Oftentimes, I hear about people complaining that they are not getting better replies to their cold emails. But the question still stands – are you even emailing the right ones?

Now, why is that a necessary question? 

Because most of the time, the answer is no. 

Sure, you have the best copies written, the best pitches, and the best ideas to express. But it means nothing if it lands in the wrong inbox. Finding the correct email address is a lot of work and requires a seamless procedure for it to be successful.

Most people get lost in this exact process because they don’t know who, what, or how to follow certain rules. The basics are to find where most people upload their information, and that’s usually … wait, usually where? 

That’s the cipher that we are going to decode in this guide – how to find someone’s email address. I have handpicked some of the best ways to locate email addresses, most impressively (read legal), that will get your checks signed in no time. If you’re writing the correct pitch, and if you’re struggling, our article on cold emailing is at your service.

How to find email addresses that actually work?

Before I begin, there are several ways to find that out; I’m mentioning the ones that helped me when I was the one hunting down the deals. Let’s start with the basic one for email address lookup and its whereabouts –

LinkedIn is the best place to research

This era has made everything way too easy to function, and sometimes, we forget the basics because of that. Professional platforms like LinkedIn usually contain information to contact the user. Most of the time, it is their email addresses. 

Still having a hard time navigating the email address? No worries, we've got tools for that. Keep an eye on the updates of LinkedIn features, or else, tools like Swordfish AI, ContactOut, and Apollo.io can help you find them in an instant. 

Read and check the Company’s portfolio

People now are too impatient to go through the company’s profile and study it, and that’s where the mistakes lie. Companies spend thousands on them so that common people can know them better, and also for easy access to contact them.

As you may ask, you can find the addresses you need in the following section.

  • If you are looking for listed emails, go for About us/Team Information or Introduction (Leaders) pages.

  • If you’re looking for corporate contacts, the investor relations section is your call.

  • If none of the above, go to press releases and find PR related contacts.

Focus on advanced tools

Tools like Apollo, Clay.run, Clearbit, and DropContact will help you extract and scrape emails from a vast amount of information so that you don’t have to. 

Basically, it will help you locate email addresses and check if an email address is valid. All you have to do is go to their website, upload relevant information, and the rest is on them.

Use Data Enrichment Tools

Have you ever had those moments where your file is incomplete because of that one missing information? It usually happens when you’re extracting data while working in Excel. I have been there, and it is exhausting to find and search for hours.

That’s when I got to know that there exists a tool that extracts all the missing data for you, and that too, in a fraction of the time I just wasted. Here’s a list of some tools that worked for me –

  • ESPY (flexible and affordable pricing)

  • Apollo.io (All-in-one solution)

  • ZoomInfo (Huge B2B database)

  • Clearbit (Good for dynamic lead enrichment, API-first)

Trust this, these will make your life and deal ten times easier.

Subscribe to their newsletter

Many of the companies that you are interested in have their newsletter where they send you updates about their products and everything related to them. 

This serves many purposes in disguise. First, you get to know about their value, recent activities, and all the news you need to pitch in your cold email. Later on, they may help to make or break a deal.

If you are lucky, you will find direct contact emails within the newsletter. Check at the bottom of the reply-to emails for any contact or email addresses. If not, then opt for their welcome mails.

Check their socials

I have suggested previously to check professional sites, but that’s not the only way out. If you really, really want to find a way out, you need to check their socials.

No, I’m not asking you to stalk their profiles (unless I am, because anything that is posted publicly on a public platform is not invading anyone’s privacy). 

But there are cases where the sender has extracted data from their socials and could make numbers just because of this small step. 

Be it Substack, X (formerly known as Twitter), YouTube comments, or Facebook – always shoot your shot.

But don’t just abruptly text people out of nowhere – show that you care for a couple of days. Engage with their recent posts and comment something meaningful and add value in their socials. Create a bond between you guys and then try to slide into their DMs. Use can start discussing the recent engagement of you guys or start by talking about a shared interest.

Texting is a better option

Or, you may comment if you are not comfortable. 

Like I said in the previous one, check their socials and try to engage with their posts (if they are comfortable). Shoot them a text only after you have established a bond and are confident that they are ready to talk to you. Ask for relevant information later on. 

Final thoughts

I could name ten more ways to reach out and on how to obtain an email address:

  • As ridiculous as it may sound, you can actually guess the email addresses of companies. It’s usually a generic name, then ‘@mail.com’.

  • Check all the pages of a website – top and bottom.

  • Google is active to this day; use it.

  • Here’s the nerd-ist and geek-ist advice – join the Slack communities.

  • Ask your surroundings for connections and references in relevant industries.

  • Seek help from people in the same industry.

And many more. There’s a whole list of email tools that can help you in this process that I have mentioned above. There are tools beyond the list that work just as good as the ones listed, if not better. 

Remember, if nothing else works, a rapport built through direct message always will.