Should You Cold Email info@ Addresses? What Our Data Shows for Small Local Businesses

Griffin Morris·October 8, 2026·3 min read

If you prospect owner-run local businesses, keep the ones that only list info@. In Resquared customers' cold email to businesses with 1 to 5 locations, info@ produced more positive leads per business emailed than a named email on the business's own domain, and the owner's personal Gmail or Yahoo did even better.

The objection we hear on demos

A business broker raised it on a demo with us. He was looking for dental practice owners who might sell, and a lot of those practices only list info@:

"Because that gets into a secretary, an office manager, who's probably not going to be focusing on passing it on to the owner."

It is one of the most common doubts we hear. A named address like jane@ on the practice's own domain looks more direct than info@. So we checked which one actually turns into conversations.

What we measured

• Resquared customers' cold email to local businesses, January 2025 to September 2026
• One business emailed in one campaign counts once
• A positive lead is a reply that shows interest or starts a real conversation
• The address type comes from the email on the business record: a general inbox (info@, contact@, office@ and similar), the owner's personal mailbox (Gmail, Yahoo and similar), or a named email on the business's own domain
• Owner-run businesses with 1 to 5 locations

What we found

Compared with a named email on the business's own domain:

• 1 location: info@ produced 1.32x as many positive leads per business emailed. The owner's personal email produced 1.60x.
• 2 to 5 locations: info@ produced 1.16x as many. The owner's personal email produced 1.74x.

The direction was the same in 2025 and in 2026. The named work email was the weakest of the three address types in both years.

Why info@ works at owner-run shops

At a shop with a few locations, the general inbox is usually read by the owner or by someone who works right next to them. The business is still the owner's baby, and they watch that inbox. A named work email often belongs to one employee who is not the person who decides.

On one onboarding call we reviewed, a cold email to an auto repair shop's info@ address got a reply from the owner himself: he was the owner, and he wanted to talk.

What to do with this

1. Keep good-fit owner-run businesses on your list even when info@ is the only listed email.
2. If you have the owner's personal email, use that first.
3. Test it in your own niche. Results vary by niche and by sender, so compare positive leads per business emailed from general inboxes and named emails in your own campaigns before you change your list rules.

A note on our bias

We sell local business data, and much of it is general inboxes like info@. That is exactly why we measured what happens after our customers email those addresses instead of judging them by how personal they look. We first wrote about this in 2021: How to effectively use email to reach prospects.

FAQ

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.

Should I email info@ at a large chain?

This finding is about owner-run businesses with 1 to 5 locations. Large chains and franchises are a different case, so find the right person there.

Is the owner's personal email better than info@?

In our data, yes. The owner's personal Gmail or Yahoo produced the most positive leads per business emailed at 1 to 5 locations, and both beat a named email on the business domain.

For a short version of this answer, see Should you email info@ addresses when prospecting local businesses?