We Tested Email Lookup Tools — They Don’t Work for PR

To be a quality PR, finding the correct journalist to target is a significant piece of the puzzle.

But, even when you find the perfect fit, the new hunt begins: finding their correct email address.

One of the most common ways is to use email address finder software. A quick Google search will help you find many.

I have relied on tools like these daily—I even included one as a tip in our finding email addresses guide!

However, some new research has got me second-guessing the accuracy of these tools.

These tools are built for scaled sales outreach, not PR.

For this study, we tested 553 journalist emails through email outreach tools. (See our methodology.)

Here’s what we found:

• Only 38% of the emails found were correct after we cross-checked manually.
• 62% were either wrong (34%) or marked (28%) “not found.”
• Of the wrong email addresses, 59% will never receive a bounce notification, even though the messages never reach the recipient.
• Of the tools that gave confidence scores, the average confidence score was 87.5, even though they were wrong one-third of the time.

How Do Email Finder Tools Work?

To understand what’s going on here, let me briefly explain how email finder tools work.

Most standard email finder tools use a combination of web scraping, data aggregation, and pattern prediction.

1. Scraping  

One of the most common ways tools find addresses on the web is what we do manually. They check publicly listed email addresses on author pages, bylines, PDFs, and press releases.

2. Pattern Prediction

Some tools rely on pattern prediction (email permutator, anyone?), which gives you a guess based on other commonly found emails on the domain.

The problem there is that these are guesses.

For example, we follow the [firstname]@buzzstream.com pattern. But if there were two Vinces at BuzzStream, we would have to deviate from that pattern.

3. Verification Process

Email tools verify addresses by checking format, MX records, and server response, but catch-all domains can hide invalid emails and risk bounces.

Let me quickly explain this more because it’s a critical part.

What is Email Verification and How Does it Work?

Most email finder tools run a verification check. The process goes something like this:

They first check if an email is formatted correctly (with an @ in it, for example) and then confirm that the domain can receive emails by checking its Mail Exchange records (MX Records).

Here’s ours using MXToolbox.com:

Then, they connect to the mail server to ask if the address exists.

They’ll flag catch-all domains that accept emails for any address (which makes the verification trickier because you can’t really confirm one way or another).

Here is the process boiled down:

Email verification helps avoid bounces, which protects your sender’s reputation (and gives better deliverability).

And you’ll see a bounce when the email is invalid.

However, you’ll never see a bounce if the server is set to “accept all” emails. Some publications set this up to avoid confirming which email addresses are valid, which throws off spammers (and eager PRs like us!).

To help put this in context and make it real, in our study, 59% of the incorrect email addresses received an “accept all” status code from the mail server.

Over half of your emails will never receive a bounce notification, even though they appear to have been sent. This leaves you waiting for a reply that will sadly never come.

So, with all this going on to find email addresses, why are they still getting the wrong addresses?

Why Are These Tools Getting It Wrong?

Our CEO, Paul May, has some hypotheses. As he mentioned in his LinkedIn post, it has much to do with the changing media landscape.

Mergers and Acquisitions

In 2024, we saw rising activity in mergers and acquisitions in the media and entertainment industry.

So, the email domains don’t match the publication’s domain.

For example, a journalist with Esquire magazine doesn’t have an @esquiremagazine.com email address; they have a @hearst.com address.

Freelancer Contributors

Email lookup services have difficulty finding freelance email addresses for writers for multiple publications.

According to Pew Research, 34% of U.S. journalists were freelancers or self-employed in 2023. That number is expected to rise (but more on that in the next section).

For instance, UK freelance journalist Rosie Taylor contributes to multiple publications, including The Telegraph, The Times, The Independent, The Daily Express, The Daily Mail, The Sunday Times, and The Daily Mirror.

Despite having bylines, she doesn’t have email addresses at any of those publications.

In these cases, the email lookup tools can only provide guesses for email addresses associated with those domains.

Journalists Are Moving Jobs

Many journalists are leaving traditional posts for independent outlets like Substack or personal websites.

This leads to the same problems as above. You’ll rarely get accurate results if you aren’t in tune with the journalist’s moves.

Qwoted’s Media Moves has a good snapshot of the moves in the business and finance space.

Over 10,000 documented moves have been made since 2023 (as reported by Talking Biz News, which Vested/Qwoted owns).

Larger Publishers With Multiple Email Formats

Large media sites usually have multiple email formats. If the lookup service doesn’t have the person’s email address in their system, it often just picks a format.

For instance, a site like People.com has people.com, peoplemag.com, dotsahmdp.com, etc.

So, these tools will often choose incorrect domains.

So, What Can You Do About It?

The best way to find a journalist’s email address right now is to invest in a media database or do a manual search.

When investing in a media database, consider the size and quality. Typically, the larger ones are more expensive because they are more accurate.

Our overview of media databases found that MuckRack was the overwhelming favorite for accuracy.

We’ve got a guide on building your media list for free, so I won’t get into it in this post.

But I have two quick tips for using the tools more effectively.

1. Confirm on LinkedIn

Use tools like Hunter to identify the format, then a tool like Wiza for confirmation via their LinkedIn profile.

Then confirm on Wiza, for instance:

This works wonders when the journalist has LinkedIn. You may need to lean more heavily on Google search when they don’t.

2. Use Advanced Google Search Operators to Confirm

Here are some search operators that can help you find and confirm author emails:

The name of the game is increased accuracy. So, whatever you can do to confirm what a tool has found will significantly improve your campaign’s success rate.

Building a Media List Shouldn’t be Scalable

To be clear, this report isn’t meant to discourage you from using email lookup tools. I use several great lookup tools as part of my workflow daily.

But they aren’t necessarily built to find journalists and are not constructed to do so at scale.

In our industry, there is the urge to scale everything. Building media lists for PR campaigns is one area where we see that philosophy backfire.

The more you scale, the more the quality drops and the less likely you are to build lasting relationships with journalists, which can pay dividends in the future.

Methodology

We took 553 journalists and ran them through several widely-used email finder tools.

Then, we checked the accuracy based on a manual search. Here was our process:

1. We started by looking to see if the person was still at the pub
2. Then looked to see if they were an employee or freelancer
   1. For employees, we looked on the author page and Google search.
   2. For freelancers, we looked for a personal website (along with any author pages), and Google search.

3. We ran everything through Neverbounce to ensure the email addresses were “valid” or “accept all.”

Have questions? Email me!

Vince Nero

Vince is the Director of Content Marketing at Buzzstream. He thinks content marketers should solve for users, not just Google. He also loves finding creative content online. His previous work includes content marketing agency Siege Media for six years, Homebuyer.com, and The Grit Group. Outside of work, you can catch Vince running, playing with his 2 kids, enjoying some video games, or watching Phillies baseball.

More Posts by Vince Nero
Website: https://buzzstream.com