The quality of your leads says a lot about your email marketing strategy. You won’t see much results if your content doesn’t reach the right people. Fortunately, the best email list providers take care of everything so you can focus on the things that matter.
These companies provide the experience and expertise needed to contact your target audience. Some even help you manage those contacts, keeping your lists up-to-date.
However, the goal here is to contact only reputable and trustworthy sources. Buying email lists from just anyone is never a good idea. But don’t worry — you’ve arrived at the right place to explore list providers.
Learn why you need to trust reputable sources only, along with their types, tips, and options!
The Importance of Buying Email Lists From Trustworthy Sources
When you search for the best email marketing list providers, you’ll find countless options claiming to be the best. However, only a few of those options will genuinely be good. Others will most probably do you more harm than good.
The problem isn’t their unwillingness or incompetence to provide you with the lists. Instead, it’s about the way they gather those contacts.
They often use web scraping techniques to find contacts and gather them up in a list. Since this method uses bots to extract data, it might not be accurate or relevant to you. You might contact disabled accounts or people with no interest in your offerings.
Moreover, you probably won’t have customer consent, which can result in compliance issues with guidelines like the CAN-SPAM Act. This also affects your email deliverability, causing your messages to land in the spam folder.
There might even be issues with your email service provider since most companies require you to possess quality email lists. This applies to hotel and restaurant email lists and everything in between.
On the other hand, reputable email list providers use ethical methods like opt-in forms, surveys, and website analysis. They clearly display the terms on their forms and ensure you comply with the laws. As a result, you can avoid legal issues.
Instead of adding anyone and everyone, reputable sources work with you to determine your target audience. Then, they gather email addresses from these particular segments. As a result, you can rest assured that your emails are reaching the right people.
Additionally, most trustworthy business email list providers go beyond gathering contacts. They regularly update their databases to make sure you never have outdated contacts. Managing and maintaining list hygiene improves email deliverability and saves time.
The 3 Types of Email Marketing List Providers
Since the beginning of this article, we’ve emphasized the importance of data collection processes. After all, they set reliable sources apart from ones that might cause issues later.
However, something else underscores the importance of these processes even more – types of email list providers. Based on how they collect data, you can divide these providers into three main types:
- Opt-in list providers: They collect email addresses using online forms, contests, polls, and surveys by offering something interesting and valuable in return (e.g., a free book or guide). Since people voluntarily provide their information, you avoid sending illegal emails. For example, they might offer a free book, guide, or course. Since people voluntarily enter their information in these forms, you won’t have to worry about sending illegal emails.
- Data aggregators: These providers gather email addresses from public sources. However, using these addresses isn’t always legal, so it’s important to ensure they partner with consent-based websites to collect data.
- Industry-specific providers: They focus on providing lists for a particular niche, such as real estate or hospitality. While niche-specific data may offer relevant results, their data collection methods could involve either opt-in processes or data aggregation, so verifying their reputation is essential.
However, the issue of data collection processes still stands. These providers might use data aggregation, opt-in processes, or both to collect email addresses. Therefore, you must research their processes and decide whether they’re reputable before buying lists from them.
How To Choose the Best Email Marketing List Providers for Your Business
There’s no shortage of options when finding an email list provider for your business. This should make it easy to find the perfect one, shouldn’t it? But it’s the other way around.
In addition to the countless options, you must consider the types we discussed earlier. All of this combined can make the process confusing. However, you can avoid this mess if you judge a few simple attributes for each option that you come across.
Legal compliance is the most important factor when choosing an email provider for lists. Your chosen provider must be diligent about privacy laws. So, check if their data collection methods agree with the most common laws.
Visit their website and see if they’re transparent about their methods. You can also find this out by checking user’s online reviews. On the other hand, you can explicitly ask in forums where people are ready to help.
Some people only pay attention before closing a customer and stop caring once you’ve paid. Make sure this isn’t the case by talking to their previous customers.
