How to find a decision maker's email address

You have a list of companies that could buy from you, and now you need to find a decision maker's email address at each one, because you cannot email a company. Here is how to do it for 100 companies a day: pick the one person who decides, look where their email is already published, use a finder for the rest, and check every address before you send. Guessed and old addresses bounce, and each bounce makes it more likely that your next cold email lands in spam.

Do these three things

About 2 hours a day for 100 names, next to your sending. Judge the method after 2,000 names: aim for 6 in 10 with a checked email.

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1. 1Today: for the first 100 companies on your lead list, write down one decision maker each, using the size rule in step 1: their name, job title and where you saw it.
2. 2Every day: find and check 100 work emails. Look on the company's own pages first, then use Hunter's Email Finder, then build the address from the company's email format and check it. Only addresses marked "Valid", or "Accept-all" at 90% or more, go on your list for personal messages.
3. 3Every Sunday: count how many emails you found and how many bounced for every 100 you sent. If more than 2 in 100 bounced, stop using "Accept-all" addresses until the next count is under 2.

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1. Pick one decision maker at each company before you look for an email

Write down one person per company: the person who can say yes to what you sell. Pick them by the size of the company, using the rule below. Look for the email only after you have the name.

Each row on your lead list needs one. This is the person you would want on a discovery call. Use your sentence about who buys from you to name the team that has the problem you fix. If you have clients, ask each one who signed off on the order, the way you would in a customer interview. That job title is the one to look for. Then pick by size:

Write to one person per company. In Hunter's report on 31 million emails sent in 2025, emails to one person per company got a 5.1% reply rate. Emails to three or more people at the same company got 3.5%. If the first person does not answer after your follow-ups, try the next person later.

Where to find the name, in this order:

1. The company's "About" or "Team" page. Small companies often name the founder here.
2. The company's LinkedIn Page, "People" tab. It shows people who list the company as their employer, with their job titles. Type the job title, such as "operations", in its search box.
3. For UK companies, Companies House. Search the company name on the free register and open "People" to see its current directors. In a company of under 10 people, write to the director who also appears on the company's website or LinkedIn.
4. Where your buyers show up: trade show speaker and exhibitor lists, the guest lists of local business events, the online groups where your buyers talk, and the buyers named on a distributor's supplier pages.

Let AI do the first pass. Paste 10 companies' About pages into ChatGPT or Claude with the size rule, and ask who to write to at each one and why. Then open each person's LinkedIn profile yourself and check they still work there. AI can name someone who has already left.

Company | Website domain | Size | Person | Job title | Where I saw the name | Email | How I found the email | Check result | Date checked | Other route | Date contacted | Bounced?

• Tool: the company's website, a free LinkedIn account, Companies House for UK companies, and ChatGPT or Claude.
• Time: about 30 seconds a company once AI has suggested a name, so 50 minutes for 100.
• You will have: one person on every row, with their job title and where you saw the name.
• It worked if: 9 in 10 rows have a named person, and you saw their current job on their profile or their company's site this month.
• Common mistake: emailing the chief executive of a 300-person company, or three people at the same company on the same day. The other mistake is writing "Dear owner" because you skipped this step.

2. Look for their work email on the company's own pages first, for free

Spend up to 1 minute looking for an address the person or the company has already published. Small companies often put a named email on their website, and it costs you nothing to find.

Look in these places, in order, and stop when you find a named address:

1. The company's team, contact, press and careers pages, the footer, and the privacy policy. Privacy policies often name a person to contact.
2. Google. Search for "@theirdomain.com" (with the quotes), then for "first name" "@theirdomain.com". This finds the address in old press releases, price lists and event pages.
3. LinkedIn "Contact info" on their profile, only if you are already connected. LinkedIn shows a member's main email only to their direct connections unless they change it.
4. Things they made: their newsletter, a podcast they were a guest on, a talk they gave.

If you only find info@ or hello@, write it in the "Other route" column and keep looking in step 3.

Write where you found each address in the "How I found the email" column of your list. You need this for step 4, and if your buyers are in the UK or the EU, you will tell the person where it came from.

