If your inbox is a mess of demo requests, contact forms, and mystery leads, you’re not alone. Most sales and marketing teams waste hours qualifying and routing leads by hand—or worse, letting good leads slip through the cracks. This guide is for anyone who wants to use Clearbit to get leads to the right rep, faster, and stop guessing who’s worth a follow-up.
If you’re looking for a hype-free, practical approach to using Clearbit for inbound lead routing and qualification, read on.
What is Clearbit, Really?
Clearbit is a data enrichment tool. It plugs into your forms, CRM, or whatever tool you use, and tries to fill in the blanks about your leads—company size, industry, job title, funding, tech stack, and more. Its real value is not just in pretty dashboards, but in making your lead process smarter and less painful.
That said, Clearbit isn’t magic. The data’s good, but not perfect. Think of it as a way to make your routing and qualification better, not flawless.
Step 1: Get Clear on Your Lead Routing and Qualification Rules
Before you even touch Clearbit, you need to know how you want to route and qualify leads. If your team can’t say who gets what types of leads (and why), enrichment data won’t help.
Ask yourself: - Which leads do you want to fast-track to sales? - Who owns leads from companies of 500+ employees? What about startups? - What are your deal-breaker criteria (e.g., only US companies, certain industries, no students)?
Pro Tip: Don’t get fancy. Start with 2–3 clear rules (like company size, industry, and country). You can always add complexity, but you can’t take back a complicated mess.
Step 2: Connect Clearbit to Your Lead Capture Points
Clearbit connects to a bunch of tools: web forms (think HubSpot, Marketo, custom code), CRMs, chatbots, and more. The most common starting point is your website form.
How to set it up: - Native integrations: If you use a major form or CRM, Clearbit probably has a plug-and-play integration. Try that first. - API: For custom setups, you can call Clearbit’s API after a form submit, or even as the user is typing (for things like autocomplete). - No-code tools: Zapier and similar platforms can bridge the gap if you don’t want to code.
What works: Enriching leads at the moment they submit a form means you can route them instantly—no waiting for someone to check the CRM.
What doesn’t: Don’t waste time enriching every single anonymous website visitor. Focus on real leads—otherwise, you’ll just burn through your data credits.
Step 3: Set Up Enrichment Fields
You want to get the right data, not just a data dump. Some Clearbit fields are more reliable than others.
Useful fields: - Company name and domain: Often the most accurate. - Employee count: Good for segmenting by company size. Take with a grain of salt for small businesses. - Industry: Can be hit-or-miss. Useful for broad strokes, not for nitpicking. - Job title / seniority: Decent, but titles can be weird. Don’t expect miracles. - Country: Usually accurate, but double-check if it really matters to you.
Fields to ignore (mostly): - Annual revenue: Often just an estimate or missing. - Personal social profiles: Fun, but rarely actionable for routing. - Technologies used: Only helpful if you sell dev tools or similar.
Pro Tip: Map only the fields you actually use in your routing or scoring. The rest is noise.
Step 4: Automate Lead Routing with Clearbit Data
Once you’re enriching leads, use the data to send them to the right place automatically.
How to do it: - CRM workflows: Set up assignment rules in Salesforce, HubSpot, or your CRM of choice, using Clearbit fields. - Round-robin by segment: Big companies to your senior reps, small ones to your BDRs, and so on. - Instant alerts: Trigger Slack or email alerts for leads that hit your “VIP” criteria.
What works: Automating assignment cuts down on cherry-picking and delayed follow-ups.
What doesn’t: Don’t try to build a massive branching logic tree on day one. You’ll just create headaches. Start simple.
Example: If Clearbit finds a lead works at a company with 1,000+ employees and a Director-level title, route it straight to your enterprise AE. If not, send it to the SDR pool.
Step 5: Use Enriched Data for Automatic Lead Scoring
Qualification isn’t just about routing—it’s also about scoring. Use Clearbit data to bump up (or down) leads that fit your ICP (ideal customer profile).
How to do it: - Add points for target industries, company sizes, or titles. - Subtract points for students, agencies, or out-of-market geos. - Combine Clearbit data with behavior (e.g., demo requested + company size = top score).
What works: A basic “fit score” based on Clearbit data is usually more reliable than just form fields (which people fudge).
What doesn’t: Don’t trust the data blindly. Cross-check the top-scoring leads every week to make sure the rules actually match your best customers.
Step 6: Tweak Your Forms—Ask Less, Get More
Since Clearbit fills in the gaps, you can kill unnecessary form fields and improve conversion rates.
Try this: - Only ask for email and name. Use Clearbit to backfill company, title, etc. - If you must ask for something, make it a qualifying question (e.g., “How soon are you looking to buy?”).
What works: Shorter forms mean more leads. Don’t get greedy and ask for everything just because you can “enrich” after.
What doesn’t: Don’t assume Clearbit will always get it right. Give people a way to correct their company or role if it’s off.
Step 7: Monitor, Audit, and Adjust
No routing or scoring setup is “set and forget.” You need to check what’s getting through—and what’s getting missed.
How to keep it sharp: - Review misrouted leads weekly. Adjust rules as needed. - Spot-check Clearbit’s data accuracy, especially for your key segments. - Talk to sales. Are they happy with the leads coming in? If not, dig into why.
What works: Tight feedback loops between marketing and sales catch most issues before they become problems.
What doesn’t: Don’t assume more data means better qualification. Sometimes “enough” is enough.
What to Watch Out For
- Data gaps: Not every lead will be enriched. If a lead comes from Gmail or a personal email, you’ll get zip.
- Data errors: Occasionally, Clearbit will guess wrong—especially with new companies or ambiguous domains.
- Cost: Enrichment isn’t free. Don’t enrich junk leads or every newsletter signup.
- Privacy: Make sure you’re complying with GDPR/CCPA if you’re enriching leads in regulated markets.
Quick Wins and Common Pitfalls
Quick wins: - Route big, high-fit companies instantly to your best reps. - Shorten your forms and let Clearbit fill in the rest. - Reduce manual lead research and data entry.
Pitfalls: - Overengineering: Start with simple rules. Complexity breeds mistakes. - Data worship: Use enrichment as a guide, not gospel. - Ignoring edge cases: Personal emails, misclassified domains, or weird titles will always sneak in.
Keep It Simple and Iterate
Clearbit can save you hours and help you prioritize the right leads—if you keep things straightforward and pay attention to what’s actually working. Start with the basics, check your results, and tweak as you go. Don’t buy into the idea that data alone will fix your process. Real improvement comes from clear rules, good feedback, and a willingness to change what’s not working.
Get your hands dirty, and you’ll see results.