How to find a business email address or a specific person’s email address at a business
There are 3 important things you need in order to find that email address and this is how and what you need using free tools.
- Domain Name used for Email
- Structure
- Personal Name
How to find the domain name used for email by the company
This is often the easiest to find but it’s often a 2 step process. Do not assume that the domain name used is the companies “main” domain. Often times it is, but not always. The easiest way to start you down the right path is to know the companies name (brand) and then Google that term. For an example, you would Google: Facebook
This will likely lead you to see the domain name used by Facebook is: Facebook.com for an example based on the results shown in Google.
Now that you are armed with at least 1 domain name, it doesn’t mean that Facebook uses Facebook.com for email but you have a starting point.
Whois. You will want to use a whois service, like whois.domaintools.com for an example and run a whois search using that domain name you found. In this case, you will use Facebook.com for your whois search.
Upon doing the whois search, pay very close attention to the domain name used as the registrant email. This is key, because this is often the domain used for email by the company, the majority of the time.
So, in the screen shot above, we can see that Facebook actually uses FB.com as its email domain name and not Facebook.com.
How to find Email Structure
Every company uses a “email address structure”. Armed with the likely domain name used for email, you now need to know the email structure that is used by the company. First Name + Domain or First Initial + Last Name + Domain etc. This will vary and sometimes, is all over the board, but most of the time, it follows one structure.
The best tool, free mind you, that I have found that works to find email structure is called Hunter.io. You can sign up for a free account, which yields you at least a couple hundred searches a month. They do have paid accounts if that fits your needs, but I have been using the free version for years. Once you are signed up and logged in, you will visit the Search page via Hunter.io/search. Type in the registrant email domain name you found in the whois query and and hit search.
You will then be able to see the most common structure found. In this situation, it is First and Last name combined + domain. Hunter.io also displays some personal names and the email addresses it has found for them. You accomplish 2 things here. You essentially confirm that your email domain name you found via the whois search is correct and secondly, you find the likely/potential email structure! You are on your way now and only one more step to find the email address you are looking for.
How to find the Personal Name of the potential person you want to contact
Finding the personal name or “the right person” to whom you wish to contact can be achieved in many ways. Google is often the best, LinkedIn is another, the companies website directly, Twitter, Facebook and more. A Google search, something like: “Facebook CFO” should yield you some results if you are looking for the Chief Financial Officer at Facebook. Or simply looking for Facebook Executives Team should yield you a full list of C-Level employees. To note, the bigger the company, the more people and often the harder it is to find “the top people” email addresses. This method works really well for medium to smaller type companies. It does work though for large companies but you will also likely find many “gatekeepers” along the way. Never start at the top, use some lower level employees to work your way in.
LinkedIn and Google are often my best two resources for finding the individuals personal name for a specific position. CTO, Chief Product Officer, CMO etc.
Now that you have the likely email domain name used, the structure and the personal name of the individual, you have found the email address of the person you would like to contact! Way to go!
At times, you may need to tweak things a bit. Google the email address in quotes. Type the persons name + email address. Look at the results given and make your best judgement. Sometimes you are very close with the email address and you may just need a small tweak. The majority of the time, the above is exactly how I find the email address of somebody at a business that I would like to speak with for one reason or another.
Recap
Find the email domain name used, by doing a whois search with a domain name that is known to be owned by the company. Find the registrant email domain used in whois. Run a search via Hunter.io/search with the email domain name you found, to find the structure used by the company. Google or LinkedIn to find the individuals name. You now have a very good chance that you have found the proper email address!
Did this help you? Like really help you? Feel free to Show Me Your Appreciation with an Amazon Gift Card! It really is appreciated and helps me and my family. Please use the email address: (jamie @ DotWeekly .com) no spaces if you would be so kind to show your appreciation.
Nice writeup Jamie, I wasn’t aware of Hunter. Another free tool that can be quite useful is verifyemailaddress(dot)io.
ClearBit is another free email harvesting tool (paid version available).
I’ve never been into using harvesting tools much, but I can see where it can be beneficial for bulk information gathering. As some say, it’s a numbers game. After so many “NO’s” there will eventually be a “YES”.