Email Address Lookup: 8 Ways To Get The Right Email Every Time

Email outreach is an effective way to generate new opportunities.

Here’s the problem most people run into:

You can’t find the email of the person you actually want to contact. As a result, you email a generic business email address that NO ONE EVER responds to.

Worst of all…

Your target prospect NEVER even sees your email.

But that doesn’t mean all hope is lost because I’ve got some good news for you:

I’ve put together a list of my top 8x email address lookup strategies to help you find the right email address and improve your response rates.

8x Ways To Look Up An Email Address

Looking for an email address but don’t know where to start your search? No worries! Just use any of these 8 email address lookup strategies below.

1. Use An Email Address Lookup Tool

Looking for an easy way to get the right email address?

Use a good email address lookup tool. The tool our agency uses is FindThatLead.

Here’s how it works.

Using the search feature, you simply add:

FindThatLead does all of the heavy liftings for you.

It pulls tons of data across the internet from thousands of web pages. Once it’s found an email address it cross-references with their own database to verify it.

FindThatLead then provides you with the email address it found.

All you have to do is send your outreach email to the address it found. Easy, right?

You can even send and receive emails directly inside FindThatLead so it doubles as an email marketing software.

This makes managing email outreach campaigns an absolute breeze.

If you are looking for the fastest way for email lookup, it doesn’t get much easier than an email address lookup tool.

2. Intelligently Use Your Social Media

Social media is a great way to find email addresses.

Lots of people use their personal work email address to sign up for a social media account. This includes creating company pages.

Use these three social media platforms to find your prospect’s email address.

Use Twitter To Uncover Email Addresses

People sometimes include their email addresses in their Twitter profiles and even in tweets.

But to make sure bots can’t scrape and spam them, they often use the word “dot” instead of a . or write “at” instead of the @ symbol.

You can uncover these email addresses using the Twitter advanced search.

Go to Twitter Advanced search and type in words such as–

Into the “Words” search section.

Now add the account or prospect’s name into the “Accounts” search section.

You will be surprised at the results that it will find you.

Use Facebook To Find Out Contact Profiles

Facebook pages and profiles are a great way to find email addresses.

These email addresses are usually up to date which means you can reach the right person without a lot of effort.

Many people have completely public Facebook profiles today that they use for their work. When they sign up, they use their business email and by default leave it displayed.

Head over to your prospects’ Facebook profile. Click on the About tab, then click Contact & Basic Info.

You will see their email address displayed under Contact info.

Facebook pages are another place where people fill out as much information as possible and then forget about it. This means that lots of people put their work email as the contact email address for the page.

Go to your prospects Facebook page and click, More then click About.

Here you will find an updated email address in the Contact Info section.

Use LinkedIn To Export Your Connections

LinkedIn allows you to export your connections.

Pretty cool, right?

Anyone you have connected with on LinkedIn and their relevant contact information can be exported into a spreadsheet.

Here’s what you need to do:

On LinkedIn, click on Me and then click Settings & Privacy.

Click on the Data Privacy tab and click Getting a copy of your data.

Check the Connection box and click Request Archive.

That’s it! In about 10 minutes LinkedIn will email you with a spreadsheet full of your connections’ email addresses.

3. Subscribe To Your Prospects Email List

This is the most underused email address lookup strategy on the list.

And it’s super easy to do.

If your prospect has an email newsletter signup, they will basically give you their email address without you needing to do much.

How does it work?

Signup for your prospects’ email newsletter. You will likely receive a welcome email within a few minutes.

Lots of people use their work emails to send out their newsletters. All you have to do is wait to receive an email and take the email address directly from the newsletter.

What if they use a generic email?

It’s not over. Reply to the newsletter with an insightful or interesting question. You’ll often get a response and it will help you build a relationship with the prospect.

This gives you a better chance of getting their personal work email later in the future.

4. Investigate Your Own Email List

Do you have a large email list?

You’d be surprised how many times a target prospect was already on my own email list. They had signed for a free resource or my newsletter in the past.