Meeting the sales team in person is also a smart decision. A good email list provider listens to you and understands your brand before anything else. This helps them judge your target audience so they can provide you with the most relevant data. Your chosen provider must also have advanced search filters to help you build the most targeted list.
It might be a red flag if a provider insists on starting soon without researching your industry and business.
Apart from the list you buy, you might have contacts of your own if you already have a customer base. For this, your chosen provider must also provide integrations for your existing tools.
7 of the Best Email List Providers To Improve Your Outreach and Sales
You must be ready to choose a provider now that you know what attributes to look for. But how will you shortlist the most reasonable options for your research? You can’t possibly check every option you come across on the Internet.
For that, we’ve compiled a list of the seven best email list providers that help improve your outreach and sales. All these options are reputable and hold a special selling point. So, consider your needs when judging the options and shortlisting them.
1. The List Warehouse Is One of the Best B2C Email List Providers
Companies that provide email marketing tools often dedicate their offerings to a particular niche or type of business. Some tools work best for small businesses, while others only help hospitality businesses. The same is true for email list providers. Most options either focus on providing B2C (business to customers) or B2B (business to business) contacts.
However, when it comes to the best B2C email list providers, The List Warehouse is the clear winner. With a 10.49% average open rate, this email list provider goes above and beyond to provide relevant prospects.
Moreover, they provide custom-built B2C lists, compliance assurance, and reporting features.
2. Cognism Takes the Crown for the Best B2B Email List Providers
There’s a wide range of differences between B2C and B2B businesses that use the same email list providers for both. Even the list-building processes and best practices sometimes differ.
That’s why Cognism, being one of the best B2B email list providers, focuses only on providing B2B lists. With local and global coverage, it provides the most targeted lists a B2B business can ask for.
Apart from compliance with common guidelines like GDPR and the CAN-SPAM Act, it even checks Do-Not-Call lists in the US. As a result, you get access to 70 million phone numbers. Besides, it has a Chrome extension, making it easy and convenient. So, visit their website to get a custom pricing plan!
3. UpLead Is Famous for Its Ease of Use
People often overlook tools with advanced features, thinking they’ll be hard to use. However, UpLead understands the importance of easy navigation regarding email list building. Its interface lets you easily navigate the tool and choose your search filters.
Its purchasable email database has more than 160 million B2B contacts and is 95% accurate. Few companies can boast such numbers, so that’s a solid plus point.
Moreover, they’ve shared their process for your ease. It starts by letting you use filters to set your search criteria. Next, it searches millions of documents and licenses high-quality data from third parties.
Machine learning filters and categorizes the information you acquire. The result is a reliable B2B database with top-tier contact data. It even has real-time email verification to help you gather the most accurate data.
4. ZoomInfo Helps With Better Conversions
Some businesses steer clear of ZoomInfo since it’s one of the most expensive options. However, its key features make it worth the price.
After all, it gives you access to over 100 million emails, a content tracker, intent data, firmographics, and org charts. It also offers many integration options to help you create diverse email lists.
Another standout feature that very few providers offer is website tracking. You can easily judge who your visitors are and add them to your email database. It even has an AI Copilot that prioritizes prospect accounts and helps you make better conversions. All of these features combine to provide great value for money.
5. RocketReach Has Advanced Filters and AI Suggestions
You can’t say much about the accuracy of your email lists unless you use the most advanced search filters. The more precise your criteria, the more relevant your lists will be. However, you don’t have to worry about this if you choose RocketReach for your email list-building needs.
It helps you build hyper-focused targeted lists with some of the most advanced filters and AI recommendations. You don’t have to manually update your lists because RocketReach also takes care of that. Some other standout features include intent data capabilities and a browser extension.
6. Kaspr Integrates With LinkedIn for Better Reach
LinkedIn is the most popular social media platform among businesses. They use it to search for potential prospects and employees. Since this platform requires extensive verifications, everything mentioned there is probably accurate. This is why many people looking for quality leads turn to LinkedIn.
