If you’re considering Hunter.io for your business, you may be wondering if it’s a suitable option for your needs and budget.
Running email outreach campaigns can vary in difficulty depending on how you approach them.
For a seamless way to track down professional email addresses, Hunter is your knight in shining armor!
Delve into the mystique of Hunter.io, a beloved tool among digital marketers and SEO wizards. Find out what makes it a standout in the crowded online marketing landscape.
Hunter.io may have a few hiccups, but it’s basically a flawless gem in the world of email hunting!
With expertise in digital marketing and extensive knowledge of email outreach tools, we offer a skilled perspective to assist you in understanding the capabilities and intricacies of Hunter.io, helping your business make informed decisions.
What is Hunter.io?
Hunter.io offers the ability to verify prospect email addresses, locate the email addresses of article authors, and includes a feature called ‘Campaigns’ for basic bulk/cold emailing outreach.
The software offers a comprehensive set of features for users interested in conducting email outreach campaigns, integrating multiple tools into a streamlined suite.
How Does It Work?
Hunter provides individuals with the option to either claim or delete their personal information from its database, as well as the ability to block Hunter’s robot from visiting their site.
This email verification tool does not use undisclosed data sources, unlike others that may lead to inquiries about where private email addresses were obtained.
Hunter uses pattern matching to estimate the email address of a specific individual and fill gaps in its database.
Typically, in a company website using a [email protected] format, it can be assumed that an individual named Jane Doe can be contacted at [email protected].
Hunter provides the necessary data with just a few mouse clicks, saving you time and effort compared to manual guesswork.
Hunter’s pattern matching algorithm is effective in identifying contact information, even when it is based on “guessed” data.
Who Uses Hunter.io?
Hunter.io is a widely used tool with various applications across different industries.
Various professionals, such as journalists seeking contact information, sales and marketing teams working on lead generation, and SEOs running link-building campaigns, can benefit directly from its features, including domain search.
Hunter is frequently mentioned in affiliate marketing circles and forums as the top email discovery tool currently available.
Hunter is utilized by major tech companies such as IBM, Google, Microsoft, and Adobe.
It meets the necessary features and performance standards for both large and small businesses.
Hunter.io Features
1. Interface
The effectiveness of the top email hunter in the market is diminished by a poorly designed user interface.
What is Hunter’s performance like in this aspect?
They have adopted a minimalist design.
While it may appear minimalistic at first, this also means there is less clutter, resulting in a more efficient and streamlined navigation experience to access the desired feature.
Hunter prioritizes functionality over aesthetics.
To find email addresses for a specific domain, select the desired type (All, Personal, or Generic) and click the search icon on your home dashboard.
Users can easily search for email addresses on the homepage without having to navigate further into the interface.
Next, let’s analyze Hunter’s ‘Email Finder’ feature and compare it to the options available on their homepage.
2. Hunter.io Email Finder Tool
This feature consists of two distinct components.
- Email Finder –used to find the email address of a person at a given domain
- Author Finder – used to find the email address for the author of an article
If you need to locate every email address for a domain or search for multiple article authors simultaneously, manually entering each name into the search bar may not be the most efficient method.
To access Hunter’s “Bulks” feature, you will need to open it up.
Users have the ability to run bulk searches for email addresses from this platform.
- Domain search
- List of people
- List of articles
The ‘Email Verifier’ tool can be used to check the validity of a range of email addresses, ensuring that your emails are delivered successfully.
Verifying emails in advance can save time for various outreach activities, such as sales, customer service, and link-building.
Now, let’s examine Hunter’s bulk domain search more closely.
To begin, click on Bulks and then select New Bulk.
This feature eliminates the need to search through numerous email addresses for a company in order to locate specific department heads, such as the IT department.
After clicking on ‘Upload,’ you can view the results before downloading them.
The process of compiling the list of verified emails was completed relatively quickly.
As illustrated, using this method is more efficient than searching for them manually, which can be time-consuming.
Locating those email addresses may be a challenge.
3. Hunter.io Email Verifier Tool
Locating email leads is just the initial stage of any campaign for outreach, whether it is done through domain search or other methods.
For instance, if addresses weren’t verified during the discovery process, you can simply use Hunter’s bulk ‘Email Verifier’ to start verifying emails.
What is the purpose of verifying a Gmail account with Hunter?
Improving ROI and maintaining data cleanliness are important factors to consider when running outreach campaigns.
You may either enter a list of email addresses to verify or upload a file for the same purpose.
Please be aware that there is a limit of 10,000 verifications per bulk task, and each verification uses a credit from your account when verifying email addresses. This will be discussed further in the following sections.
