Prospect with Personal and Business Emails

Overview

Apollo categorizes emails into 2 types:

• Business: The email address that a contact uses specifically for work purposes. For example: contactnameexample@apollo.io.
• Personal: The email address that a contact uses for private affairs outside of working hours. For example: contactnameexample252@gmail.com.

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 are more likely to need a contact's personal email. If you sell to a B2B market, you are more likely to engage with a contact through their business email.

Refer to the sections below 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.

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Change Your Primary Email Type

If you are not an admin, you cannot access the necessary settings to change your primary email type. Please contact your Apollo admins for help.

If you are an admin, you can change your primary email at any time. However, Apollo only applies the new primary email type to the net new contacts that you request. Apollo does not 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.

To change your primary email:

1. Launch Apollo and click Settings > Prospecting Config.
2. Find the Primary Email Address section. Here, you have 3 options: Business, Personal, or Any.
   
   Click the email type that you want to set as primary. Then, click Save. 
    

   Emails Galore!

   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 1 credit for the 2 emails.
   
   For more information about email credit charges, refer to Will Apollo Charge Me For More than One Email Per Contact?.

You have now updated your primary email. It can take up to 10 minutes for your changes to reflect in your prospecting system.

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Change Your Primary Email Type in the Apollo Chrome Extension

You can also change your primary email type directly within the Chrome extension. To do so:

1. Open the Chrome extension icon on the right side of a website, then click the Settings icon.
2. Access the Settings tab. Then, select an option from the Primary Email drop-down.

You have now updated your primary email from within the Chrome extension.

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Access a Contact's Personal Email

If you set your primary email as Personal or Any, you can access all verified email addresses for a contact for 1 credit. Assuming Apollo finds a contact's verified personal email address, you can view it from that contact's profile page.

To access email addresses for a contact:

1. Launch Apollo and click Search > People.
2. Apply filters to refine your search.
   
   If your primary email type is Personal, you can only filter by email status in the Saved tab. If your primary email type is Business, you can filter by email Status in both the Saved and Net New tabs.
3. Click the Net New tab. Then, click the name of the contact from which you want to access information.
4. Click Access Email & Phone Number on the contact's profile page.
5. Apollo verifies the data and displays the personal email on the contact's profile page.

   

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