What is Clay Formula?
Definition: A spreadsheet-like expression used in Clay's enrichment platform to transform, filter, and combine data across columns, supporting text manipulation, conditional logic, and LLM-powered operations.
Clay formulas are the scripting layer inside Clay's enrichment tables. They look like spreadsheet formulas but support more complex operations: text parsing, conditional logic, regular expressions, HTTP requests, and LLM calls. A formula column transforms data from other columns without leaving Clay.
Common formula patterns: concatenating first name and company into a personalization variable. Extracting domain from email address. Classifying leads by parsing company descriptions with keywords. Generating personalized email openers by feeding prospect data into an LLM prompt. Each of these runs automatically for every row in your table.
Clay formulas use a JavaScript-like syntax with Clay-specific functions. You reference other columns as variables: /First Name, /Company, /LinkedIn Bio. You can nest functions: IF(/Employee Count > 500, "Enterprise", IF(/Employee Count > 50, "Mid-Market", "SMB")). For LLM operations, you write a prompt that references columns and Clay sends it to GPT-4 or Claude.
The skill of writing effective Clay formulas overlaps with prompt engineering and basic programming. GTM Engineers who can write complex formulas (multi-step data transformation, conditional enrichment logic, LLM-powered classification) build more sophisticated workflows and command higher rates. Clay's community shares formula libraries, but the best formulas are custom-built for your specific ICP and use case.