It should be noted that Hunter does not validate Gmail or other free email accounts.
Hunter’s domain search is programmed to specifically search for professional email accounts, excluding personal Gmail accounts.
This is not within the service they provide.
How effective are Hunter’s email verifier and domain search in finding invalid emails?
Our internal testing has shown that it performs well by pinging recipient SMTP servers instead of sending fake messages.
Determining the effectiveness of an email verification process is best done by sending out emails to contacts and analyzing the bounce rate.
We have been satisfied with the results provided by Hunter thus far.
4. Campaigns
Previously, Hunter’s data had to be exported to specialized email marketing software such as MailShake, Mixmax, or Reply.io for the next step in the outreach process.
However, this entailed investing in another SaaS tool, increasing your monthly costs.
Francois and the team at Hunter decided to enhance Hunter by introducing an email outreach tool called ‘Campaigns’.
The platform allows for the use of ‘Attributes’ to customize emails, develop templates, and set up follow-up emails similar to traditional autoresponders or email outreach tools.
Custom attributes can be created if desired.
Can email campaigns be run directly from Hunter?
It’s a mixed bag.
The ‘Campaigns’ feature in Hunter adds functionality but lacks some advanced features seen in email marketing software such as Mailshake.
Hunter offers the necessary features for automating outgoing emails, follow-ups, and tracking open rates to help you get the job done.
While ‘Campaigns’ may not meet the requirements of a professional sales team, it generally suffices for SEOs, marketers, and digital agency owners.
5. Hunter.io Chrome Extension
If you need to search multiple sites for email addresses, are you required to continuously switch back and forth between the Hunter.io dashboard?
Nope.
The Hunter.io Chrome Extension enables users to search their database for email addresses associated with any website they are browsing.
To add an email address to a campaign, simply click on the plus button next to their contact details and select ‘Add Lead’.
Lead generation can be done independently from the dashboard, allowing for sorting and verification of the generated data at a later time.
Note: The Hunter.io extension provides the same features for both free and paid Hunter accounts, and is compatible with Firefox users as well.
6. Leads
To effectively manage new leads gathered with Hunter, it is recommended to export them to a CRM tool. Utilizing the Search bar alone may not be sufficient for this task.
Alternatively, you can use Hunter’s smaller ‘Leads’ CRM tool.
This new software is in line with the concept of ‘Campaign’ in the CRM industry, although it may not be groundbreaking.
The goal is to give users enough functionality for basic lead prospecting or outreach in link-building campaigns.
7. Google Sheets Addon
If you have a large amount of data stored in Google Sheets or prefer to work directly from Google Sheets due to its integration with your CRM workflow/outreach process, what would you do?
Hunter offers an addon for Google Sheets that can assist with this.
The tool enables users to search by domain and generates a new spreadsheet containing all email data that is found.
You can transfer first and last name data from your spreadsheets and utilize Hunter’s ‘Email Finder’ to automatically retrieve contact information into your sheet.
This eliminates the need to import data into ‘Bulks’, process it with the ‘Email Finder’ tool, and export it again.
When dealing with over 500 rows of data in your spreadsheet, utilizing the bulk tasks function will lead to quicker results.
8. API
Support
Hunter is user-friendly for the majority of individuals.
What kind of support can you expect if you encounter problems?
The online chat tool is available for questions Monday to Friday from 9 am to 10 pm (CSET).
If a serious problem arises during the weekend, you may encounter difficulties.
Email support is not provided, but there is at least one public email address available.
Additionally, users can access their knowledge base for helpful videos and tutorials to assist with common issues.
Hunter-paid plans include “Priority Support” as a standard feature, ensuring that your requests are addressed promptly compared to a free plan.
Is Hunter.io Reliable?
Hunter.io is considered reliable due to its use of publicly available email addresses and active data hygiene practices.
When using Hunter for outreach email campaigns, users can rely on clean, verified data from their own database.
How Much Time Can Hunter.io Save?
Determining the precise time-saving benefits of Hunter.io can be challenging, but one effective method is to provide a real-life example.
To request a backlink from the top 200 sites in your niche, you can export this data from Ahrefs or a similar tool for email outreach.
The process of locating and confirming each email address usually takes about 3 minutes, resulting in a total estimated time of approximately 10 hours for completion.
Next, you will need to email each contact individually, with each email requiring 5 minutes to compose.
The task will require an additional 16 hours of work, without accounting for interruptions, breaks for meals, or restroom visits.
Following up with each contact manually would require an additional 6.7 hours of work, as it takes approximately 2 minutes per email.
