Overview
Apollo categorizes emails into 2 types:
-
Business: The email address that a contact uses specifically for work purposes. For example:
brian.h@ymail.org. -
Personal: The email address that a contact uses for private affairs outside of working hours. For example:
brian_snowboard_123@ymail.org.
By default, Apollo sets your primary email to a business email address. However, factors such as your industry, ideal customer profiles, and campaign objectives often dictate the type of email address that best fits your prospecting needs. For example, if you are in the recruiting industry, you're more likely to need a contact's personal email. If you sell to a B2B market, you're more likely to engage with a contact through their business email.
You can't access the personal emails of contacts from the EU, UK, and Switzerland due to GDPR restrictions. Keep calm, and keep compliant.
Check out the following sections to find out how to change your primary email type and how to access a contact's personal email when you use Apollo's search.
Change Your Primary Email Type
You need admin access to change your primary email type. Reach out to your team's Apollo admin to update these settings.
If you're an admin, you can change your primary email type at any time. However, Apollo only applies the new primary email type to the net new contacts that you request. Apollo doesn't change the primary email for any existing saved contacts. This means you can change your email type without disrupting the contacts that you already enrolled in a sequence.
If you integrated your Apollo account with Salesforce or HubSpot, consider carefully which email type you set as primary. Apollo uses only the primary email address when mapping contact data to your CRM. Apollo can't map secondary emails to a CRM.
To change your primary email type:
- Launch Apollo and go to Settings > Rules of Engagement > Prospecting config.
- Under Primary Email Address, select one of the following email types:
- Business Email
- Personal Email
- Any
- If you selected business email as your primary email type, choose a personal email delivery setting:
- Deliver personal emails for free. Apollo appends personal emails as secondary to the primary business email. This option is selected by default.
- Do not deliver personal emails for free. When enabled, Apollo stops delivering personal email addresses entirely. Select this option if you cannot process personal emails for compliance reasons.
- Click Save.
If you select Any, Apollo still sets a contact's business email as the default. However, if Apollo finds both business and personal emails for a contact, you receive both. In this scenario, Apollo only charges you once for the two emails. Learn more.
You have now updated your primary email. It can take up to 10 minutes for your changes to reflect in Apollo.
Access a Contact's Personal Email
If you set your primary email type to personal or any, you can access all verified email addresses for a contact for one credit. Assuming Apollo finds a contact's verified personal email address, you can view it from the contact's profile page.
When you add a contact to a sequence, Apollo always uses the primary email address. Apollo only displays the secondary email if it can find a verified primary email.
To access email addresses for a contact:
- Launch Apollo and click People.
- Click Net New, then use search filters to refine your search.
- Click Access email to access a contact's email. Apollo searches for the primary email type that you configured.
- Apollo displays a verified email for your selected contact if found. Hover over the located email to see additional details. If Apollo doesn't find a verified email, no new data appears.
If you set your primary email as personal and Apollo can only find a verified business email for a given contact, Apollo doesn't save the business email or charge you any credits.
If you set your primary email as any, Apollo prioritizes a verified business email, but also displays the verified personal email on the contact's profile page. Apollo only charges one credit per contact and displays all the verified email addresses it finds. Learn more.
Next Steps
Ready to make the most of personal and business emails in your outreach? Take these next steps to sharpen your approach.
| Will Apollo Charge Me for More Than One Email per Contact | Understand how credits work when you manage multiple emails per contact to keep your prospecting efficient and cost-effective. |
|---|---|
| Email Status Overview | Get clarity on deliverability when you track email statuses to prioritize the best addresses for outreach. |
| How Apollo Verifies Emails | Boost confidence in your data when you verify email accuracy to reduce bounce rates and protect your sender reputation. |
| Save Contacts and Accounts | Keep your pipeline organized when you save key contacts and accounts to build a clean, actionable prospect list. |
| View and Edit Contacts | Stay in control of your data when you review and update contact details to ensure every outreach hits the right inbox. |