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Clay
Sumo Logic
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AppSumo
Updated October 8, 2026
What is lead enrichment?
Lead enrichment adds the data a lead is missing, such as a work email, a phone number, a job title or company details, from outside sources, so a rep can reach the person and judge the fit. Automated lead enrichment adds a trigger: the lookup runs by itself whenever a record appears or changes in the CRM, and the result lands on that record.
Done by hand, enrichment means copying a name into a lookup tool, checking the result and pasting it into the CRM, one contact at a time. The batch version exports a list, enriches the file and imports it back. Both leave tomorrow's new contacts blank until someone repeats the work. The complete guide to lead enrichment covers the process and the costs in depth.
In Cleanlist AI the agent is the automated version: a trigger on new contacts with blanks, a lookup across providers in turn, and a write to the same record. You describe the job to Clu once.
What is enrichment in CRM?
Enrichment in a CRM fills the empty or stale fields on records you already hold: the email and phone number on a contact, the industry, size and location on an account. It happens on the CRM's own records, so reps, routing rules, sequences and reports all read the same filled-in data instead of a spreadsheet kept beside it.
| Record | Fields enrichment fills | Who uses them |
|---|---|---|
| Contact or lead | Work email, phone number, job title, LinkedIn URL | Reps, sequences, lead routing |
| Account or company | Industry, employee count, location, website | Territories, ICP scoring, reports |
This agent fills contacts. For accounts, an Enrich step set to Each company fills firmographics such as industry and size, at 1 credit for each company it fills. For the term itself, see contact enrichment.
How do I enrich Salesforce contacts?
Enrich Salesforce contacts by hand from each record, in batches by exporting a report and importing the results, or automatically with a tool that watches for new contacts and writes back to them. Salesforce's own route is Lightning Data: data packages you license from third-party providers, matched to your accounts, contacts and leads by rules an admin sets up.
- Connect Salesforce as a user who can edit contacts and leads.
- Pick the trigger: contacts or leads where Email or Phone is unknown.
- Choose what to find: a work email, a phone number or both.
- Check the field mapping: email always maps on contacts; give the phone number a field.
- Decide on owned records, then test on a few contacts before you turn it on.
The Salesforce data enrichment guide covers what happened to Salesforce's native enrichment, bulk runs on existing records and data governance.
In Cleanlist AI the agent writes to the contact that started the run, by its Salesforce ID, so there is no file to import and nothing to match by hand. Leads work the same way once your org has a Lead field mapping.
Which data enrichment solutions integrate directly with HubSpot for automatic contact updates?
Three kinds of tool update HubSpot contacts automatically. HubSpot's own data enrichment fills contact and company properties once a Super Admin turns it on. Data vendors' HubSpot apps enrich records from that vendor's data. Agents and workflow tools look new contacts up across several providers and write the result back to the same record.
- HubSpot data enrichment: off by default until a Super Admin turns it on. It enriches a contact from its name and work email, and a company from its domain, filling properties such as job title, industry and company size.
- A data vendor's app: ZoomInfo's HubSpot integration enriches HubSpot records with ZoomInfo's data.
- Workflow tables: Clay imports filtered HubSpot records into a table, enriches them through a provider waterfall and writes back by HubSpot record ID, on a schedule.
- Agents on a CRM trigger: Cleanlist AI checks HubSpot every 30 minutes for contacts with no email or phone and fills the same record.
HubSpot's contact enrichment works from the name and the work email, and the work email is often the field this agent is asked to find. Our review of HubSpot data enrichment covers what it fills and what it leaves blank.
