May 20, 2025
How to Find Emails for Cold Emailing?
Cold emailing is an effective outreach method. To send cold emails, you must find the recipient's email address. This post will discuss a few free and paid ways to find email addresses for your cold email campaign. Before heading to find email addresses, please note that you should always send cold emails to individuals' business email addresses, not personal ones. Doing so is a breach of the cold emailing rules (GDPR), plus sending emails to personal addresses (which are most often free domains) can result in issues with email deliverability.
Avoid Free Domains in Cold Emailing
Spammers use free email accounts for malicious purposes, and when you verify the email addresses, you will notice that most invalid addresses are from free domains. Sending cold emails to them will severely impact your sender's reputation, so you should avoid emailing addresses with free domains. If you have been doing this for a while, email outreach can be a challenging task for even experienced marketers. It's hard to maintain consistency across your brand and reduce errors! But with an automated standard process, things become simpler and you'll have more time on them- plus the whole thing can be assigned (to a VA, for example), and there are no technical skills needed at all, which makes it easy as pie.
Finding Someone’s Email Address Free of Cost
Here’s how you can find email addresses for cold emailing free of cost.
1. Guess the Email Address
It is a simple technique, and it can yield great results. Most often, business emails follow a specific pattern. Knowing a person's first name, last name, and domain helps find their email address. Try out some typical email formats like:
john.doe@company.com
jdoe@company.com
john@company.com
Verify your guess
Use an email verification tool like UpLead to check if your guess is valid before sending your email. This method is simple but surprisingly effective, especially with smaller companies.
Accuracy: 6/10
Cost-Effectiveness: 10/10
Email Finder Score: 16/20
2. Find Email Addresses Using a Search Engine
Moving one step ahead, search engines like Google can help you find email addresses. Use Google's advanced search capabilities to check if the email addresses you guessed are correct, because you can’t afford to send emails to invalid addresses.
Use Symbols
You can make your search precise by using certain characters in your query. When you use “ ”, it makes Google search for exact matches. You can enter the email address you guessed and see if you get any results.
Example: Search for “bill.gates@microsoft.com,” and you will get search results because this is a valid email address.
Use Target Keywords
Another way of searching involves using target keywords. Type the person's name and mention keywords like email or contact. If the email address is available online, you will see it in the search results.
Google Search Operators: You can use a search operator query like “site:example.com” as the root along with other modifiers.
Example: Site:microsoft.com Bill Gates email
You will get your answer. You can make your search more specific by using more modifiers. You must verify email addresses before you start your email outreach campaign. It’s crucial for your sender score. Most cold outreach platforms like Inframail and SalesBlink have in-built email verification tools so that you can check addresses before sending emails. Alternatively, you can use free people finder services to verify the details.
3. Find Emails from Social Media Profiles
It is easy to find a person’s email when you have their social media profile. Popular platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn will come to your rescue. Look for the person’s email address on Facebook in the ‘About’ section. Coming to LinkedIn, you should head to the ‘contact info’ of the prospect or the About section, and you will be able to spot the email address. Twitter requires you to use the platform’s advanced search to find the email address.
4. Search on the Company’s Website
This is an oldie but a goodie. Many companies provide contact information on their website, often on the “Contact Us” or “Team” pages.
How to use it:
Visit the company’s website: Check it out and look for a ‘Contact Us’ or ‘About Us’ page
Find the right section: Some companies list team members with direct email addresses, while others may provide a general info@company.com email.
Use the general email: If you get a generic email, you can still use it to introduce yourself and ask to be connected with the right person. When writing your email, pay attention to elements like the subject line and a clear call to action.
This is one of the more straightforward ways to find emails, though it can be tricky depending on the company.
Accuracy: 5/10
Cost-Effectiveness: 9/10
Email Finder Score: 14/20
5. Subscribe to Newsletters
Subscribing to a company’s newsletter can sometimes give you direct access to email addresses you wouldn’t otherwise have found.
How to use it:
Subscribe to the newsletter: Sign up for the company’s newsletter from their website.
Check your inbox: When the newsletter arrives, look for the sender’s email address. This is usually a marketing or contact email from the company, but sometimes, it can be from an actual employee.
Use it for outreach: Once I have an email, whether it’s generic or specific, I can start my cold email outreach.
