Case study 02 / Selected prior client work
From account research to negotiated opportunities
An anonymised SaaS marketing platform serving US accounting firms needed more than a list of prospects. We helped turn state-by-state sourcing and website research into four tailored HubSpot outreach paths, then tracked the business opportunities that progressed to negotiation.
Clay / HubSpot / Account research / Outreach design
target companies sourced and researched per month
HubSpot outreach paths informed by website and blog research
opportunities per month reached negotiation over a three-month measured period
The commercial question
Find the firms.
Tailor the outreach.
The client sold a marketing platform to accounting firms. Finding firms across the United States was only the first challenge. Outreach also had to reflect what each firm was doing online, so the message could speak to a plausible business need rather than sound mass-produced.
Our lead consultant worked with the client on targeting, campaign strategy, messaging and personalisation, and managed the HubSpot delivery. The resulting campaign used Clay research to choose among four tailored outreach paths.
Follow an account through the systemSystem overview / Two distinct workstreams
One client. Two useful systems.
The account-research campaign and the custom-CRM enrichment integration solved related but different problems. The visual keeps their records, tools and results in separate lanes.
This is the confirmed campaign sequence. The specific search filters, path rules and HubSpot feature are not part of the available record.
A high-level view of the Clay ↔ custom-CRM round trip. It is separate from the HubSpot campaign above.
Workstream A / The account journey
Follow the decisions, not just the tools
Each step changed what the team knew or what it could do next. The visual follows the real workflow without reproducing a client record.
Search a large market without losing the target
The team defined target-company criteria with the client. Clay then sourced accounting firms state by state across the US, creating a repeatable account-research rhythm instead of an undifferentiated national list.
Measured throughput: 500–1,000 target companies sourced and researched per month. This is a company count, not an email-send count.
A website can show where the conversation starts
Clay examined each firm’s website and blog activity. That research gave the campaign a more specific basis for its message and helped decide which tailored path applied. It was about understanding the firm’s visible marketing context, not claiming a private insight.
The visual shows public research categories, not a reconstructed finding about a particular firm.
Four campaign routes.
One relevant message.
The website and blog findings helped determine which of four tailored HubSpot outreach paths a prospect entered. Our lead consultant worked on the campaign strategy, copy and personalisation with the client.
The system scaled a small set of campaign strategies while keeping the account’s public context central to the message. The actual path names and decision rules were not supplied for this study.
Move the research into the campaign
The four tailored paths lived in HubSpot. Account research shaped messaging and personalisation, while the client’s sales team handled the conversations that followed.
A researched company, an outreach contact and a delivered message are different counts. The historical HubSpot feature and intermediate counts have not been verified.
The result was a negotiated opportunity
During a three-month measured period, the campaigns generated roughly one to five sales opportunities per month that advanced to negotiation. These were business opportunities being negotiated by sales, not email replies, meetings or signed contracts.
No verified pipeline value, close rate or revenue was supplied for this engagement.
Workstream B / A separate related system
A second loop: enrichment back to the CRM
For the same client, a separate integration moved lead records between the client’s custom CRM and Clay, then returned enriched information to the CRM. It supported a planned paid enrichment offering; launch or revenue has not been confirmed.
Lead records need additional information
Webhooks, mapping, storage and return sync
Additional lead context for CRM users
This is a logical round trip, not a literal API or field-level diagram. It does not imply a HubSpot-to-custom-CRM connection or a live paid service.
What this work delivered
What the campaign and integration delivered
The campaign connected sourcing, account-specific research, tailored HubSpot messaging and sales follow-up. Over the three measured months, approximately one to five opportunities per month progressed to negotiation. The separate custom-CRM integration established a route for enriching lead records at a monthly volume of about 500–2,000 contacts.
These are separate populations and outcomes. The evidence does not establish a response rate, conversion rate, ROI, signed customers or paid-enrichment revenue.
Scope the next workflow
Connect the next GTM workflow
We can help define the target, design the research and data flow, and connect the resulting decision to a useful sales or marketing workflow.