Native CRM options and their limits
Both CRMs have a built-in route. HubSpot's data enrichment fills contact and company properties and keeps existing values unless an admin chooses to overwrite them. Salesforce's route is Lightning Data: third-party data packages you license directly from providers, matched to your records by rules an admin sets up. Each fills the fields its own source holds.
| Setting | HubSpot data enrichment | Salesforce Lightning Data |
|---|---|---|
| Turned on by | A Super Admin, in the enrichment settings | An admin, through data integration rules |
| Starts from | Name and work email for contacts, domain for companies | Your accounts, contacts and leads, compared with the provider's data |
| Data from | HubSpot's commercial dataset, third-party providers and public information | Packages licensed directly from third-party providers |
| Overwrites | Empty values, or existing ones too if an admin chooses | Depends on how the admin sets up the rule |
| Available on | Starter, Professional and Enterprise hubs; Smart CRM on Professional and Enterprise | Professional, Enterprise, Performance and Unlimited Editions |
Why one source misses: the waterfall across 25+ providers
No single data provider covers every company, region and role, so a lookup against one source leaves gaps that another source could fill. A waterfall asks providers in sequence and stops at the first deliverable result. A contact one source misses gets another chance, and you pay once, for the result that came back.
Cleanlist AI runs that waterfall across 25+ providers for every contact the agent picks up. On the Cleanlist AI 500-Lead Enrichment Benchmark, our own test on a 500-lead sample, it returned 98% verified work emails and 85% phone numbers.
Every email a provider returns carries a status: verified, likely valid, risky, invalid or unknown. Only a deliverable one, verified or likely valid, is written to the record and charged; a risky, invalid or unknown result is neither written nor charged. Add a Validate step and a Branch if only emails that pass a fresh check should reach the CRM.
Field rules: what gets written, what never gets overwritten
The agent fills empty fields and leaves filled ones alone. A value someone entered stays, a blank from the lookup never overwrites anything and a miss writes nothing. Which fields it writes comes from your org's field mapping, so the email lands in the email field and the phone number in the field you mapped for it.
| Situation | What the agent does |
|---|---|
| Email is empty and an email is found | Writes it to the contact |
| Email is filled and a different one is found | Keeps the existing email, under the default write mode |
| Nothing is found | Writes nothing and charges nothing |
| A rep owns the contact | Skips it, unless Write safety allows updating owned records |
| The contact is in an open deal | Leaves it alone |
| Your mapping has no field for the phone number | Clu offers to add one when it proposes the play |
Salesforce contacts always map first name, last name, email and title, each filled only when empty. HubSpot's default mapping covers first and last name, email, phone, mobile phone, company, job title, LinkedIn URL, website, city, state and country.
What are the best lead enrichment tools?
Lead enrichment tools come in four kinds: the CRM's own enrichment, a data vendor's CRM app, workflow tables and agents that enrich on a trigger. The right one depends on your CRM, the fields you need and who will maintain it. Judge each on match rate in your market, email verification, how results reach the CRM and what a miss costs.
| Kind of tool | What it does | Examples | Best when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Built into the CRM | Fills company and role fields from what the record already has | HubSpot data enrichment, Salesforce Lightning Data | Records already carry an email or a domain |
| A data vendor's CRM app | Enriches records from that vendor's data, as records are created or on a schedule | ZoomInfo, Apollo | You already license the vendor's data |
| Workflow tables | Pull CRM records into a table, add enrichment columns and write back by record ID | Clay | An ops person will build and maintain the table |
| Agents on a CRM trigger | Pick up new records with blanks, run a waterfall across 25+ providers and fill the same record | Cleanlist AI | New contacts should fill without anyone exporting a list |
Compare vendors in depth in CRM data enrichment tools, compared and 11 enrichment tools tested on 1,000 leads.
What it costs, and which plan runs it
A work email costs 1 credit and a phone number 10, each charged only when one is found, so both on one contact cost 11. A miss costs nothing, and the trigger and the CRM write are free. At 50 new contacts a week, emails alone cost at most 50 credits a week, and emails with phone numbers at most 550.
Running the agent needs Pro (from $89 a seat a month, $67 billed annually), which includes 5 active agents across the workspace, or Enterprise for unlimited agents. The 14-day Pro trial lets you build the agent and review its play; testing it and turning it on need a paid plan.
