How Do Spammers Get My Email ID and How Can I Prevent It?

Are you frequently bombarded by unsolicited emails flooding your inbox? You're not alone. The bitter truth is that your professional email address, that precious digital ID distinguishing you in the virtual corporate world, might be serving as a goldmine for spammers.

You might be wondering, "How did spammers even get my email address?" And more importantly, "How can I stop them?" The short answer? Data brokers.

The Role of Data Brokers in Email Spam

Data brokers like Apollo and ZoomInfo work like virtual gold panners, sifting through the internet's streams for valuable nuggets: your email IDs. Once they strike gold, these brokers compile massive databases filled with thousands of B2B email addresses. Then, they sell them off for pennies on the dollar. For spammers, these databases are akin to an all-you-can-eat buffet, providing an endless supply of emails to target.

But How Can You Check If You're on Data Vendors Database?

A startling reality of this digital age is that your email address can end up in such databases without your knowledge or explicit consent. However, there are ways you can check if your email address is sitting on one of these data broker's lists:

Search for Your Email Online: Enter your email address into a search engine and see what comes up. If your email is publicly available on websites or directories, it's likely in a data broker's database.

Monitor Your Inbox: A sudden increase in cold emails can be a clear indicator that your email address has been sold.

Use Email Lookup Services: Tools like Unspamify can help identify if your email address is floating around online. Please note, these services may not have access to every data broker's list, but they can provide a good starting point.

How Can You Protect Yourself?

The truth is, it's almost impossible to stop every cold email from reaching your inbox. However, you can dramatically reduce the number of cold emails you receive by removing your email address from these databases.

Now, you might be thinking, "How can I do that?" Well, there are two options:

DIY: You can manually remove your email address from these databases. It's a time-consuming process, roughly taking around 4-6 hours, but it's possible. We have several guides and articles available to help you with this process.

Unspamify: If spending hours manually removing your email from these databases doesn't sound appealing, that's where Unspamify comes in. We can do the work for you.

Our users have experienced an 80% reduction in the volume of cold emails they receive. Plus, they report an improvement in the quality of cold emails that do land in their inbox, and they save approximately seven hours per week.