Put this into practice with Resquared
Resquared is the AI sales platform built for selling to local businesses: the most complete local business database, verified contacts, and outreach written and followed up in your name.
- Verified emails and phone numbers, with owner and staff names on premium plans
- Filter by radius, category, business size, hours and recent reviews
- AI writes each email in your name from the business's own details
- Automated follow-ups that stop when someone replies; replies land in your inbox
Every digital footprint of every brick-and-mortar business, resolved into one record and checked source by source.
See how it worksWe split Resquared customers' cold email to local businesses from January 2025 to September 2026 by the kind of address each email went to, then compared positive leads per business emailed. A positive lead is a reply that shows interest or starts a real conversation.
At single-location businesses, info@ and other general inboxes produced 1.32 times as many positive leads as a named email on the business's own domain, such as jane@ followed by the shop's own domain. At businesses with 2 to 5 locations, they produced 1.16 times as many. The direction was the same in 2025 and in 2026.
The owner's personal Gmail or Yahoo address did best: 1.60 times the named work email at single-location businesses and 1.74 times at 2 to 5 locations. The named work email was the weakest of the three in both years.
At a shop this size, the general inbox is usually read by the owner or by someone who works next to them. A named work email often belongs to one employee who is not the person who decides.
This is about owner-run local businesses. Large chains and franchises are a different case. Results also vary by niche and by sender, so treat it as a starting point and test it with your own list. We are biased here: much of the local business contact data we provide is general inboxes like info@.
What to do
- Keep good-fit owner-run businesses on your list even when info@ is the only listed email.
- Use the owner's personal email first when you have it.
- Compare replies from general inboxes and named emails in your own campaigns before you change your list rules.
Related questions
Does info@ reach the owner?
At small owner-run businesses it often does, because the owner or someone close to them watches the general inbox. In one onboarding call we reviewed, the reply to an info@ email came from the owner himself.
Should I email info@ at a large chain?
Not as a substitute for finding the right person. This finding is about owner-run businesses with 1 to 5 locations.
Is a named work email better than info@?
Not at owner-run shops in our data. A named email on the business's own domain was the weakest address type at businesses with 1 to 5 locations.