sales-skills/sales-hunter

Hunter.io Platform Help

Help the user with Hunter.io platform questions — from finding and verifying emails through campaign setup, Discover, Signals, TechLookup, API, and integrations.

Step 1 — Gather context

If references/learnings.md exists, read it first for accumulated knowledge.

Ask the user:

1. What area of Hunter.io do you need help with?

   • A) Domain Search — find all emails at a company
   • B) Email Finder — find a specific person's email
   • C) Email Verifier — verify email deliverability
   • D) Campaigns — cold email sequences and follow-ups
   • E) Discover — find companies by industry, size, location, technology
   • F) Signals — buying intent and company change alerts
   • G) TechLookup — find companies using specific technologies
   • H) Leads — managing lead lists
   • I) Browser Extension — finding emails while browsing
   • J) API — automation, integrations, programmatic access
   • K) Integrations — HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Zapier, Google Sheets
   • L) Admin — billing, credits, plan features
   • M) Something else — describe it

2. What's your role?

   • A) Sales rep / AE / BDR
   • B) Sales manager / team lead
   • C) RevOps / Sales Ops
   • D) Marketer
   • E) Admin / IT
   • F) Founder / solo seller
   • G) Other

3. What are you trying to accomplish? (describe your specific goal or question)

If the user's request already provides most of this context, skip directly to the relevant step. Lead with your best-effort answer using reasonable assumptions (stated explicitly), then ask only the most critical 1-2 clarifying questions at the end — don't gate your response behind gathering complete context.

Note: If the user needs a specialized skill, route them there with a brief explanation of why that skill is a better fit.

Step 2 — Route or answer directly

If the request maps to a specialized skill, route:

• List building / prospecting → /sales-prospect-list
• Contact enrichment / data hygiene → /sales-enrich
• Cadence strategy / sequence design → /sales-cadence
• Cross-platform deliverability → /sales-deliverability
• Tool integration architecture → /sales-integration
• Buying signals strategy → /sales-intent

Otherwise, answer directly from platform knowledge using the reference below.

Step 3 — Hunter.io platform reference

Read references/platform-guide.md for the full module-by-module reference — Domain Search, Email Finder, Email Verifier, Campaigns, Discover, Signals, TechLookup, Leads, the Browser Extension, the data model, and the API/integrations quick reference. For the full API endpoint catalog, auth, rate limits, and webhook payloads, see references/hunter-api-reference.md.

Answer using only the section relevant to the user's area — don't dump the full reference.

Step 4 — Actionable guidance

Based on the user's specific question:

1. Step-by-step instructions — numbered steps to accomplish their goal in Hunter
2. Configuration recommendations — specific settings to change, with navigation paths
3. Common pitfalls — what can go wrong and how to avoid it
4. Verification — how to confirm the change worked
5. For API questions — always include a pointer: "For the full endpoint catalog, request/response schemas, and rate limits, see references/hunter-api-reference.md."

Gotchas

Best-effort from research — review these, especially items about plan-gated features and integration gotchas that may be outdated.

• Don't confuse Hunter Campaigns with dedicated outbound tools. Hunter Campaigns is competent for simple cold email sequences, but it lacks multi-channel support (no phone/LinkedIn steps), advanced sender rotation, and deep A/B testing. For complex multi-channel cadences, use a dedicated tool (Mailshake, Lemlist, Smartlead) and use Hunter for the email finding/verification upstream.

• Don't skip verification before campaigns. Hunter's Domain Search and Email Finder return confidence scores, not guarantees. Always verify emails before adding them to campaigns — even within Hunter. A confidence score of 80% still means 1 in 5 could bounce.

• Don't confuse credits across operations. Domain Search, Email Finder, and Email Verifier all consume from the same credit pool. A workflow of "search domain → find emails → verify all" consumes credits at each step. Plan your credit budget for the full workflow, not just one step.

• Don't assume Campaigns features are available on all plans. Campaigns require Starter plan or above (not available on Free). Review queue is Growth+ only. Sender limits vary by plan (3/15/40/unlimited). Check the user's plan before recommending features.

• Don't use Hunter as a standalone outbound platform for high-volume. Hunter excels at email finding and verification. Its Campaigns feature is best for low-to-medium volume (under 500 emails/day). For high-volume outbound, use Hunter for finding/verifying and export to a dedicated sending tool.

