In the business world, it is not possible to increase web traffic, make more sales, or run successful marketing campaigns unless our contacts receive our emails. Usually, the biggest barrier to achieving this is not knowing how to find someone's email or not being able to.
While sometimes you can email one of the general emails or using the contact form, it is not a guarantee that they will answer you. While yes, more factors go into getting them to open and answer your email, reaching out to them on their preferred communication channel is most definitely the first step.
If you are sending an important email to someone and you want their attention, you need to get it in front of them. Spending time to find someone's email is very worthwhile in the end, especially if you are trying to reach someone you never spoke to before.
If you are struggling with taking that first step, you have come to the right place, as today will teach you how to find someone's email. While there are many ways to find someone's email, not all of them are effective, and in this guide, we have laid out the most effective ones.
Now, let's get email hunting.
1. Use an email finder tool
When learning how to find someone's email you will frequently encounter that one of the easiest ways is to use an email finder tool or a service. Most of them work in the same way – you type in a person's name or their website and the tool searches for the addresses that are most relevant to your search query.
While this way is extremely simple, nothing guarantees you that you will get the correct email every time. Most of these tools offer a free option so that you can test it out and see if it works for your needs. There is an almost endless number of these tools available on the market, so there is a great chance that you will find the one that works for your needs.
2. Try Twitter
Sometimes, people include their email addresses in Twitter bio or simply tweet them out. However, many write them by using "at" and "dot" instead of "@" and "." to try and hide from the bots. By using Twitter Advanced Search and search your prospect's tweets (if the email is not in their bio) for "dot" and "at".
This technique will help you find the exact phrases and specific accounts you are looking for while at the same time ignoring the rest of the words and hashtags you are not looking for. Play around with this Twitter feature and make sure you also include words such as "contact", "email", and "reach out" for an even better chance to find someone's email.
Many journalists tweet their email often so there is a big chance that this technique will work if you are trying to reach them.
3. Ask using the generic email address or the contact form
Many websites have a contact form or a contact page with general emails right on their website. Most of the time, these forms and email addresses are intended to be used for general inquiries.
Even though these are most likely managed by the admin staff, there is no reason why you should not try and get in touch with your prospect in this way. Write a polite, professional, and concise email.
Simply asking someone for their email, whether it is by using one of the generic email addresses, the contact form on their website, or on social media could end up getting you the email you want. Also, even if you do not end up getting that email address, approaching someone is a great way to start building your business relationship and could result in you getting that sale even without the email address
4. Try the about us and contact pages
While learning how to find someone's email address can be a science of itself, sometimes the simplest solution is the right one. Many websites include personal email addresses on their about us, contact, or team pages.
These pages also sometimes may be hidden from the navigation, so make sure you look at the footer of the website. You could also try your luck with one of the most common URL formats. These include the following formats: contact,-/contact-us. /about, /team, /our-team, etc.
You never know what you may end up finding.
5. Subscribe to their email list
Most websites these days have some form of an email list. If you are looking to engage with a prospect that has their own newsletter on their website or blog, make sure you subscribe to their mailing list, as many newsletters are sent from personal email addresses.
If you ever wondered how to find someone's email address most easily, then this is it. Do not worry if the newsletter is sent from a generic or a newsletter-specific email address, as you can always reply to one of the newsletters to share your opinion or ask a question.
You could also just ask for a different email and see what will happen. Subscribing to the mailing list and engaging with the newsletter can also help you build a better relationship with the prospect.
6. Search for the email
While this may sound obvious to most people, in fact, it is often overlooked. Type in the person whose email you are looking for and make sure you add "email address", – you might get lucky. However, if the person you are trying to reach has a more common name, this may be a bit more difficult.
If this technique is not proving useful to you, you can help narrow down your search by using Google search operators. All you need to do is enter one of the following operators into Google and start searching:
[name] + email or email address
[name] + contact, contact information, or contact me
[name] + LinkedIn
[name] + contact
If you targeting a specific prospect that you know a bit about, you can try one of these operators:
site:companywebsite.com + [name] + email
site:companywebsite.com + [name] + contact
site:companywebsite.com + firstname.lastname [at] companyname.com
7. Try to guess their email address
When you really think about it, most company email addresses follow the same few patterns, most of which are based on simple formats. If you know someone's first and last name and the domain of the company they work for, you just might be able to guess their email address.
Also, if you have an email address of someone else that works at that company, you can quite easily figure out which email address formula they use at that company.
To help you out, here some of the most common formulas:
[first name]@example.com
[first name].[last name]@example.com
[initial].[last name]@example.com
How do you verify these emails?
Okay, now that you have found your email address, you are ready to send that email. But, how do you know for certain that you have found the right email? No one loves when their email bounces back, and there are certain email verification tools and techniques you can use to reduce your email bounce backs.
By verifying your email, you will be able to stay away from email bounces. Continuous bounce backs degrade your email account's authenticity and the quality of your domain, neither of which are good for your business.
Verifying your emails will also be able to build a better sender reputation and email deliverability score. All of this will ultimately end up in giving you better results for your email campaigns.
Simply knowing how to find someone's email is not enough if you want your emails to reach the right inboxes every time and increase the ROI on your email marketing campaigns. You also need a tool such as MailTester.
With MailTester, you can easily scrub over your entire email list, remove all bad emails, and watch as your ROI increases. MailTester can also help you catch bounced emails and stop your emails from ending up in the spam folder.
Final thoughts
And here we are, at the end of the ultimate article that will teach you how to find someone's email address. There are many ways to find someone’s email address but we have only covered the ones that have been proven as the most effective in real-life use. If one of these techniques does not work for you, make sure you try a different one. Eventually, one will work and you will get that email address you have been trying to find for ages.
Always remember that even though you may think you have the right email, there is always a chance that the email you have found is not the right one. That is why you need to verify your email, as sending emails that end up bouncing back (because they are not verified) could end up costing you a lot.