n8n vs Clay: what to choose for automation and AI personalization in marketing

Automation is not just a buzzword these days, but a must-have for any team working with data, leads, or routine tasks. Marketers, sales teams, sales and technical specialists face the same question every day: how to speed up work, reduce manual processes without spending months developing complex solutions?

There are already a lot of tools on the market that promise to “automate everything”, but today we'll look at two radically different approaches — n8n and Clay.

On the one hand, n8n, a powerful open-source engine for building any automation chains, custom integrations and complex logic. On the other hand, there is Clay, an Excel cloud service for lead generation designed for AI, LinkedIn and personalized communications.

In this article we will:

• compare Clay and n8n in terms of key parameters;
• consider their advantages and limitations;
• We will show you where and how each tool works best;
• Let's look at an example of collecting leads from LinkedIn → generating messages in GPT → sending them to CRM.

If you're choosing between flexibility and speed, between no-code and control, this article is for you.

What is n8n?

n8n (short for “Node to Node”) is an open-source platform for creating custom automations. It allows you to build visual flow from blocks (nodes), each of which can perform an API request, process data, logical conditions, or work with external services (CRM, email, messengers, etc.).

You can deploy n8n on your own server or use the cloud version. It's perfect for teams that want full control over automation and aren't afraid of a little bit of code.

What is Clay?

Clay is a cloud-based service designed specifically for marketers, sales teams, and growth managers. It looks like a powerful spreadsheet where each row is a potential customer (lead), and cells are fields of data obtained from different sources: LinkedIn, Hunter, Clearbit, OpenAI, and others.

Clay allows you to enrich data, generate personalized messages through GPT-4, launch email campaigns, and upload processed leads to CRM.

Clay vs n8n comparison:

Advantages and disadvantages

n8n — advantages:

• Full control over automation logic and architecture
• The ability to write your own scripts and process data however you like
• Open-source: can be deployed on your own server
• Support for any API and creation of custom integrations
• Integrations with AI tools (OpenAI, LangChain, Pinecone, etc.)

n8n — cons:

• Requires basic knowledge of API, JSON, and flow logic
• The interface is less intuitive for marketers
• There is no built-in UI for working with leads or databases — you have to build everything manually

Clay — advantages:

• Ideal for sales/marketing: everything is designed for lead generation
• Powerful UI: spreadsheet, AI generation, enrich, send, sync — all in one place
• LinkedIn, Clearbit, GPT, CRM integrations
• Very simple entry threshold, easy to understand without technical knowledge

Clay — cons:

• There is no self-hosting option
• It is impossible to flexibly configure the logic of interactions if there is no ready-made template
• Not suitable for automations outside of marketing and sales

Example: how to build a lead database with LinkedIn → process in GPT → upload to CRM

Option 1: Using Clay

Steps:

1. We create a project and we enable integrations:
   • LinkedIn Scraper (or Apollo)
   • OpenAI
   • Hubspot/Salesforce/Pipedrive
2. Uploading a list of companies/profiles:
   • By parameters: region, position, industry, company size
3. Enrich:
   • Email via Hunter.io or Dropcontact
   • Linkedin-profile, company, website, social media
4. AI processing:
   • Scenario: “Generate a personalized message based on your profile, company website and lead role”
   • GPT-4 returns customized text
5. Sync in CRM:
   • We record enriched leads and generated texts in CRM
   • We automatically launch a follow-up campaign

Implementation time: 30—60 minutes
Technical knowledge: not required

Option 2: Using n8n

Steps:

1. Webhook starts to flow — for example, we upload CSV with LinkedIn URL leads.
2. HTTP request to LinkedIn Scraper API/PhantomBuster/SerpAPI — get profile data
3. We enrich the data:
   • Requests to Dropcontact API, Clearbit, Email finder
4. OpenAI integration (GPT-4):
   • The script generates a prompt based on data
   • GPT returns a personalized message
5. HTTP request to CRM (HubSpot API):
   • Creating a new lead
   • Insert a note with a message from GPT
6. Slack /Telegram/Email notification — report on processed leads

Implementation time: 2-4 hours (one-time)
Technical knowledge: you need to understand API and JSON

Where is it better to use Clay and where is n8n?

Conclusion

Clay is an ideal choice for marketers and sales teams who want to launch quickly AI automation without code, enrich leads and scale up communication. It works out of the box but is limited to templates.

n8n — a versatile tool for those who want to full control, builds complex pipelines, works with the API and is not afraid of scripts. It's slower at launch, but much more powerful at scale.

The choice depends on who you are:

• Growth marketer without code? — Clay
• Product or techie? — n8n

Do you want to understand this, but don't have enough experience yet?

If you're interested in learning how to build automations, work with OpenAI, integrations, and build your own workflow — but you still don't have enough technical base — subscribe to our Telegram channel 👉 https://t.me/startduck. There we share practical cases, free lessons and templates for working with n8n, Clay, and other automation tools.

And if you want to start automation right now, contact our specialists. We will help you set up any turnkey processes, from simple AI scenarios to complex business integrations. We'll do a demo and show you how it works live.