Imagine this:
You’ve spent weeks creating a comprehensive blog post or launching a new product. Now, it’s time to promote it, so you craft a few cold emails and contact some organizations. The result? Nothing–you don’t receive any responses, backlinks, or tractions.
The thing is that successful link building campaigns thrive on effective outreach. And with many emails landing in your inbox every day, you need the right outreach tool to help you stand out and track your progress.
In this guide, we’ll discuss the best outreach tools for 2025 and how they can streamline your link building efforts–whether you’re an SEO specialist, website owner, or marketer. We’ll also provide tips to help you choose the right tool for your needs and ensure that your campaigns deliver maximum results.
Why outreach tools matter for link building success
Building your link building outreach strategy can take time–from building a list of potential prospects, to crafting email templates and follow-up email campaigns. Sometimes, you might only receive one positive reply from all the hundreds of emails you’ve sent.
Why does this happen?
Maybe you’re not targeting the right prospects, or your subject lines aren’t engaging enough. Without the right tools, it’s hard to tell what’s working and what’s not.
This is where outreach tools come in.
They help you:
- Find high-quality prospects.
- Automate email outreach while still adding some kind of personalization.
- Track your emails’ open rates, replies, and conversions. Then, you can use this data to refine your strategy based on what works best and what needs improvement.
- Scale your efforts without affecting quality.
Best outreach tools for link building in 2025
Let’s look at some of the top tools that can make your outreach link building efforts successful.
1. BuzzStream: Best for prospecting and relationship management
BuzzStream is more than just an outreach tool. It’s more like a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) platform for link builders where you can track conversations, organize your contacts, and manage large-scale outreach campaigns more efficiently.
Features
Here are the features you can benefit from when using BuzzStream:
- Prospecting and research: BuzzStream finds new outreach opportunities for you with its built-in research tools. You can import a list of potential prospects or use the tool to get contact information from websites.
- Outreach tracking: Track your conversation history with each contact to ensure that there are no duplicate outreach efforts or missed responses.
- Automated follow-up: Schedule follow-ups so that the platform sends them to your prospects at specific intervals. This helps boost response rates without manual intervention.
- Evaluate performance: This is like A/B testing. BuzzStream tells you which email templates and subject lines get the best responses.
Let’s say you’ve set up an outreach campaign for a client in the travel industry. With BuzzStream, you can categorize your prospects by niche–whether they’re travel bloggers, local tourism agencies, etc. and set reminders so that you can follow up after two weeks. This ensures that no opportunity slips through the cracks.
Pricing
BuzzStream has four pricing plans. The starter plan, which starts at $24 per month, is ideal for beginners with 1,000 contacts. For big companies, the custom plan, starting at $999 per month, might be best, as it works with 300,000+ contact lists.
The first three plans include a 14-day free trial. This means you can try the platform for 14 days at no extra cost to see if it works for you.
2. Hunter.io: Best for finding verified email addresses
Hunter.io is a tool for finding and verifying email addresses. It uses public web data to find a prospect’s contact information, ensuring that the email address you contact is correct (and verified). This reduces the chances of email bounces and improves your link building outreach rate.
Features
Hunter.io comes with a lot of features:
- Domain search: You can input the domain name (for example, “companyname.com”), and Hunter.io gives you a list of the verified email addresses associated with “companyname.com”.
- Email verification: The tool doesn’t just provide you with email addresses. It checks that the address is valid to maintain a high deliverability. Sending emails to invalid contacts (emails no longer in use) is one of the common reasons for high hard bounce rates.
- Chrome extension: Install Hunter.io’s Chrome extension so that you can extract email addresses faster while browsing websites–without leaving the page you’re on.
- Campaign management: Use its built-in tools to manage and personalize outreach campaigns. You can also track open and reply rates.
Pricing
Hunter.io offers both free and paid plans, depending on the number of email searches and verifications you need.
This is the Email Finder’s free version:
This is a snapshot of its pricing structure:
For non-profit organizations, there is a 30% discount on all monthly plans. Sign up first, and then contact the customer care team to apply your discount.
3. Pitchbox: Best for automated outreach with personalization
Another outreach tool we recommend is Pitchbox. Designed for SEO professionals, it automates the whole outreach process–from discovering new prospects to managing follow-up emails while keeping every conversation personalized.
