If you missed last week’s newsletter, I shared my answer thoughts on the question:

“Do we need a traditional account and contact data acquisition and enrichment tool?”

I walked through what ops looked like before those platforms existed, how they evolved, and the alternatives we have now with new tools and AI-driven data sources.

This week, I want to tackle a similar(ish) question.

Clay’s New Announcement

Wednesday morning (okay, technically this morning as I write in advance), I opened an email from Clay announcing new product “features” revealed at their Sculpt conference in SF. Sadly, by the time I tried to snag a ticket, the event was already sold out—boo ;(

Anyway, along with “Sculptor” and “Audiences,” they announced “Sequencer.”

Clay hasn’t put a label on what Sequencer is. Instead, they’re positioning it as functionality that “helps Growth Marketing and Demand Gen teams build campaigns combining the right time, the right person, and the right message.”

That immediately got my wheels turning because I’ve been asked this before: "Do GTM teams really need to invest in a traditional sales engagement platform anymore?"

Back in the Pre-Sales Engagement Days

Back when I was at Marketo, no tool existed that let salespeople automate or put structure around their outreach.

Marketo’s Sales Insight (MSI) was probably the first attempt at hacking our way toward that. We created templates reps could tweak for different follow-ups, and the Outlook plugin tracked opens and clicks.

But to track calls or schedule the next follow-up? That meant manually creating Salesforce tasks.

(If any BDR today complains about “manual work,” please recite that paragraph to them.)

When we wanted to automate outbound, I even built a program where reps could drop someone into a smart campaign. That triggered automated emails and created tasks for personalized calls or emails. It actually worked decently well—but it was a lot of effort.

The Rise of Sales Engagement Tools

A few years later, tools like ToutApp (acquired by Marketo) and Clearslide appeared.

Helpful, but they lacked sequencing and didn’t serve as a real hub for sales.

Then came SalesLoft and Outreach—and GTM teams swarmed to get their sales teams on one of these tools .

Suddenly, marketing could also enforce guidelines and process for outbound.

Messaging consistency improved with global cadences. BDR managers could listen to calls, review emails, coach reps, and spot missed follow-ups.

But over time, usage got…lazy.

Reps leaned on automation too heavily, dumping prospects into generic cadences and torching domain reputations.

Ownership didn’t help. BDR managers “owned” the tools, but they also needed ops to set things up. In many orgs, neither side took full responsibility.

That said, I’ve seen companies drive a ton of value with these tools. The problem isn’t the platforms—it’s when teams use them with no strategy or personalization.

Where Things Are Headed

Sequencing has since spread elsewhere: Groove (acquired by Clari), Salesforce’s High Velocity Sales (now Engagement), and HubSpot’s “Sequences.”

So, yes—some form of sales engagement capability is clearly needed.

But here’s the real question: if a company doesn’t trust its BDRs / sales team to run effective outbound, are they better off letting marketing orchestrate campaigns and simply push call-downs to sales?

Maybe.

And with “GTM Engineering” becoming a thing, marketing may end up playing a huge role in outbound—and even inbound—through micro-audience targeting, better intent and signal capture, hyper-personalization, and AI-powered content.

Are most orgs actually doing this? Nope. But it definitely feels like soon they will be.

Do We Still Need Sales Engagement Platforms?

That’s the open question.

They still make sense in many cases—especially when integrated into outbound campaigns. And if your sales team is already using one, that’s one less enablement hurdle.

But Clay’s announcement hints at something bigger: GTM teams may not always need a traditional sales engagement platform to orchestrate outbound or inbound follow-up. New options are emerging and how all of this is operationalized is changing.

The Final Takeaway

This is still a "wait and see" one for me. And in the meantime, I suggest GTM teams who are using their sales engagement platforms to think about how you can take some of the best practices that Clay and other GTM engineers are touting and really focus on creating a high-quality follow-up for inbound prospects and an extremely personalized and tailored outreach or outbound while still using the platform. You can leverage different outside tools, data sources, and even your own sales team research to power these efforts. And this is a way for you operators to start flexing those "GTM Engineer" skills / way of thinking!