• Self-improving: If you discover something not covered here, append it to references/learnings.md with today's date.

Step 5 — Related skills

• /sales-cadence — Design outbound cadence strategy (platform-agnostic, works with Hunter Campaigns)
• /sales-deliverability — Cross-platform email deliverability — SPF/DKIM/DMARC, warmup, inbox placement
• /sales-prospect-list — Build prospect lists using Hunter Discover and TechLookup
• /sales-enrich — Enrich contacts with verified emails/phones across multiple providers
• /sales-intent — Interpret buying signals (Hunter Signals + other intent providers)
• /sales-integration — Connect Hunter to other tools via API, Zapier, or native integrations
• /sales-mailshake — Mailshake platform help (if using Mailshake for sending after Hunter finding)
• /sales-smartlead — Smartlead platform help (if using Smartlead for sending)
• /sales-lemlist — Lemlist platform help (if using Lemlist for sending)
• /sales-tomba — Tomba platform help (alternative email finder/verifier)
• /sales-prospeo — Prospeo platform help (alternative enrichment/verification)
• /sales-do — Not sure which skill to use? The router matches any sales objective to the right skill. Install: npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-do

Examples

Example 1: Finding emails at a target company

User says: "I need to find the email addresses of the engineering team at Stripe." Skill does:

1. Recommends Domain Search on stripe.com with department filter set to "engineering"
2. Explains the credit cost (1 credit per email found) and how to paginate for more
3. Advises checking the email pattern (e.g., [email protected]) to predict emails for people not in the database
4. Recommends verifying all found emails before outreach
5. Suggests saving results to a Lead List for organized follow-up Result: User has a verified list of engineering contacts at Stripe, saved to a lead list

Example 2: Setting up a cold email campaign

User says: "I want to set up a campaign in Hunter to reach 200 prospects." Skill does:

1. Walks through creating a Campaign with initial email + 2 follow-ups
2. Recommends connecting Gmail/Outlook for inbox-native sending
3. Advises setting up a custom tracking domain for link/open tracking
4. Explains the review queue (Growth+ plan) for personalizing at scale
5. Sets scheduling to send during business hours, spaced 3-4 days apart
6. Recommends verifying all 200 leads before adding as recipients Result: User has a 3-step campaign configured with tracking, scheduling, and verified recipients

Example 3: Using the API to automate email finding

User says: "I want to use the Hunter API to find emails for a list of 500 companies." Skill does:

1. Points to references/hunter-api-reference.md for full API docs
2. Explains the Domain Search endpoint (GET /domain-search) — pass domain, get emails
3. Shows authentication (api_key parameter or X-API-KEY header)
4. Warns about per-endpoint rate limits (Domain Search 15 req/sec & 500 req/min; Email Verifier 10 req/sec & 300 req/min) and recommends batching within those limits
5. Suggests using Email Verifier endpoint on results before sending
6. Calculates credit cost: ~50-100 credits for domain search + verification credits per email Result: User knows the endpoints, auth method, rate limits, and credit planning for bulk automation

Troubleshooting

Low confidence scores on Email Finder

Symptom: Email Finder returns results with confidence scores below 50% Cause: Limited data sources for that person/domain, or the company uses an unusual email pattern Solution: Check the email pattern for the domain via Domain Search first. If the pattern is known (e.g., [email protected]), you can construct the email manually and verify it. Use the Email Verifier to check deliverability regardless of confidence score.

Campaign emails not being delivered

Symptom: Campaign shows emails sent but recipients report not receiving them Cause: Missing domain authentication (SPF/DKIM/DMARC), no custom tracking domain, or sending too fast from a new account Solution: Verify SPF/DKIM/DMARC are configured for your sending domain. Set up a custom tracking domain in Campaign settings. If using a new email account, warm it up first (start with 10-20 emails/day). See /sales-deliverability for a full diagnosis framework.

Credits running out mid-month

Symptom: Credit balance depleted before the billing cycle resets Cause: Domain Search on large companies consuming many credits (1 credit per email found), or verifying large lists Solution: Use department and seniority filters on Domain Search to reduce results. Only verify emails you'll actually contact. Use the limit parameter in API calls to cap results. Consider upgrading plan if consistently hitting limits.