How to Decide if You Need an Email Lookup Tool

Are you looking to grow your business or find more leads online? If so, you’ve probably been thinking of different ways to reach more potential customers. Picking the right communication channel is absolutely necessary for successful outreach campaigns.

So, how do you find the most effective information communication channel? If you have a B2B audience, research shows that email is the most successful channel, aside from colleague recommendations or industry thought leaders.

While you may have considered cold calling as an option, you might want to reconsider. On average, it takes someone 18 calls before they even reach a potential customer. If you’re like most people, you probably don’t have the time, money, and resources to be calling people for hours on end each day.

On the other hand, cold emailing allows you to reach tens of hundreds (or even thousands) of prospects in one click of your mouse. In fact, one study showed that email outreach gives businesses a higher ROI, an average of $38 for every $1 spent.

These statistics alone should be enough to convince you that email is still the ideal communication channel for outreach. But how will you go about building your email list? Will you message someone on LinkedIn asking them for their email address? Will you visit each and every website hoping that the Contact Us page has the email of the decision-maker you’re looking for?

Why Do You Need an Email Lookup Tool?

Fortunately, we live in a day and age where email lookup tools exist. Email lookup or email finders are tools that allow you to easily find verified email addresses of the potential customers you’re looking for. That means you no longer need to search high and low for email addresses that may not be active. Even better, you know that you’re emailing an active, verified email. If you start emailing inactive addresses, your IP address could get flagged as spam and your reputation could be tarnished.

But is it absolutely necessary to utilize an email lookup tool? In most cases, you’ll get a certain amount of free email lookups a month before you need to start paying for services. For many, this is well worth it because they save the time and energy of manually having to find verified email addresses.

If you’re only sending out a newsletter, for example, you probably don’t need an email lookup finder. In that case, you’re probably best off using the email list you already have of customers that have subscribed to your email list. The intention of a newsletter is to keep those individuals informed and remind them about your product or service.

But if you’re starting a small, personalized cold email campaign, you can most definitely make use of an email lookup tool. With a small email campaign, you most likely won’t have to upgrade to a paid subscription plan, and if you do, it will probably be the base, affordable plan. The same goes for an email marketing campaign, you’d more than likely be better off using a lookup tool rather than manually building your list.

Here are a few questions you should ask yourself before deciding to use an email lookup tool:

• How extensive is your email database already? If it’s large and responsive, you might not need to spend your time searching online for contact information.
• How many contacts do you need? If you only require one or two, maybe a tool isn’t necessary.
• Where are you trying to find contacts? If you’re looking on LinkedIn or a company website, using a lookup tool with a Chrome plugin can save you a lot of time.

How Do You Look Up an Email Address?

If you decide you need an email lookup tool, where do you turn? Well, there are plenty of free ways to find email addresses. Here are a few tricks that might work for you:

• Search Twitter – Search your prospect’s Twitter page for any signs of an email address. Oftentimes, people will hide their email from bots by using “at” and “dot” instead of “@” and “.” If you use Twitter Advanced Search, try searching for “email at” in Words and “[company name]” in Accounts.
• Subscribe to Email List – Sometimes your prospect will have a website with an email list you can join. When they send you newsletters or other material, they’re sometimes sent from a professional email address. If so, this is an easy way to add another name to your list.
• Fill Out a Contact Form – Go to your prospect’s website and fill out a contact form. While these messages typically get sent to admin staff, it doesn’t hurt to ask them to put you in touch with a decision-maker.
• Go to Contact or About Us Page – You never know, their email address might just be published on their website. Sometimes your prospect’s email is easier to find than you thought. If it’s a small organization, they want to be easily accessible.

Use an Actual Email Lookup Tool

There are companies that actually specialize in finding verified email addresses. It’s all they do, so they’re pretty good at it. All you have to do is type in the person’s website or name, and the tool will find a relevant email address for you.

Whether it's through LinkedIn, companies’ websites, or using in-app features, these tools help you build accurate email lead lists for your next outreach campaign. There are even web extensions that smartly integrate with your LinkedIn and Sales Navigator and provide verified email addresses of leads instantly. You can also reveal key email leads, decision-makers, and company email addresses when visiting any company's website.

Use a Combination of the Two

While free email lookup tools are certainly handy solutions for efficiently finding email addresses, they’re not all perfect. If the tool can’t find the email you’re looking for, that doesn’t mean it’s not out there. Try a few of the free methods for finding addresses before you give up and move to the next one. But in most cases, an email lookup tool should be able to scour the web for you and pinpoint quality contact information.

If you think an email lookup tool is right for your outreach efforts, try our email lookup tool to find the right business emails you need to start your email campaign.