How to find a decision maker's work email, and the catch-all trap
Contents
Why search for the company before the person?What precautions should you take while searching?What does an address status mean?What is a catch-all address, and why be wary of it?Are all bounces the same?Why does a bounce cost more than one lost message?In short
- Search for the company first, then the people who work there, then their address. The other way round, results cluster in a few large groups.
- Filter on the job title text (partner, managing director, president, founder), not on the "seniority" field: for French decision makers it is almost always empty.
- With this method we found 17 of the 18 addresses we looked for in one of our campaigns.
- A catch-all address cannot be verified. Of those we had written to, 12 of 18 bounced: we no longer send prospecting to them.
- A bounce costs more than one message: it damages the sender's reputation for everything sent next.
A good target and a good message are useless if the email never arrives. Finding a decision maker's work email address is a step of B2B prospecting in its own right, and it is often where everything is decided: a wrong address does not just miss its target, it penalises everything you send next. Here is the method we use, and the trap that taught us the most.
Every day Romeo spots the companies that need you and writes the first message. Nothing leaves without your approval.
Join the listWhy search for the company before the person?
The instinct is to search for people directly: "managing director, accounting, France". The result is misleading. People searches return results clustered by company, and large groups, with thousands of staff, fill the list.
On one people search, our first 40 results came from only 2 companies, 34 of them from a single group of 50,000 staff. Nothing like the target: independent firms of 10 to 50 people.
The method that works has three stages:
1. The companies
Describe the target at company level: line of business, headcount band, country. On a company search these criteria are reliable, and you get a list of businesses that genuinely looks like your market.
2. The people, by job title
Then search for people in those companies, filtering on the text of their job title: partner, managing director, president, founder, director.
3. The addresses
An enrichment service then looks up each person's address and verifies it before returning it. For one of our campaigns it found 17 addresses out of 18. As an order of magnitude, a usable decision maker's address costs us about two credits, roughly ten cents.
What precautions should you take while searching?
These services bill each address found and do not deduplicate between requests: submitting the same person twice means paying twice.
A person with no address found is recorded as such and not sent round again in a loop. You reach them through another channel.
Before writing, check which service hosts the domain's mail (its MX record). Not every provider sorts mail the same way.
What does an address status mean?
Each address comes back with a status. That status decides whether you can write.
| Status | What it means | Do we send? |
|---|---|---|
| Deliverable | The mailbox exists, the server confirmed it | Yes |
| Probable | Very likely right, without full confirmation | Yes |
| Catch-all | The server accepts everything: no way to know if the mailbox exists | No, not for prospecting |
| Invalid | The mailbox or the domain does not exist | No, never |
| Bounced | A send came back with "unknown recipient" | No, never |
What is a catch-all address, and why be wary of it?
Some domains are set up to accept every message, whatever is written before the @. For a verification tool, the server's answer is always "yes": it cannot tell whether the mailbox really exists. The message itself may be rejected later.
At first we treated these addresses like the others. Of the catch-all addresses we had written to, 12 of 18 bounced.
Are all bounces the same?
No, and mixing them up loses good addresses. The code the server returns says why the message did not get through:
- 5.1.x, unknown recipient: the mailbox does not exist. The address is dead; stop using it.
- 5.7.x, refused: the server refuses the sender, not the recipient. The address may be perfectly good: it is your sending (reputation, configuration) that needs looking at.
A dead address is not a request to stop contact: the person has said nothing. You simply stop emailing them, and can reach them another way, for instance on LinkedIn.
Why does a bounce cost more than one lost message?
Mailbox providers judge a sender by its behaviour, and bounces are part of it. A handful of wrong addresses is enough to send your next messages to spam, including those meant for good addresses. That is why verification is not optional: it protects the rest of your prospecting.
Frequently asked questions
How do you find a decision maker's work email address?
Identify the company first, then the decision maker by their job title, then ask an enrichment service for their address, which it verifies before returning it.
What is a catch-all email address?
An address on a domain whose server accepts every message, whatever the mailbox. No tool can therefore confirm that the mailbox really exists.
Should you email a catch-all address?
Not for prospecting: of those we tested, 12 of 18 bounced. If the person wrote to you first, however, their message proves the address exists.
Does a bounce always mean the address is dead?
No. A 5.1.x code (unknown recipient) means the mailbox does not exist. A 5.7.x code means the server refuses the sender: the address may be fine, it is your sending that needs looking at.
Every day Romeo spots the companies that need you and writes the first message. Nothing leaves without your approval.
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