There are many reasons why you might need to find someone's email address on the Internet:
Good news : today there are methods, tips and tools to help you find any email address, or almost any email address (and often for free).
You can find almost anything on the Google search engine, and email addresses are no exception.
If someone has entered their email address on a site, you can usually find them by using the right combination of search terms.
For example, if you're looking for the email address of someone who works at a specific company, you can try searching for "[first name] + [last name] + @[company.com]".
However, if you don't know the domain name, you can search for one of the following formats:
A company or organization's website is often the best place to find an email address. In general, it is also a good idea to visit the website to get to know the people you want to get in touch with.
Some sites offer contact sheets for you to download. Others will allow you to communicate with a person via a contact form.
If you can't find the email address you are looking for, visiting the website can help you identify the structure of the emails used (and that will allow you to guess the email you are looking for, as explained below).
To find an email address, social media profiles can help you. LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter are all online sources that allow you to find an email address.
Be careful, these addresses may have been "forgotten", and therefore no longer be up to date. So make sure you cross-reference your sources of information (for example, by checking that the person is still active in the company linked to the email address).
Guessing a person's email address may seem a bit far-fetched, but it's a strategy that works.
Often, companies or institutions use a consistent format when creating email addresses (for example: firstname.lastname@company.com).
In many cases, it is therefore not difficult to guess a person's email address, as long as you have the email addresses of people who are active in the company, or you know the format used for their email address.
If you don't know the format they use, it is still possible to guess it by trying several frequently used combinations.
Here are some examples:
This method is not infallible, of course, and may take some time.
If you are in a hurry, you can use an email generator (which will give you, in a few clicks, a large number of email address combinations).
Here is an example: Mara.
Then you have to do some checking to see which address is correct.
Another method to find the correct email address is to send with BCC addresses (you will receive error notifications for incorrect addresses and - who knows - maybe a reply from the correct email address).
As you can see, doing a manual search to find an email address is not a quick method. And even less if you have to build a prospecting file containing a large number of leads.
Fortunately, there are tools available to find an email (or do an automated search for prospect email addresses).
Email lookup services all work the same way: you enter a name, which you try to refine as much as possible, and the tool takes care of finding the best email address.
That said, there are a few different pricing options and tool types.
Here are some of the most popular email address search tools to get you started (along with their prices):
FindThatLead is a prospecting tool founded in 2014 by Gerard Compte and Cristian Vitales. This specialized company is based in Barcelona and has a headquarters in Miami (USA). FindThatLead offers many features and a free plan.
FindThatLead pricing :
Hunter.io is an online prospecting tool founded in 2015. Hunter.io helps you find people's emails (based on name and domain name), verify email addresses, as well as launch prospecting campaigns.
Hunter.io email finder overview:
Hunter pricing:
Voila Norbert is an online prospecting tool founded in 2014 by Cyril Nicodème and Antoine Minoux. Voila Norbert specializes in email search, whether for sales, marketing, communication, recruitment or public relations and content marketing. The company is based in Austin, Texas.
Voila Norbert pricing:
Dropcontact is a prospecting tool founded in 2016 by Denis Cohen. The company specializes in email search and data enrichment. DropContact is compatible with CRMs such as: Salesforce, Zapier, Hubspot, Pipedrive. The company is based in Paris.
Dropcontact pricing:
Snov.io is a prospecting platform, founded in 2017 by Oleksii Kratko, that offers a variety of tools for checking and sending emails and tracking them. Snov.io also provides data and contact management.
Snov.io pricing:
Learning how to find an email address online can be useful no matter what your job is. If you have an assignment or responsibility in the field of marketing and sales, it becomes essential to be able to find email addresses online in order to build quality prospecting files. The same is true if you are launching a recruitment phase. However, you must ensure that you respect the obligations imposed by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). To access quality data in compliance with the RGPD, discover Infobel Pro's services that give you access to constantly updated local or global data as well as the tools that allow you to develop your business.
Collecting an email address online is only one step in the prospecting process. It's best to verify the emails you collect. To do this, there are manual techniques and advanced tools (as we saw above!) to do automated verifications (on a small or large scale).
To verify and enrich your data, discover Infobel Pro's Improve service which allows you to enrich B2B & B2C databases.
Collecting professional email addresses is not illegal in itself (especially with regard to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). However, the use you will make of these addresses, the way you store them, and the additional data you may record are subject to privacy protection rules.