isn’t magic. Done wrong, you’ll just create a bigger mess, or burn through your Clearbit credits for no real gain. Let’s avoid that.

Step 1: Get your accounts in order

Before wiring anything up, check your source data. Garbage in, garbage out—automated or not.

  • Pick your trigger: What counts as a new or updated “account” in your world? Most folks use Salesforce, HubSpot, or a similar CRM. Decide when you want enrichment to happen: on create, on update, or both.
  • Start small: If your data is a mess, don’t try to enrich every account you’ve ever collected. Start with new ones or set some filters (e.g., only enrich if an email or domain is present).
  • De-duplicate: If you’ve got duplicate accounts, Clearbit might enrich all of them, wasting credits and confusing your team.

Pro tip: Run a quick CRM report. If you see junk domains like “gmail.com” or missing company names, fix that first.

Step 2: Set up your Clearbit account (and know your limits)

Clearbit’s pricing and data limits can bite you if you’re not careful. Make sure you:

  • Have an active Clearbit account with API access. Free trials are fine, but you’ll hit limits fast.
  • Locate your Clearbit API key in your account settings. You’ll need this for Tray.
  • Understand your plan: Most Clearbit plans limit monthly enrichment credits. Automating enrichment on every update can burn through credits fast. Be strategic—enrich what matters.

If you’re new to Clearbit, test their API manually first (Postman or curl is good enough). If your company domain returns blanks, Clearbit probably won’t help you much.

Step 3: Build your Tray workflow

Time to connect the dots. Tray is a drag-and-drop automation tool—not as basic as Zapier, but not as complex as building from scratch. Here’s the high-level flow:

  1. Trigger: Listen for new or updated account records in your CRM.
  2. Filter: (Optional but smart) Only enrich accounts that actually need data.
  3. Enrich: Call Clearbit’s API with the account’s domain.
  4. Update: Write the enriched data back to your CRM.

Let’s break this down.

3.1 Set up the trigger in Tray

  • Use the CRM connector (e.g., Salesforce, HubSpot).
  • Select the trigger event (e.g., “New Account Created” or “Account Updated”).
  • Map the fields you need (at minimum: company name, domain, and unique ID).

Don’t over-trigger: Some updates don’t matter (like someone fixing a typo). Use Tray’s filter step to only run enrichment if key fields changed.

3.2 Add a filter step

  • Why filter? Because not every account needs enrichment—some already have data, some are junk.
  • Filter out:
  • Accounts with missing or bad domains.
  • Accounts already enriched (set a custom field like “Clearbit Enriched = True”).
  • Personal email domains (gmail.com, yahoo.com, etc.).

Example filter logic: - IF domain IS NOT EMPTY AND Clearbit Enriched IS FALSE AND domain NOT IN [list of personal domains]

3.3 Make the Clearbit API call

  • Use Tray’s Clearbit connector, or the HTTP connector if you want more control.
  • Pass the company’s domain to Clearbit’s “Company Enrichment” endpoint.
  • Handle errors gracefully. If Clearbit can’t find data, don’t overwrite good CRM data with blanks.

Pro tip: Add a log step for failed enrichments. You’ll want to see which domains aren’t working.

3.4 Write enriched data back to CRM

  • Map the fields from Clearbit’s response to your CRM fields.
  • Don’t overwrite existing data unless you’re sure Clearbit’s is better.
  • Mark the record as “enriched” (custom field) so you don’t enrich it again next time.

Reality check: Clearbit doesn’t always have perfect data. Sometimes you’ll get blanks or outdated info. Don’t treat it as gospel—just use it to fill gaps.

Step 4: Test your workflow end-to-end

Don’t just set it and forget it. Run a few sample accounts through:

  • Watch for errors: Are enrichments failing? Is data mapping correctly?
  • Check for duplicates: Are you enriching the same account more than once?
  • Confirm data quality: Is Clearbit returning useful info? Are you overwriting good CRM data with bad data?

Iterate until it works reliably. Automation is only as good as its weakest link.

Step 5: Set up monitoring and alerts

You want to know when things break—or when you’re about to burn through your Clearbit credits.

  • Add error notifications: Use Slack, email, or whatever works for you.
  • Track usage: Set up a simple counter in Tray or monitor your Clearbit dashboard.
  • Review logs regularly: Look for accounts that aren’t enriching, or patterns in data quality issues.

If your workflow starts erroring out or if you hit your Clearbit limit, you’ll want to know fast.

What works: Real talk

  • Automate only what matters: Don’t enrich everything—be selective.
  • Keep it simple: The fewer steps, the fewer things break.
  • Monitor costs: Clearbit isn’t cheap. Make sure you’re enriching accounts that matter.
  • Iterate: Your first version probably won’t be perfect. Fix as you go.

What doesn't:

  • Blindly trusting Clearbit: Sometimes the data’s wrong or missing. Don’t overwrite good data.
  • Ignoring failed enrichments: If half your accounts aren’t getting enriched, you’re missing the point.
  • Automating before cleaning up: If your CRM is a mess, you’ll just automate bad data.

Common mistakes to avoid

  • Enriching the same account repeatedly: Set a flag. Otherwise, you’ll waste credits.
  • Enriching junk data: Filter out test accounts, personal domains, and anything else that’s not a real prospect.
  • Overwriting valuable data: If your sales team already filled out a field, don’t replace it with a blank or outdated value from Clearbit.
  • Not checking API limits: You don’t want to discover you’re out of credits after missing a week’s worth of enrichment.

Wrapping up: Keep it simple, iterate often

Automatic enrichment with Clearbit and Tray can be a huge time saver, but only if you don’t overcomplicate things. Start with a basic workflow, filter aggressively, and watch your usage. Don’t expect perfection—just aim for “better than before.” Once you’ve got the basics down, you can always expand or refine. The goal isn’t to automate everything—it’s to automate the boring parts so you can focus on work that actually matters.