July 2015 Summaries

In the nine months since the release of their Google Sheets add-on, Clearbit has received significant positive feedback, with many users eagerly requesting a similar integration for Excel. In response, Clearbit has partnered with Blockspring to extend their APIs to Excel, allowing users to run Clearbit queries directly within the spreadsheet. Blockspring, a platform that facilitates access to numerous APIs and web services via spreadsheets, supports both Excel and Google Sheets with a library of over 1000 functions. This partnership enables users to create powerful spreadsheet scripts without coding, offering the ability to combine Clearbit with various other APIs and services for enhanced functionality. Clearbit is enthusiastic about this new integration and anticipates innovative uses and mashups from their user community.

Clearbit utilizes Docker and CoreOS to efficiently manage over 70 internal services on an 18-machine EC2 cluster, handling more than 1.5 million API calls daily. CoreOS, a minimal operating system designed for Docker containers, integrates tools like etcd and fleet for distributed service management, providing an effective abstraction level without imposing strict architectural assumptions. Docker facilitates consistent application deployment across servers by packaging applications into standalone images. The deployment process at Clearbit starts with a git push, triggering a build server that creates and tags a Docker image, distributes it via fleet services, and updates the load balancer using etcd and HAProxy. The transition from old to new code is managed by a custom tool called "fluster," which promotes the new service and gracefully removes the old one. Future articles will explore deeper aspects of this infrastructure, including CoreOS setup and the open-sourcing of management tools like "fluster."

Upon signing up for Clearbit, a series of automated processes is initiated, including email verification, internal notifications, and customer profiling. Clearbit uses various tools like Slack, Close.io, Mixpanel, and Customer.io to manage customer interactions and sales processes. Signup information is analyzed to detect the authenticity of email addresses and to gather social profile data, with high-value signups receiving special attention. Notifications are sent via Slack, enriched with detailed profiles, while Close.io is used for CRM management, deduplication, and email tracking. Mixpanel merges browsing data with signup information to provide insights into customer interests and actions, aiding sales calls. Customer.io manages drip campaigns, adjusting content based on user profiles, and tracks API usage to trigger targeted follow-up communications. The system is continually refined through automation and A/B testing to enhance customer engagement and conversion.