This method is a bit of a slow burn but can be effective for smaller businesses.
Accuracy: 6/10
Cost-Effectiveness: 9/10
Email Finder Score: 15/20
6. Check Author Pages on Blogs
Many professionals publish articles on blogs, and they often include contact information on their author pages. This is a goldmine if your target is someone who writes regularly.
How to use it:
Visit the blog: Head to blogs relevant to my industry or niche and find articles written by the person I want to contact.
Look for the author bio: Scroll down to the bio section. Authors sometimes include their email addresses or links to social profiles, where I can reach out and request their email.
Use their contact info: If I can’t find an email directly, check if they have listed a Twitter or LinkedIn profile to continue my search.
This works incredibly well for reaching out to industry experts, thought leaders, and influencers. Just ensure I am drafting a good email that’s not too generic.
Accuracy: 7/10
Cost-Effectiveness: 8/10
Email Finder Score: 15/20
7. Email Lookup Tools and Chrome Extensions
Many email lookup tools and Chrome extensions can help you find email addresses easily.
How to use it:
Install the extension: Download and install an email lookup Chrome extension of your choice.
Navigate to your target site: Visit the company website or LinkedIn profile of the person I’m trying to reach.
Click the extension: The extension will scan the site and return any associated email addresses.
Save and verify: Use an email verifier to confirm the emails are valid.
These extensions are super convenient and will save you loads of time.
Accuracy: 8/10
Cost-Effectiveness: 7/10
Email Finder Score: 15/20
Though they offer free trials, you must purchase their paid plans once the trial is over. Most often, email look-up tools help you search for email addresses using the company domain.
Here’s a list of some of the most widely used email lookup tools:
Apollo
Apollo.io has an excellent database of email addresses. In addition to a database, you can use Apollo to send outreach emails to your leads.
SalesBlink
SalesBlink is a sales outreach automation platform that takes you from prospecting to outreach to closing in a flash. Using this platform, you can find email addresses using the name and domain in the prospecting stage. It allows you to find emails in bulk as well.
LeadIQ
LeadIQ helps with prospecting. It is a Chrome extension that considerably reduces the sales reps’ job by helping you find up-to-date contact details, including email addresses.
Find that email
Using Find That Email, I can find the business email addresses of professionals worldwide. They have a Chrome extension that helps find emails from social media websites, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. They also have a bulk email finder.
RocketReach
RocketReach is a Chrome extension that allows you to access real-time verified business contact information. The extension gives precise results and enables bulk search.
Emailchaser
Emailchaser.com’s Email Finder Tool helps users quickly find email addresses by name. It’s more effective than similar services like Hunter.io and ensures legal compliance with data privacy laws. The tool supports both individual and bulk email searches, verifying the authenticity of each email and providing transparency about their sources.
8. Join Slack and Discord Communities
Many industry professionals hang out in Slack and Discord communities. These spaces are great for networking and might even give you access to email addresses.
How to use it:
Join the right community: Search for and join industry-relevant Slack or Discord channels. A quick Google search or browsing Reddit will help you find them.
Build relationships: Participate in conversations. Once I’ve built rapport, requesting contact info, including emails, is easier.
Reach out: Some communities have directories or user profiles where members list their emails. If I can’t find it there, simply DM the person and ask directly.
This method is a bit more time-consuming, but it can lead to genuine connections, which will help my cold emails stand out.
Accuracy: 6/10
Cost-Effectiveness: 9/10
Email Finder Score: 15/20
9. Leverage WHOIS Lookup
WHOIS is a public database that holds information about domain owners, sometimes including email addresses.
How to use it:
Go to a WHOIS search site: Use a free WHOIS lookup service like whois.domaintools.com.
Enter the domain: Search for the domain I’m interested in, and the results may include the owner’s email address.
Use the email: Keep in mind not all domains will reveal email addresses, but it’s worth a shot.
This method is often used to find smaller business owners.
Accuracy: 6/10
Cost-Effectiveness: 8/10
Email Finder Score: 14/20
10. Use Professional Networks like LinkedIn
LinkedIn is the go-to platform for professionals, and while it doesn’t always give out email addresses upfront, there are ways to get them.