• Tool: Google and the company's website.
• Time: 1 minute a name, at most. Stop at 1 minute and go to step 3.
• You will have: a named address with a source for some of your rows, at no cost.
• It worked if: every address you found has a source written next to it. Every one still goes through the check in step 4, even if it came from the company's own site.
• Common mistake: adding a browser extension that reads emails from LinkedIn profiles. LinkedIn does not permit extensions that copy data from its pages, and accounts that use them can be restricted or shut down. Copy the name and company by hand into the finder in step 3 instead. The other mistake is copying an address from a "free email lookup" site that copies data from elsewhere: it is often years old.

3. Find the rest with an email finder or the company's email format

For every row still without an address, put the person's full name and the company's website into Hunter's Email Finder. When you already know how the company writes its addresses, write the address yourself and check it, which costs half as much.

Route 1: the email finder. Open Hunter's Email Finder on its website. Type the full name and the company's website. Hunter first looks for the address in what it has found published on the web. If it has none, it works out the most likely address from the company's other addresses, then checks it. You get one address, a status and a confidence score, which is how sure Hunter is that the address is right.

Route 2: the company's email format. Most companies use one format for everyone, such as first name only, or first name dot last name. You can learn it from one address you found in step 2, or from Hunter's Domain Search, which lists the addresses it has found at a company. Write the person's address in the same format. Then run it through Hunter's Email Verifier before it goes on your list.

Never send to a guess. Do not email five versions of a name and see which one bounces. Each bounce hurts your sending domain. Check the one address you built, and send only if the check says it is safe.

What it costs. Hunter's credits, checked on 4 October 2026:

Finding an email costs 1 credit. Checking an email costs half a credit. A search that finds nothing costs nothing. At 100 names a day you need about 3,000 addresses a month, so the free plan runs out on your first day. Find all you can for free in step 2, use the format and the checker for every company whose format you know, and use the finder for the rest. That way Starter's 2,000 credits can cover a month. To decide if $49 is worth it, compare it with what one client is worth to you.

• Tool: Hunter's Email Finder, Domain Search and Email Verifier. Start on the free plan; move to Starter when the 50 credits run out. Keep the results in your sheet; a CRM can wait until the sheet gets slow.
• Time: about 20 seconds a name.
• You will have: an address, a status and a confidence score on most rows.
• It worked if: after your first 2,000 names, at least 6 in 10 rows have an address marked "Valid" or "Accept-all".
• Common mistake: sending to the address the finder returns without reading its status. The status decides whether you send, in step 4.

4. Check every email address before you send, and keep bounces under 2 in 100

Run every address through an email checker on the day it goes on your list, and act on what the checker says. Your goal is fewer than 2 bounces for every 100 emails you send. In Instantly's benchmark of cold email sent in 2025, the advice was to keep bounces below 2%. In Hunter's report on emails sent in 2025, the average was 3.6%, so most senders are above it.

Do this with each result. The 90% and 85% lines are Hunter's own advice from September 2026.

Check again before you send if an address has sat on your list for more than 3 months. People change jobs.

Stay within the law. In the US, the CAN-SPAM Act makes no exception for business email: every cold email needs your postal address and a clear way to say no, and you must honour a "no" within 10 business days. In the UK you may email companies without asking first, but sole traders and some partnerships count as people, so do not cold email them. A named person's work address is still personal data under UK law. If you got it from somewhere other than the person, tell them where within one month. The simplest way is one line in your first email. Keep everyone who says no on a "do not contact" list, so nobody on your side writes again. Rules in the EU differ by country, so check them before you email buyers there.

I found your email on [your company's team page / your company's website / a finder that checks public business addresses]. If you'd rather I didn't write, reply "no" and I'll take you off my list.

• Tool: Hunter's Email Verifier, at half a credit a check. The Email Finder checks its own results, so finder results need no second check on the day you find them.
• Time: a few seconds an address, inside step 3.
• You will have: a send list with a check result and date on every row.
• It worked if: fewer than 2 in every 100 emails you send bounce. Count them in step 6.
• Common mistake: sending to Accept-all addresses at 60% or 70% because they "look right". On a new domain those bounces count against you from your first week, and more of your personal messages go to spam.

5. Reach the people with no email another way, the same day

When a person has no address you can send to, contact them another way the same day, and count it in your 100. Do not spend more than 2 minutes on one email address.

