If you’re in B2B sales, you know the drill: finding good leads is a slog. You spend half your day hunting down emails, sifting through LinkedIn, and patching together lists that are already half stale. If that sounds familiar, this guide is for you. I’ve spent real time in the trenches with Hunter, a popular tool for finding email addresses and managing outreach. Here’s the straight truth about what it does well, where it falls flat, and how to actually use it to get more replies (not just more names in a spreadsheet).
What Is Hunter, Really?
Hunter is basically a toolkit for finding email addresses and basic info about people at companies. It’s aimed at sales and marketing folks who need to reach out to prospects, whether you’re doing outbound sales or just want to build a clean list for a campaign.
Here’s what it actually does:
- Finds email addresses for a person at a company, or guesses likely ones
- Lets you search domains to see who works there
- Offers a basic outreach system to send cold emails and follow-ups
- Verifies emails (so you don’t bounce and kill your sender reputation)
- Has a Chrome extension for on-the-fly prospecting
Hunter isn’t a full-blown CRM, and it’s not going to write your pitch for you. But it does solve a specific, gnarly problem: how do I find accurate, usable email addresses for people I want to talk to?
Who Should Use Hunter?
Let’s be clear: Hunter is not for everyone. If you’re selling to consumers, skip it. If your leads are all inbound, you probably don’t need it either.
But if you’re:
- Building outbound lists by company or role
- Doing cold email outreach (SDRs, founders, agencies, recruiters)
- Scraping together leads for partnerships or PR
- Tired of bouncing emails or hours lost on LinkedIn
…then Hunter can save you real time.
It’s especially handy for small teams or solo operators who don’t want to burn money on bloated enterprise tools.
Key Features (And How They Work in Real Life)
Let’s break down the main features, with honest takes on what’s worth your time.
1. Email Finder
This is what most people come to Hunter for. You plug in a name and company domain, and Hunter gives you:
- The likely email address (using patterns like first.last@company.com)
- Confidence scores (how sure they are)
- Sometimes, a list of sources where that email was found
How accurate is it?
Pretty good, but not bulletproof. For big companies or well-known folks, you’ll usually get a hit. For small businesses or anyone under the radar, you’ll get more misses or just generic addresses.
Pro tip: Always verify emails before blasting out cold pitches. Hunter’s own verification tool is decent, but double-check if you’re sending at scale.
2. Domain Search
Enter a company’s domain, and Hunter spits out all the emails it’s scraped from public sources related to that business. You get:
- Names, job titles (when available), and emails
- Confidence ranking for each email
- Filters by department, position, etc.
What’s good:
Fast way to map out who’s who at a target account, especially for mid-sized companies.
What’s not:
You won’t get every contact, and smaller companies often have patchy data. Also, sometimes you’ll get old or generic emails (info@company.com), which aren’t useful for outreach.
3. Email Verifier
This checks if an email is likely to bounce—a huge deal if you care about sender reputation.
- Works well for most corporate addresses
- Struggles with obscure domains or brand-new addresses
Don’t expect miracles. Some emails will show up as “risky” or “unknown.” That’s just life with email these days.
4. Bulk Tasks
Upload a CSV of names and domains, and Hunter will try to find or verify emails in batches.
- Saves tons of time vs manual lookup
- Still limited by the quality of Hunter’s data
You’ll need to clean your input lists. Garbage in, garbage out.
5. Campaigns (Email Outreach)
Hunter has a built-in cold email tool. It lets you:
- Send personalized, automated campaigns using Gmail or Outlook
- Build sequences (follow-ups, etc.)
- Track opens and replies
Reality check:
This is fine for lightweight outreach. If you’re running serious, multi-touch campaigns, you’ll outgrow it fast. No fancy A/B testing or advanced reporting. But it’s solid for getting started or testing new lists.
6. Integrations & API
Hunter plays nice with tools like HubSpot, Salesforce, and Zapier. The API is useful if you’re automating lead gen at scale.
But:
Most small teams or individuals won’t need this unless you’re a power user.
How To Use Hunter for B2B Lead Generation (Step-by-Step)
Here’s a no-nonsense workflow that works for real teams:
1. Define Your Target List
- Start with a spreadsheet of companies and roles you want to target.
- Be specific: “VP Marketing at SaaS companies in the US,” not “anyone at any tech company.”
2. Use Domain Search to Build a Contact List
- Plug each company’s domain into Hunter.
- Filter by role or department.
- Pull out the relevant contacts (don’t just grab everyone).
Pro tip: Don’t trust job titles blindly—sometimes they’re outdated. Double-check on LinkedIn when it matters.
3. Fill in the Blanks with Email Finder
- For missing decision-makers, use Email Finder with their name and company.
- If Hunter can’t find it, try guessing the pattern (Hunter shows common formats).
4. Verify Everything
- Run all emails through Hunter’s verifier.
- Remove any “risky” or “invalid” emails from your list.
Why bother? High bounce rates tank your sender reputation—and your future emails go to spam.
5. Personalize Your Outreach
- Don’t use a single template. Mention something real about the company or person.
- Load your cleaned, verified list into Hunter’s Campaigns tool (or your email tool of choice).
6. Track Responses (and Clean Your Data)
- Mark who replied, bounced, or unsubscribed.
- Update your list—no point emailing dead leads twice.
What Hunter Gets Right
- Saves time: Bulk tasks and Chrome extension make list-building way less painful.
- Simple interface: No steep learning curve. You’ll figure it out in an hour.
- Decent accuracy: Not perfect, but better than most free tools.
- Pay-as-you-go: Pricing is fair if you’re not sending thousands of emails a week.
Where Hunter Falls Short
- Data gaps: Some industries and small companies are hit or miss.
- Not a CRM: Don’t expect pipeline management or deal tracking.
- Basic outreach: Good for starters, but you’ll need something beefier as you scale.
- Source transparency: Sometimes it’s not clear how fresh or accurate an email is.
Bottom line: Hunter is a tool, not a magic wand. Treat its data as a starting point.
What to Ignore (or Use With Caution)
- Generic emails: info@, contact@, etc., just clog up your list. Skip them.
- “Guess” emails: If Hunter says “low confidence,” it usually means just that.
- Automation hype: Don’t blast 500 cold emails and expect miracles. Personalization still matters.
Real-World Tips for Getting the Most Out of Hunter
- Combine with LinkedIn: Use Hunter for emails, LinkedIn for context.
- Batch your work: Build and verify lists in one go, then focus on writing good emails.
- Test small: Start with a sample campaign before scaling up. See what bounces, what gets replies.
- Respect privacy: Only reach out to business emails and always include an easy opt-out.
Final Thoughts: Keep It Simple, Keep It Honest
Hunter won’t magically fill your pipeline, but it can cut hours out of the grunt work. Build small lists. Focus on quality, not just quantity. The best results come from targeted, honest outreach—not blasting the same pitch to a thousand strangers.
Iterate as you go. The tools are just there to help; the real work is making a real connection.