How to use it:
Connect with your target: I send a connection request to the person I want to contact. Once I'm connected, many people list their email addresses in their LinkedIn profiles.
Check their contact info: Once connected, check their profile for contact details, including email addresses.
Use InMail: If all else fails, I can message them directly through LinkedIn’s InMail system.
This is a more professional way to get emails, though it requires more effort.
Accuracy: 8/10
Cost-Effectiveness: 6/10
Email Finder Score: 14/20
11. Explore Forums and Discussion Boards
Niche forums and discussion boards often have contact information buried within threads.
How to use it:
Find relevant forums: Search for forums where my target audience or the person I’m trying to contact might hang out.
Look through profiles: Many users list their contact information in or within their posts.
Engage and request: If I can’t find an email directly, participate in the forum and DM users to ask for their email.
It’s a bit more time-consuming, but forums can provide a direct line to niche professionals. Once I get a response, I should just ensure I follow up with a good email.
Accuracy: 6/10
Cost-Effectiveness: 9/10
Email Finder Score: 15/20
12. Reach Out via Contact Forms
Many companies use contact forms to route inquiries. While this doesn’t immediately give you an email address, it’s often an effective way to reach the right person.
How to use it:
Visit the website: Head to the company and locate their contact form.
Fill out the form: Introduce myself, explain why I’m reaching out, and kindly ask to be connected with the right person.
Wait for a reply: Companies often reply to me via email, which is my chance to grab that address for future outreach.
This method is simple, but I have to be patient for a reply. Using the right email templates can increase my chances of getting a reply.
Accuracy: 4/10
Cost-Effectiveness: 10/10
Email Finder Score: 14/20
Related Reading
• Hunter.io Alternatives
• Seamless AI Competitors
• How Long Should a Cold Email Be
• ZoomInfo Alternative
• How to Warm Up Email Domain
• Cold Email Lead Generation
9 Steps to Build a Quality Lead List for Cold Emailing
1. Define Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) to Target the Right Audience
Defining ICP helps you to target the right prospects, which ensures your email outreach efforts achieve the desired results. So, shall we learn how to create your ideal customer profile? Here are the easy steps that you should follow to define ICP. Start by examining your best existing customers. What patterns can you find in their demographics, challenges, and behaviors? You need to have a complete idea of your current customers to understand better who the best customers are.
Define and Document Your ICP
Consider researching the standard pointers your customers share. You can find common traits based on industry, company size, location, budget, roles, or maturity. Once you understand your ideal customer profile, you should learn about its primary challenges and opportunities. Lastly, write down or create a proper document or sheet for your ICP.
Focus on Triggers, Not Behavior, When Defining Your ICP
While creating your ICP, you must not dig into behavioral factors. Just understand your ICP’s problems, the buying triggers that get them to act, and the platforms or technologies they already use. Behavioral data works best later during lead nurturing or outreach.
2. Explore Multiple Channels to Research Potential Leads
Once you are ready with ICP, start researching and identifying leads on multiple platforms, such as:
Social media networks
Events
Competitor analysis
You need to use social media to do this.
LinkedIn Platform for Finding Leads
Well, you know LinkedIn is a powerful professional networking platform. LinkedIn allows you to find potential leads. You can start researching platforms like LinkedIn by filtering leads by industry, job, title, company size, and location, all according to your ICP.
Use LinkedIn Filters and Communities to Find Leads
You can use advanced search filters on LinkedIn to find leads based on job title, company size, industry, and location. In addition, you can research your potential leads on LinkedIn by exploring industry-specific forums, online communities, and groups. These platforms are goldmines for finding leads discussing industry trends, challenges, and solutions; they all align with your ICP’s pain points. The next option for finding or researching the leads is leveraging networking opportunities.
3. Build Connections with Networking at Events or Webinars
One of the best points is networking, useful when you know exactly who you’re looking for. Whether at an event or on a webinar, remember your ICP and be handy when networking with individuals who match your profile. If they are a good fit, get their contact details for follow-up outreach. If you cannot attend in-person events, you must go for virtual webinars or events. Virtual webinars or events allow you to get the list of potential individuals (whether in your group or on your LinkedIn or WhatsApp group). You can filter out the people that match your ICP and contact.