Pick the first one that fits, and write it in the "Other route" column:

1. LinkedIn. Send a connection request and message them once they accept. LinkedIn limits how many requests you can send each week, so spread these over the week. Check that your LinkedIn profile says what you sell before you start. Your recent LinkedIn posts are what they see when they check you.
2. The phone. Small companies often list a phone number. Ask for the person by name. If someone else answers, use the steps for getting past the gatekeeper.
3. The main inbox. Write to info@ or hello@ with the person's name in the subject, and ask for it to be passed on.
4. The question. If you could not find a name at all, ask the main inbox or the person who answers the phone who looks after the problem you fix. Then go back to step 2 with the name.

Ask the people you already know too. One introduction from a mutual contact beats any address you find, and asking everyone you know is the first step in getting your first B2B clients. If one kind of business keeps introducing you, turn it into a referral partnership. If you sell a service, the ways to win clients without referrals give you more routes.

Subject: For [first name], about [their company]'s [thing you fix]Hi,Could you pass this to [first name]? I couldn't find a direct email.[One true line about their company.] I [what you do] for [who buys from you]. Would [the small next step] help?[Your name], [company], [phone]

The middle line is your value proposition in one sentence.

• Tool: LinkedIn, your phone and Gmail.
• Time: about 1 minute each.
• You will have: every row on today's list contacted by some route, logged in the sheet.
• It worked if: no row stays untouched for more than 1 day.
• Common mistake: spending 10 minutes hunting for one address, then running out of time for the day's 100. The other mistake is filling a contact form with a long pitch. Keep it to the four lines above.

6. Count found emails and bounces every Sunday

Every Sunday, fill in one row: how many names you added, how each email was found, how many emails you sent and how many bounced. Then change one thing if the numbers say so.

Week | Names added | Found free | Found by finder | Format and check | No email | Emails sent | Bounced | Bounces per 100 | Replies

Use these rules:

• More than 2 bounces per 100 sent: stop sending to Accept-all addresses, check every address again before it goes out, and look at which column the bounces came from. Fix that source first.
• Fewer than 6 in 10 names with an email, after 2,000 names: you may be picking companies that are too small to publish addresses. Move more of those rows to phone and LinkedIn, or change the size of company on your list.
• Credits gone before the week ends: check the format route first for every company where you know it. If they still run out, move to the next Hunter plan or add the extra rows to the phone and LinkedIn routes.
• Plenty of addresses, but almost no replies: the address is not the problem. Fix your first line before you look for more addresses. If 2,800 messages bring no conversations at all, find out why no one is buying.
• People who say "not now": keep their checked address, and send them a short email once a month only if they agree to it.

Add this sheet next to the one you use to count where each deal came from. Once a month, bring both into your marketing review, and decide whether email, phone or LinkedIn gets more of your hours, the same way you choose your channels. This is one part of the daily routine in marketing your B2B business.

• Tool: Google Sheets.
• Time: 15 minutes each Sunday.
• You will have: one row a week that shows how you find emails and how many bounce.
• It worked if: you can say this week's bounces per 100 and the share of names with a checked email.
• Common mistake: counting only replies. A rise in bounces hurts your deliverability weeks before it shows up in replies.

Your decision maker email checklist for every day

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Step 1 · Pick one decision maker at each company

• Every dayPick one decision maker for each of 100 companies using the size rule.

Step 2 · Look for their work email on the company's own pages

• Every daySearch the company's pages and Google for a published address, for up to 1 minute a name.

Step 3 · Find the rest with an email finder or the company's format

• Set up a free Hunter account and note your credits.
• Every dayRun each remaining name through the Email Finder, or build it from the company's format.

Step 4 · Check every email address before you send

• Every dayCheck every new address and keep only Valid and high-score Accept-all.
• Add the line that says where you found the address, and start a do-not-contact list.

Step 5 · Reach the people with no email another way

• Every dayContact every person with no checked email by another route the same day.

Step 6 · Count found emails and bounces every Sunday

• Every SundayFill in one row: names, how each email was found, emails sent and bounces.
• Every SundayStop Accept-all sends if more than 2 in 100 bounced.
• After 2,000 namesCheck the share of names with a checked email and change who you pick if it is under 6 in 10.

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