How to Find Brand Contacts (and Who to Email)
The person to email at a brand is whoever owns creator or influencer partnerships. Look for titles like influencer marketing manager, creator partnerships manager, brand partnerships manager or social media manager. At a small company, it's often the marketing manager or the founder. You can find them through the brand's own website and creator pages, LinkedIn, the agency that runs its influencer program, and its press page. Then confirm the email address before you send, and keep your outreach personal, honest and easy to opt out of.
Below: which roles actually decide, where to find them, how to work out an email address, and the rules worth knowing.
Who signs off on creator partnerships
Different companies organize this differently. The right contact depends mostly on company size.
At large brands
Big consumer brands often have a dedicated team. Titles to look for:
- Influencer marketing manager / specialist
- Creator partnerships manager or creator marketing lead
- Brand partnerships manager
- Social media manager (sometimes owns creators, sometimes only the brand's own accounts)
- Affiliate or partner program manager (for commission-based programs)
Large brands also frequently hand their creator programs to an influencer marketing agency. In that case, the agency's talent or campaign managers pick creators, and pitching the brand directly may just get you forwarded.
At mid-size brands
Creator deals often sit with a marketing manager, brand manager, growth marketing manager or head of marketing. Sometimes the PR or communications manager handles product seeding and creator relationships.
At small brands and startups
The founder, head of marketing or a one-person marketing team usually decides. These are often the most responsive contacts for small creators because there's no agency in the way and the person reading your email can say yes.
Who not to pitch
- Customer support inboxes. They're built to handle orders, not partnerships.
- Sales reps. They sell to customers; they don't buy media.
- Executives at huge companies. A CMO at a global brand is not reading creator pitches. Go to the team that runs the program.
- Recruiters and HR. Not unless you're applying for a job.
Where to find brand contacts
1. The brand's website
Start here. Check:
- "Creators," "Influencers," "Ambassadors," "Partners," or "Affiliates" pages. Many brands have an application form or a dedicated email. If a brand tells you how it wants to be pitched, use that route first.
- Contact pages. Look for a partnerships or marketing address rather than general support.
- Press or media pages. These often list a PR contact or press email. PR teams may handle creator seeding, and if not, they can usually point you to who does.
- Footer links and "About" pages. Small brands sometimes list their team.
2. LinkedIn
Search for the company, open its "People" tab, and filter by keywords like "influencer," "creator," "partnerships," "social" or "marketing." Look at titles and recent activity to find who works on creator programs.
Use LinkedIn by hand. Its User Agreement prohibits using software, scripts, bots, crawlers or browser plugins to scrape or copy profiles and data (LinkedIn User Agreement). Looking someone up and sending a polite connection request or message is normal use; running a scraper is not.
3. Instagram, TikTok and YouTube
- Brand bios. Some list a collab email or a link to a creator form.
- Tagged posts and past sponsorships. See which creators the brand works with, then check those posts. Paid partnership labels and creator captions sometimes name the agency or campaign.
- Brand team members. Marketers often mention their role in their own bios.
4. Agency rosters and case studies
If a brand works with creators through an agency, find the agency. Clues:
- Creators' captions or descriptions mentioning an agency.
- Influencer marketing agencies' websites, which often show client logos and case studies.
- Trade press coverage of campaigns that names the agency.
Many agencies have a creator sign-up form or a talent database. Getting into an agency's system can put you in front of several brands at once.
5. Platform creator programs
Platforms run their own matchmaking programs. YouTube has BrandConnect for eligible creators (YouTube Help) and TikTok has TikTok One (TikTok). Eligibility rules and availability change, so check the current requirements on each platform. These programs don't replace direct outreach, but they're another way in.
6. Trade shows, events and communities
Industry trade shows, creator events and niche communities put you in a room with brand marketers. A short in-person conversation and a business card make a later email warm instead of cold.
How to figure out an email address
Once you have a name, you need the address.
Look for it in public first
The person may list their work email in a LinkedIn profile, a conference speaker page, a press release, or a podcast appearance's show notes. A published address is the most reliable.