If you have an email list, do a little bit of digging to see if your prospect is already on there. All email software has a search function that allows you to easily look them up.

You might even find other prospects you hadn’t thought of that you can reach out to.

5. Examine Your Prospect’s Contact/About Us Page

Personal branding is a big deal today.

It’s very common for people to have a personal website that they use for their personal brand. Even executives in larger companies have personal websites that showcase their professional achievements.

Just do a quick Google search for the prospect’s name. If they have a website this will likely bring it up.

There are two places where almost all prospects list an email address:

1. About page
2. Contact page

Depending on who you are trying to reach, your prospect may already have their email listed on these pages.

6. Do A Quick WHOIS Research

When people register a domain they have to provide their contact information to the registrar.

Unless they buy protection to mask this information, it is available for public record.

If your prospect is an-

You can sometimes find their contact information on WHOIS.

Head over to WHOIS and input their domain name into the search bar.

If the contact information for the domain hasn’t been masked, WHOIS will provide it.

7. Use Google Search Operators Wisely

Did you know Google’s algorithm can help you with email lookup?

You just need to use the right Google search operators.

Search operators help you narrow down your search by allowing you to add or exclude words from Google search results. This makes Google come back with a very specific search containing the information you’re after.

Use these search operators if you only have your prospect’s name:

Does your prospect have a website?

Combine that with the above search operators to get an even more specific search:

These search operators will help you uncover hidden pages with the contact details you are looking for.

8. Take An Educated Guess

Don’t underestimate this strategy. If all else fails, guessing can often help you strike gold. You just need to be willing to try.

Here’s what I mean:

Most companies use a system when they create email addresses for employees.

For example:

firstname@companywebsite.com
firstname.lastname@companywebsite.com

If you know your prospect’s name, you can take an educated guess at their email address.

You just need to send an email to each email address you guess at and at least one of them will likely go through.

You will receive an error message if you send an email to an address that isn’t real. This is good because it confirms that it’s not the prospect’s email.

Here is a list of common email systems companies use:

You can also try to find an employee email from your target prospect’s company. This gives you an idea of the email system they have in place.

Why Getting The Right Email Address Is Crucial

Now that you know how to find the email address you’re looking for, it’s time to see why you should ALWAYS bother to get the right email address.

You Get The Opportunity To Speak To The Right Person

The person on the end of a generic business email address is a gatekeeper.

These gatekeepers vet every single email that passes through that inbox and decides whether to forward it on – or not.

Don’t let the success of your outreach campaigns lie in the hands of gatekeepers.

You need to speak to the decision-maker. That’s the person that will ultimately decide whether to move forward with your request or not.

It makes sense then that you want the opportunity to talk with them directly.

Your outreach email campaigns will always be far more successful when you get in front of the right person.

It Increases Your Chance To Get A (Positive) Response

What if the gatekeeper thinks your email is a waste of time?

They will convey that negative feeling to the decision-maker you are trying to reach. From the get-go, your target prospect already thinks negatively about your email.

They are far less likely to respond positively – if at all.

But when you email them directly, they read your email as you intended it to be read. No gatekeeper can intervene or influence them.

Simply:

You take away the risk of a gatekeeper and this significantly increases the chance of a positive response.

Positive responses = More success (with less effort).

It Can Save You A Lot Of Time And Effort

Want to save time and effort when conducting an email lookup?

Get to the right person first.

There is nothing worse than emailing your prospects assistant only to get that dreaded reply – “I will talk to them and get back to you“.

It can take days (sometimes weeks) to get a response back.

And if that’s not bad enough…

Your conversation has to pass through that assistant every time from then on, which will always slow down communication.

Putting the work in to contact the right person before you even send the email is the key to saving you time and effort in the long run.

Wrapping It Up

There you have it.

The top 8x email address lookup strategies.

If you have some money to invest, I recommend using a tool like FindThatLead. It will make your life easier and your email outreach more effective.

Remember:

Use these strategies wisely. Don’t just start spamming your prospects with outreach emails. Be smart and look to build a relationship with them long term.

This always brings the best results.