4. Analyze Competitors to Identify Potential Leads
The following way is conducting competitor analysis, which is an effective strategy to find leads. Let me explain. Using the competitor analysis method is helpful for three reasons:
Identify and understand customer pain points and preferences by studying competitors’ reviews, case studies, and testimonials. (Save your time experimenting and investing money upfront)
Competitor analysis helps you know gaps in your offerings or underserved segments of the customer base. You can then target overlooked opportunities and offer your product to your end users.
Analyze competitors to determine your ideal prospects' use of your competitor’s product or services and interest in similar solutions.
How to conduct competitor research:
Visit review platforms like G2, Capterra, or Trustpilot to see recurring issues in your competitors’ feedback.
Search social media hashtags or posts that mention your competitor’s product and include keywords like “problem,” “frustrating,” or “alternative.”
Use tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator to map relationships between competitors’ clients and their broader networks.
Use social listening tools (e.g., Hootsuite, Brand24) to monitor comments, shares, and likes on competitor posts.
5. Choose Reliable Tools to Simplify the Lead Generation Process
Manually building an email list is time-consuming and error-prone. What if you get a tool with a highly targeted list of leads? Sounds good. Just a few clicks to get a highly-targeted list of leads in your hands.
6. Verify Email Addresses to Maintain a High-Quality Lead List
Whether you buy a lead list or manually prepare a list of leads, you must go for verification of your email addresses. Email verification allows you to avoid invalid domains, temporary email addresses, or even emails that are backlisted or no longer exist. Let me share my personal experience. When I started sending out cold emails, I didn’t pay enough attention to this, and my bounce rate was high. That’s when I realized how necessary it is to use email verification platforms.
Boost Email Deliverability with Verification Tools
Using platforms like Inframail, NeverBounce, or ZeroBounce can reduce the bounce rate and increase the deliverability of your email outreach campaigns. Imagine sending out 500 emails only to have 50 bounce because the emails were invalid. You know it’s frustrating and hurts your reputation with email providers. Eventually, your emails land in spam folders or, even worse, hurt your domain reputation. I didn’t know about these hacks before. But I want you to understand how to avoid the issues that I have faced.
Key tips:
Use bulk email verification: If you have an extensive list of email addresses, bulk verification helps save time and ensures that your list stays clean.
Do it regularly: You don’t wait for your email performance to drop. With regular verification, you can get a list of only active emails.
Remove inactive emails: Remove addresses that haven’t engaged with your emails in months at regular intervals.
You can also integrate email verification tools with your CRM to automatically flag inactive or invalid email addresses. Over time, following these tips has helped me build a reliable lead list that I trust. These tips will help you create a high-quality email address lead list. You can also follow the steps in this guide to verify email addresses.
7. Segment Your Leads for Relevant and Impactful Outreach
Segmentation of a lead list allows you to personalize your outreach campaigns for better engagement and results. It also allows you to create a message relevant to each group, increasing the chances of conversation. When I started, I sent the same email to everyone, whether they were CEOs or marketing directors. The results were poor, and I quickly realized the need for segmentation. For instance, I showcase ROI and analytics when emailing a marketing director. I focused on affordability and ease of use for small business owners.
Benefits and Criteria for Effective Email List Segmentation
It lets you address specific pain points, allowing for more relevant and personalized messages, which, in turn, increases engagement. Segregating leads also makes it easier to track performance. Measuring how well each group responds becomes easy when you know who you are targeting.
Here are the benefits of segmentation:
Targeted messaging: Speak to the specific pain points of different groups. A segmented list allows you to customize content to each group’s needs.
Better engagement: Send personalized messages to improve chances of getting a response.
Easy tracking: When you know who you are targeting, measuring the performance of the campaigns becomes easier.
While segmenting your email list, here are the criteria you should apply.
Industry: Customize your messaging to different sectors (retail, tech, eCom, or more).
Company size: Large companies need different solutions from small businesses.
Geographic location: Location-based segmentation helps offer relevant time zones or region-specific offers.
Job role: The decision-making process differs between the CEO, CMO, and operations manager.
Segment Leads by Engagement and Use Lead Scoring for Better Results
Lead segmentation by engagement level is also essential. To design your campaign accordingly, you can bifurcate leads based on whether they are new, warm, or engaged. Finally, using lead scoring helps you pick and engage with the most interested leads. When a lead score is higher, there are more chances of converting that lead. This way, you can target leads with more personalized outreach. Segmentation enables your emails to be relevant, personal, and timely, which drives better results.