These outreach processes will take approximately 32.7 hours, or 4 working days, to complete.
The workload would be the same with Hunter, and can be divided into the following:
- It takes 5 minutes to import and pre-filter the Ahrefs data in Hunter.
- Hunter has 10 minutes to find and verify all valid email addresses.
- It will take 30 minutes to manually filter the addresses and remove any junk contacts.
- It typically takes around 45 minutes to draft a well-crafted outreach email.
- Please take 15 minutes to write your follow-up email.
- Automate your emails in just 5 minutes.
Total: 1hr 50 minutes
Is Hunter.io Free?
Hunter.io offers both a free version and a paid version.
Like most “Free” SaaS products, the ‘Free’ plan for Hunter is limited to 25 email searches and 50 verifications per month.
Users on the free plan have access to Hunter’s ‘Bulks’, ‘Leads’, and ‘Campaigns’ features, which is a beneficial aspect.
It is possible to run a limited outreach marketing campaign using only the features available in the free version of Hunter.
A paid monthly subscription is more practical for using it as an outreach/lead generation tool.
Here is a comparison of the features between Hunter’s free and paid versions.
Pricing
Prices for plans beyond the free option start at $49 per month for the Starter plan on a monthly basis, or $34 per month if paid annually.
The pricing tiers are as follows: Growth at $99 per month, Pro at $199 per month, and Enterprise at $399 per month.
However, the pricing structure is more complex as each plan includes a certain amount of credits for email searches and verification.
The ‘Starter’ plan offers affordability but comes with limits of 500 email searches and 1,000 email verifications per month.
Anyone running a serious outreach campaign will need to upgrade to the ‘Growth’ plan, while we use their ‘Pro’ plan for the amount of link-building outreach we do.
Hunter.io Alternatives
There are other tools similar to Hunter available in the market.
Other options may be more suitable for you, depending on the specific features you require.
1. Snov.io
Snov.io and Hunter.io have similar capabilities.
The platform offers the capability to search for, find, and identify email addresses by domain. Additionally, bulk search and verification functionality are included as standard features.
After creating your prospecting list, you can refine the results and add them to an email drip outreach campaign.
Snov.io has made significant advancements in recent years with improvements in accuracy and the addition of features such as a LinkedIn prospecting tool and integrated email marketing functions.
While it is more affordable than Hunter by approximately $10 per month, the interface is noticeably cluttered, which may make it difficult to locate specific features.
2. Voila Norbert
Voila Norbert is commonly used among those interested in cold email outreach and lead generation.
There are noticeable distinctions between it and Hunter.io.
When searching for contacts, it is important to use a prospect’s full name along with their domain name, rather than just searching by domain name alone.
This indicates that this tool is more effective for generating and qualifying leads rather than simply prospecting for leads.
In addition to typical functions such as verifying email addresses, basic CRM and emailing capabilities, Voila Nobert also offers a Chrome extension and integrates with external tools like SalesForce.
One useful feature is ‘Email Enrichment’, which provides additional information on contacts for personalizing outgoing emails.
There is a charge of 4c per email (with a discount for bulk purchases) for this information.
3. Find That Lead
While Find That Lead may appear to be a lead generation tool at first glance, it shares more similarities with Hunter.io than with Voila Norbert.
The tool enables users to search, verify, and email prospects without the need for external tools or services.
Hunter.io is similar.
However, it has some features that Hunter does not have, such as the ‘Social’ search function that enables users to search Twitter and LinkedIn profiles for professional email addresses.
The ‘Local Businesses’ function allows users to search for contact details of businesses based on industry and geographic parameters such as state. It functions similarly to Crunchbase, but at a lower cost.
You may want to consider reading our article which includes a list of recommended cold email software options.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Hunter.io Compliant With GDPR?
Hunter.io demonstrates some level of compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
The act of utilizing a suggested method to guess email addresses and subsequently using them in unsolicited email marketing campaigns may be considered a breach of data security regulations, particularly for individuals residing in the EU.
Storing addresses in a database is in violation of the GDPR, regardless of whether they are actually utilized.
Is Hunter.io Safe to Use?
Hunter.io is safe to use and you should not worry about any harm. It searches the web for email addresses to enhance lead generation and customer communication. However, you should follow data use restrictions when using the information in your campaigns, just like with any lead generation tool.
How Does Hunter.io Make Money?
Hunter.io generates revenue through a subscription-based pricing model. While there is a free option available, upgrading to a paid tier unlocks additional features. These paid tiers are designed for businesses requiring more extensive searching and verifying capabilities each