But with Kaspr, you don’t have to do this manually. Its Chrome extension easily helps you collect data from LinkedIn and add it to your databases. One of the most praised plus points is its user-friendliness. You have a single dashboard to manage everything from one place.
It’s also a favorite among email marketing services since it complies with privacy laws and doesn’t sabotage email deliverability.
7. CloudLead Uses Machine Learning To Scale Things Up
With stellar user reviews, CloudLead takes the crown for machine learning. Instead of simply providing you with leads, it also maintains the quality. You can scale up your marketing efforts using its deep insight tools.
Besides, it doesn’t rely on an email verifier. CloudLeads’ employees, who are real humans, go through each lead and verify its accuracy. While that takes longer, you can rest assured that each lead is authentic, relevant, and high-quality.
It even offers an API to customize the features according to your needs. Lastly, it has multiple features to clean and maintain your email lists for a better marketing strategy.
5 Effective Tips To Build and Maintain Your Own Email List
By now, you’re familiar with the risks of choosing the wrong email list providers for your business. But the truth is that popular options that use legitimate ways to build high-quality email lists can become quite expensive.
A better alternative would be to build your own email lists. While this is more time-consuming than buying these lists, the results will be worth it. So, here are five tips to build and maintain your own email lists.
- Use legitimate ways: You don’t have to resort to web scraping and extensive social media research to collect email addresses. Pop-up forms, landing pages, sign-ups, referral marketing, and surveys do the job just fine. You must simply come up with an irresistible offer and add a checkbox to gain consent.
- Be transparent: Apart from gaining permission, your contacts should know exactly how you’ll use their data. So, be transparent about the content you send their way.
- Use double opt-in: Sometimes, people add their email addresses to website pop-up forms only to gain a first-time discount. In this case, they might not want marketing messages from you. A smart approach to tackle this would be to send a verification email asking for their permission again.
- Pay attention to segmentation: Your email marketing strategy is only as good as your segmentation. You must divide your customers into appropriate groups to ensure you send them the most relevant messages.
- Maintain list hygiene: It isn’t uncommon for people to stop using an email address or shift to another one. Subscribers might also decide to unsubscribe from your email newsletters at any time. Sending emails to these addresses will only result in wasted time and effort. So, create a schedule to remove disabled, unengaged, or unsubscribed accounts.
Everyone looking into email marketing should avoid buying email lists. But you don’t have to worry about this if you choose the best email list providers. These options use legal methods to collect email addresses and gain proper consent before handing the list over.
Anyone can benefit from building email lists. However, how you build those lists matters for email deliverability, response, and reputation.
Beambox can help you on your journey to email marketing success. Our tool makes it easy to collect contacts, create emails, and automate campaigns. Start your trial today!
Frequently Asked Questions About Email List Providers
There is a lot of confusion about email list providers. So, let’s answer a few frequently asked questions to remove any lingering confusion.
Who is the best email list provider?
The best email list providers depend on your specific needs. For example, if you need B2C contacts, The List Warehouse would be a good fit. However, CloudLead works best for businesses with machine learning needs.
Cognism, UpLead, ZoomInfo, RocketReach, Kaspr, and Lusha would also be appropriate.
Who are the best email list providers?
Cognism and ZoomInfo are some of the best email list providers. People trust these sources for legitimate data collection methods and advanced search filters.
However, these options might be expensive for some businesses, especially those just starting. For that, Apollo.io has a free version with only the basic features.
Who are the best B2B email list providers?
Lusha, Cognism, and RocketReach are some of the best B2B email list providers. Basically, these providers collect business email addresses instead of individuals.
Therefore, they’re more suited for B2B businesses like technology or manufacturing firms. On the other hand, B2C email list providers work best for online stores or customer services.
