Our soil is clay also. On our first pool I tried to put sand on the low side but over about a month the sand compacted and the pool rolled and split. After I cut the high side down I used about 1 to 2" of sand to level out the ground. This seemed to work. This is our second year with the pool in the same place and it is only off by about 1/4" even after a winter full of freezing and thawing.