How do I find an email address every time (and for free)?
Do you spend hours fine-tuning the perfect email, but can't find your prospect's address? We know how effective prospecting by email can be... but you still need to know where to send them. In this article, we show you all our techniques for finding any email address, from free methods to pro tools.
We are between us, so we can admit it: sometimes, we become a bit of professional stalkers when it comes to Find an email address.
And that's normal: hours of making sure that your pitch is perfect, a reinforced concrete value prop, you even managed to make a reference to his last LinkedIn post...
All this to realize that your email has nowhere to go. 🙃
Fortunately, there are solutions to make prospecting by email by making sure your message reaches its destination — without the need to use the Liam Neeson version of force, I promise.
From the good old technique of looking up email addresses “by hand” to most effective tools, we show you everything you can do to find the information you need, when you need it.
💡 By the way, if you are looking for a outbound marketing agency to support you from A to Z in your prospecting, we are here to help you. ⚡️
1. The “first instinct” method to find an email address: go see it on LinkedIn
First source that you do not necessarily think of, but which can nevertheless prove itself To find an email address: LinkedIn.
Check the contact info on the profile
On each LinkedIn profile, there is a “Contact Information” section (or “Contact info” if your LinkedIn is in English), located just below the user's photo.
This section can contain your prospect's professional email, sometimes even personal email.
This is especially true for senior profiles, consultants or people actively looking for opportunities.
If the professional email is entered here, this is an excellent signal: it means that the person has consciously chosen to make it accessible. So you can use it without fear. On the other hand, a small point of attention: if you come across an address that seems personal (such as @gmail or @hotmail .com) it is better to avoid. Prospecting is only between professionals (RGPD question) . 😌
Export LinkedIn connection data
LinkedIn also allows to export the complete list of your connections, emails included. To do it:
- Go to Preferences & Privacy
- “Data Confidentiality” section
- “Get a copy of your data”
- Select “My relationships” and “Imported contacts”
You will receive a Excel file with potentially quite a few email addresses, among others. All you have to do is see if the one you are looking for is on the list.
That was for the first method — the most obvious, that's right.
But you will see that very often, the “Contact Information” section of the LinkedIn profile only contains one piece of information: the link to... the user's LinkedIn profile. Which you are already on, yes yes. 🤓
So, what to do if the person you are looking to contact has not entered their email address on LinkedIn?
We start by showing you some manual solutions, a bit more tedious, maybe, but 100% free — and effective.
2. The “hands in the mud” method, not always fast but effective
Do you have the name of your prospect, the name of his company, but not his email address? Don't panic.
Before we release the heavy artillery, we'll start with The simplest technique (and completely free).
Find email formats that work
In general, companies follow the same logic to create the email addresses of their employees. In 90% of cases, you will come across one of these formats:
Among the most common are:
- prenom.nom@entreprise.com (the great classic)
- pnom@entreprise.com (when you like to keep it short)
- prenom@entreprise.com (mostly in small boxes)
- nom.prenom@entreprise.com (for those who like to do something different)
- p.nom@entreprise.com (simple, effective)
Note that dashes and accents are often removed in email addresses.
Serge-François therefore becomes Sergefrancois (see sf), Léa becomes lea. Email servers hate special characters almost as much as Spam.
But don't hesitate to take into account email addresses that contain hyphens, you never know that some people still use them.
💡 To save yourself time (and a lot of mental health reports), you can generate these addresses with tools suchlike Email Permutator in a few seconds: it takes the first and last name of your target, and gives you all the possible combinations.
It's free, and it saves you from copying and pasting for 20 minutes
Once you have a list of potential emails, you need to check which ones really exist.
To do this, several free tools do the job:
They allow you to check in real time that an address exists, and that it is valid (that it can receive emails), all that, without sending it to your recipient. It will also allow you to optimize the deliverability and openness rate of your emails. In short, make sure it gets read.
Find emails that exist and test the copying format
Still not found? Last magic trick: the Format copying.
It's stupid but it works great.
First find someone else's email in the box on LinkedIn and copy the format. If w.white@pollos-hermanos.com exists, then j.pinkman@pollos-hermanos.com has a good chance of being valid too 🎯
And if it still doesn't work, you can too search directly on Hunter.io with the company domain name — you are entitled to 25 free searches per month.
3. The “work smarter, not harder” method, with the tools that do the work for you
So yes, looking for email addresses by hand is good, and it works.
But it's a bit like doing Paris-Brussels on foot: you end up arriving, but You still lost a lot of time. 🙃
If you want to avoid wasting hours playing riddles with email addresses, there is some tools that do the job really well.
Here are my favorites:
Even better, most of these tools have a LinkedIn extension to allow you to gather the email addresses of your prospects directly from their LinkedIn profile — and they often offer free credits at the beginning, just to test.
💡 If you use Lemlist, know that you are already equipped: you can find up to 100 email addresses each month, and the contacts flow directly into your sequences.
Except that's it: each tool has its own database. An email address found by Kaspr may not be found for Prospeo, and vice versa.
So, it would still be convenient to have a tool that combines them all, no? ... 👀
4. The “God Mode” method, with the tool of all the tools: Waterfall Enrichment
Have you seen what a single tool can do?
Now imagine bringing them together. ALL OF THEM.
That's exactly what the Waterfall Enrichment.
The principle is simple: instead of using a single tool that could miss some emails, you chain them in a cascade.
If the first doesn't find anything, the second takes over, then the third, etc.
Until BIM: email found 🎯 Because if even they can't find the email address you're looking for... it probably doesn't exist.
To do this, two tools share the podium:
- Fullenrich : combines 15+ premium data sources. Bonus: their triple validation system reduces the bounce rate to almost zero.
- Bettercontact : gives you access to 20+ sources in one click. A kind of Swiss data knife, which even adapts to the country of your prospects to use the best sources depending on the region.
And for those who like to tinker with their own solutions, we also have a interesting alternative: Clay. A platform that allows you to connect more than 75 enrichment tools according to your needs.
Less plug and play, but super powerful if you take the time to set it up.
In summary: where do you start?
- Start with LinkedIn : check the “Contact Information” section under the profile photo. If you're connected with the person, export your connections from Settings > Data — maybe their email is there.
- If that doesn't work: Use Email Permutator to generate all possible combinations (prénom.nom@entreprise.com etc). Verify that addresses exist with Clearout or Bouncer, before sending.
- Need to go further? Tools like Prospeo, FindyMail or Kaspr have handy Chrome extensions and free credits.
- For more complex cases: the Waterfall Enrichment via Fullenrich or Bettercontact combines multiple data sources. More expensive, but particularly effective and less time consuming.
There you go, you have everything you need to become a pro at finding email addresses.
Now, go use your particular set of skills... find them... and email them. 💌