8. Regularly Update and Maintain Your Lead List for Better Results
If you think that once the lead list is ready, you are done. It’s not like that. Lead lists need continuous maintenance to stay relevant. I have found that as businesses grow, so do the people within them. Professional contacts change roles, companies leave the business, or they lose interest in your product. So, regular updates are necessary to maintain a healthy and beneficial lead list. If you ask me, I clean my list every few months.
Best Practices for Maintaining and Growing Your Lead List
If someone hasn’t responded to my emails in a while or unsubscribed, I remove them. Similarly, I add any new leads relevant to my business when I attend networking events or webinars. Here are a few other best practices that I follow.
Regularly clean your list: Eliminate old, unengaged, or invalid contacts regularly.
Add new leads: To keep your lead list growing, add new contacts as you discover them through networking or new marketing campaigns.
Lead status: Track the status of each lead to determine whether it’s a sales funnel or another type so you can follow up accordingly.
I recommend using a CRM to automate this process as much as possible. A CRM like HubSpot or any other tool helps track your leads and update their status, so I don’t have to do it manually.
9. Follow Compliance and Best Practices for Ethical Cold Emailing
When creating a cold email list, you must thoroughly understand and adhere to email marketing regulations like GDPR and CAN-SPAM. If you collect leads via web scraping or purchasing lists, comply with the rules.
Compliance Tips for Ethical Email Outreach
Not following the regulations might damage the reputation and result in a high penalty. As I build my lead lists, I ensure I have a legitimate reason to contact the lead. I only reach out to leads who have shown interest in similar products or services or who are within my target audience. In addition, I ensure that recipients can easily opt out or unsubscribe from future emails. This method allows me to stay compliant and build trust with my leads. What else? Here are three key best practices to follow.
3 Key Best Practices to Follow for Better Cold Emailing
Be compliant with rules: You must be aware of GDPR and CAN-SPAM to make your lead list compliant.
Provide unsubscribe option: Always include an unsubscribe link in your emails to let recipients opt out if they are uninterested.
Target relevant leads: Ensure the people you add to your list are relevant and benefit from your outreach.
Related Reading
• How to Send an Email to a Prospective Client
• Best Email Warm Up Tools
• Cold Email Manifesto
• How to Warm Up an Email Address
• Cold Email Manifesto
• Cold Email vs Spam
• How to Cold Email a Recruiter
• How to End a Cold Email
Start Buying Domains Now and Set Up Your Email Infrastructure Today
Cold emailing is a delicate practice. Get it right, and you’ll land a coveted meeting with a high-quality prospect. If you get it wrong, your email is sent to the spam folder. When this happens, it doesn’t just ruin one email; it ruins your chances of ever connecting with that prospect again. That’s because we all know that no one checks their spam folder, especially not the generic emails of strangers. Instead, they just move on and forget about you. In some cases, they may even block your address.
Simplify Cold Email Deliverability and Scaling
This is why email deliverability is so important. And this is why you need Inframail. At Inframail, we are revolutionizing cold email infrastructure with unlimited inboxes at a flat rate. We provide Microsoft-backed deliverability, dedicated IP addresses, and automated technical setup to help agencies, recruiters, and SDRs scale their outreach efforts efficiently.
Main benefits of using our service:
Automated SPF, DKIM, and DMARC setup
Dedicated email servers for each user
16-hour priority support daily
Hassle-Free Email Infrastructure for Scalable Outreach
Unlike traditional providers that charge per inbox and leave you wrestling with technical configurations, Inframail streamlines the entire process. We handle the complex infrastructure setup while you focus on reaching more prospects. Whether you're an agency looking to scale outreach, a recruiter connecting with candidates, or an SDR driving sales, Inframail provides the robust email infrastructure without the usual technical headaches and per-inbox costs. Start buying domains now and set up your email infrastructure today with our email infrastructure tool.
Related Reading
• Wholesale Email Pitch Template
• Investment Banking Cold Email Template
• Bulk Email Services Providers
• How Many Cold Emails to Get a Client
• Is Cold Email Illegal
• B2B Cold Email Best Practices
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