Study finds 76% of AI-generated sales emails were invalid addresses
What happened
A study by Hunter tested a dozen leading LLMs for sales prospecting and found that 76% of the email addresses they returned failed verification. AI performed well at prospect research but poorly at providing accurate contact data. Hunter recommends a 5-step workflow that uses AI for research while relying on a verified B2B database for actual contacts, plus intent data like job postings and funding announcements to trigger personalized outreach.
Why it matters
AI can save you time researching prospects but you should never trust it to provide email addresses. Always verify contact data through a dedicated tool before sending outreach. Intent data, such as job postings mentioning specific keywords, can help you time your outreach to when a company is most likely to need your product.
Who's doing it
Hunter, a B2B email verification and prospecting tool, conducted the study and built the 5-step workflow. They offer intent data features that surface job postings and funding announcements for trigger-based outreach campaigns.
Try it
- Pick a target company and ask an AI like ChatGPT to research their business model, recent news, and likely pain points. Expected outcome: A short research summary you can use to personalize outreach.
- Use a verification tool like Hunter to find a valid email address for your contact at that company. Expected outcome: A verified email you can trust.
- Go to Hunter and search for the company to see recent job postings or funding announcements. Expected outcome: A trigger event you can reference in your outreach email to show relevance.
Read the original at hunter.io
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The Anchor what could go wrong
Breaking: three out of four AI-generated emails are landing in the void. Think about the sales rep who trusts this, sends 500 outreach emails, and 380 bounce. Their domain reputation is torched.
The Yinzer
Ain't this just common sense? You don't ask a magic 8-ball for somebody's phone number either. Use the AI for what it's good at and quit being a jagoff about it.