In B2B, you can usually find an email address in three ways: through a company’s public sources (legal notice, team page and contact page), by working out the company’s email pattern from an address you already know, or with an Email Finder that automates both steps. The technical side is rarely the problem. The harder part comes next: a cold email sent to an address you’ve researched is rarely read.
This article shows you how to find and verify an address, and why LinkedIn is a better choice for first contact. Last updated: 19 September 2026.
Method 1: Check publicly available sources first
Before you guess, look it up. In Germany, the yield is high here because commercial websites are required to provide legal notice information – and the legal notice will usually include an email address.
- Legal notice: gives you at least one central address and often the structure (info@,contact@).
- Team, press and contact pages: these list personal addresses, often following the company pattern.
- Trade articles, conference programmes, job postings: contact persons are often listed there with their full address.
- LinkedIn contact info: Some members make their address visible on their profile. The chances are highest with first-degree connections – but you can only see what the person has chosen to share.
What you find here is reliable—and you know where it came from.
Method 2: Derive the company’s email pattern
Companies almost never assign addresses at random. If you know one real address, you know the pattern for everyone else. The common patterns are limited:
- firstname.lastname@company.com – most common among mid-sized companies and larger organisations
- first@company.com – typical for small teams and agencies
- f.last@company.com or flast@company.com
- last@company.com
Two common pitfalls in German-speaking markets: umlauts are almost always transliterated (Müller becomes mueller or muller, ß becomes ss), and double surnames may appear with a hyphen or written as one word. If your first derivation fails, this is usually why – not the pattern.
Method 3: Verify a found address
A derived address is a hypothesis. Contacting it without checking affects deliverability: bounces from non-existent inboxes damage your sender domain’s reputation. Verification has three stages:
- Syntax: Is the address formally valid at all? This filters out typos, nothing more.
- Domain and MX record: Does the domain exist, and does the DNS contain a mail server (MX record)? If not, the domain cannot receive emails at all – the address is dead, no matter how plausible it looks.
- Mailbox check at SMTP level: Query the responsible mail server to see whether it would accept mail for this inbox, without sending an email. The result is less precise than it sounds: many servers respond positively to every address (catch-all) or refuse to provide this information. A “valid” result is an indication, not proof.
Email Finder: What this tool category does – and what it does not do
An Email Finder combines the three steps above: it maintains a database of collected addresses and company patterns, derives a likely address from a name and domain, and checks it technically. Providers in this category include Hunter, Apollo, Dropcontact and Lusha – mentioned as examples, not recommendations; check their websites for features and data coverage.
There are three things you should know beforehand:
- An Email Finder does not find anything, it calculates. The result is a likely address with a confidence score – which will be low for small companies with no public trace.
- The database contains personal data. Check the data processing agreement, server location and transfers to other countries first.
- Finding an address doesn’t mean you’ve started a conversation. Whether someone reads your email depends on whether they know you.
Collecting addresses in bulk from other websites is not one of these methods.
The key question: Will your email be read at all?
Having an address is one thing. Getting the person to open your email is another. Cold emails sent to addresses you’ve researched often end up in spam folders, and every unwanted email damages your sending domain’s reputation. Keep your list lean, too: record only what you need and where you found it.
LinkedIn instead of cold email: a better approach
The best way to make first contact is through LinkedIn: connect, start a conversation, and get the email address directly from your contact, along with their permission. If you prefer to attract people through content, you can collect consent through a newsletter with double opt-in, a webinar registration or a Lead Magnet.
On LinkedIn, the initial contact is part of the product: A connection request is an invitation that the other person can accept or ignore – the decision lies with them, not with you. You do not need to research an address or guess email patterns.
The request itself then determines everything that follows. Whether you should include a note is covered in Connecting on LinkedIn: with or without a message; the article on outreach channels explains which channels work for your target audience.
Recruiting and job applications: same question, different sender
Recruiters also use the methods above to reach candidates outside LinkedIn. The same principle applies here: a connection request is usually the easier way to make direct contact. In CompLeadly, you select a search or pipeline from LinkedIn Recruiter as your target audience. The tool sends the requests and an initial message after each acceptance. Applicants who want to reach a hiring manager don’t need to guess an email pattern either: send the team lead a request, then a short message. You can read how to do this in Finding a job on LinkedIn without the common mistakes; the recruiting setup is on our page for recruiting teams.
Frequently asked questions about finding email addresses
How do I find an email address using a name?
First, look for any real email address from the company – in the legal notice, on the contact page or team page. This lets you identify the pattern, usually firstname.lastname@company.com, and insert the name you are looking for. Watch out for umlauts (ue instead of ü) and double-barrelled names, then check the address technically.
What is an email finder?
A service that uses a name and company domain to calculate a likely email address and check it technically, drawing on a database of collected addresses and company email patterns. The result is a probability, not a guarantee.
How do I get an email address for someone who will actually read my message?
Through a conversation. Connect on LinkedIn, start chatting and ask if you can send something by email. The address your contact then gives you is current, and they’ll be expecting your email. You can find the step-by-step process in Combine LinkedIn and email.
How do I check whether an email address exists?
In three stages: syntax, then the domain’s MX record in DNS, followed by a mailbox query to the responsible mail server. The final stage is not definitive because many servers respond positively to every address (catch-all). Verification reduces the bounce rate, but does not prove active use.