Use the company's email pattern
Most companies use a consistent format. Common ones:
- first@company.com
- first.last@company.com
- firstlast@company.com
- flast@company.com (first initial + last name)
If you can find any one real email at the company (a press contact, a team member who posted theirs), you can usually tell the pattern.
Verify before sending
A guessed address is a guess. Sending to addresses that don't exist creates bounces, and frequent bounces can hurt how email providers treat your mail. If you can't confirm a pattern, send to the one address you're confident in and ask to be pointed to the right person.
This is the step STAKD's Partner Finder replaces: instead of piecing together a name and a pattern, it looks up the marketing decision-maker at a brand and their verified email.
When you can't find anyone
Use the creator form or the press email, and write a short note asking who handles creator partnerships. "Could you point me to the right person?" gets forwarded more often than a full pitch sent to the wrong desk.
Respectful and lawful outreach
Brand outreach is normal business. Do it in a way you'd be fine with if you were on the receiving end.
CAN-SPAM basics
The CAN-SPAM Act is the main US federal law for commercial email. According to the FTC, it covers all commercial messages, not only bulk email, and makes no exception for business-to-business email (FTC). A pitch promoting your services can fall under it.
The FTC lists these core requirements:
- Accurate header info. Your "From," "To" and "Reply-To" must identify who's really sending.
- No deceptive subject lines. The subject has to reflect what's in the email.
- Identify the message as an ad (the FTC lists this as a requirement for commercial messages).
- Include a valid physical postal address. A street address, a PO box registered with USPS, or a registered private mailbox.
- Tell people how to opt out, and make it easy.
- Honor opt-outs promptly, within 10 business days, and don't charge or ask for extra info to do it.
- You're responsible even if someone else sends for you.
Penalties can be significant; the FTC states them per violating email on that page.
This is general information, not legal advice. If you're sending outreach at volume or to people outside the US, where other laws such as Canada's anti-spam law or EU privacy rules may apply, talk to a lawyer.
Practical habits
- Send one-to-one, not blasts. Each email should be written for the person reading it.
- Use your real name and a real reply-to address.
- Put a mailing address in your signature.
- Include a simple out: "If this isn't a fit, reply 'no thanks' and I won't follow up."
- Stop when someone says stop. Log it so you don't pitch them again by accident.
- Don't buy email lists. You don't know where the addresses came from, and they're not the people you want anyway.
- Don't use personal emails or phone numbers you dug up from non-work sources. Stick to work channels.
- Respect platform rules. Manual research is fine; scraping in violation of a site's terms is not.
Keep a contact record
Each time you find a contact, keep a record: brand, name, title, email, where you found it, date pitched, follow-ups, and outcome. People change jobs often in marketing, so note the date you verified an address. A contact who moves to a new company may become your way in there. Logging opt-outs here is also how you avoid pitching someone again after they've said no.
How STAKD handles this
Finding the right person by hand means checking a brand's site, searching LinkedIn, guessing an email pattern and hoping it doesn't bounce, then repeating that for every brand on your list. STAKD shortens that to a lookup and a click:
- Partner Finder looks up the marketing decision-maker at a brand and their verified email, so you skip the pattern-guessing.
- Add to Contacts saves that person to your brand CRM in one click, with the brand attached.
- Outreach status and follow-up dates live on each contact, and follow-ups show on your dashboard calendar, so you can see who's been pitched, who replied, who said no, and what's due next.
- Perfect Pitch drafts a personalized pitch for that brand once you have the contact. You edit it and send it yourself, one-to-one, which is how outreach should go anyway.
The manual routes above still matter, especially a brand's own creator page when it tells you how it wants to be pitched. STAKD is free to start on the Starter plan with no card, with a 14-day free trial of Pro features. See plans.
Next steps
Once you have the right person, write the pitch. Start with how to pitch brands as a small creator, borrow a structure from our brand pitch email templates, and plan your follow-ups with how to follow up with brands.