Features
Let’s look at some of the features that Pitchbox offers:
- AI help: The tool’s AI assistant can help you craft email outreach templates, hyper-personalize your emails, and find high-quality prospects based on relevant keywords. It also replies to your emails, so you don’t have to spend hours crafting the best response for each prospect.
- Segmentation: With Pitchbox, you can segment your audience, campaigns, and link building strategies. You can then track their KPIs (key performance indicators) and compare results. Use the data to refine your outreach strategy.
- Campaign integrations: No more tab-switching headaches. Connect Pitchbox to your favorite tools, such as Ahrefs, Moz, or SEMrush, and manage all your data from one place.
Pricing
Pitchbox offers three pricing plans starting at $165 per month. These plans suit link builders with one website, growing agencies, SEO agencies, and publishers. The plans vary depending on the number of workspaces offered, prospecting searches, and data credits.
You can subscribe to the free trial to see how Pitchbox works. For a deeper look, you can book a demo.
4. Respona: Best for PR and content promotion outreach
Respona is an outreach tool built for content marketers. It combines AI-powered research with personalized email outreach to facilitate connecting with influencers, journalists, and bloggers.
Features
While some of Respona’s features are similar to Hunter.io and Pitchbox, it also offers:
- Plug-and-play templates: Respona offers many templates for your outreach strategy. For instance, the news outreach strategy lets you contact journalists for press coverage.
- Campaign automation: Set your outreach on auto-pilot with recurring campaigns.
- Personalization: With Respona, you can personalize all your cold email campaigns. After you import your contact list, create emails with variables to personalize your email content. For example, to address the recipient by their first name, insert the “@firt_name” variable.
Pricing
For outreach automation, you can choose the starter, pro, or unlimited plan, and they start at $198 per month. If you’re unsure, you can test any plans for free for 14 days.
The Enterprise plan has advanced features for larger teams, including a dedicated success manager, enhanced security measures, and quarterly success reviews. If interested, you can schedule a one-on-one demo to see if it’s what you’re looking for.
5. Mailshake: Best for LinkedIn and email automation
Mailshake has a user-friendly interface and helps link builders, sales professionals, and marketers send personalized emails, automate follow-up emails, and track engagement from just one dashboard.
Features
Let’s look at some of Mailshake’s features:
- AI email writer: Say Goodbye to writer’s block with Mailshake’s AI email writer– the writing assistant tool that auto-generates three email variations for you. No writing is required from your end– just select the version you like best for your outreach campaign.
- LinkedIn automation: It automates your LinkedIn messages, profile views, and connection requests. Instead of copying and pasting the same message every time you connect with someone, Mailshake allows you to upload a spreadsheet with your LinkedIn prospects and their URL and set up a campaign with automated messages.
- Extension: Install Mailshake’s extension to find new prospects on Linkedin from your browser.
Pricing
Want to see Mailshake in action? This outreach tool has three pricing plans, with the most popular being Email Outreach. The most popular plan starts at $49 per month. For discounts, consider opting for a yearly plan.
Mailshake also works with most mail accounts, like Gmail, G Suite, Office 365, and Outlook.
The plans don’t offer a free trial. However, the company states that it provides concierge onboarding, deliverability training, and other resources to help users succeed in their outreach campaigns.
6. Lemlist: Best for personalized visuals
Lemlist stands out from its competitors. It allows users to personalize not just emails but also images and videos–ideal if you’re looking to “humanize” your campaign. (Bonus: According to Campaign Monitor, adding personalized images to your email outreach campaign can increase your click-through rate by 29%.)
It’s a favorite for link builders and SEOs who want to leave a lasting impression on their prospects.
Features
Lemlist has many features for your link building outreach strategy:
- Image and video personalization: Customize your visuals with your prospect’s name or a personalized message. It helps capture attention and increases your chance of getting a positive response. This especially applies if you’re contacting large organizations–they receive hundreds of emails, which is why your outreach content has to be unique.
- Email warm-up feature: Lemlist ensures that your emails land in your prospects’ inboxes (and not in their spam folder) through the lemwarm feature. This works on autopilot and warms up your email address to boost deliverability.
- Voice message: Want to personalize your outreach link building efforts even more? Add a voice message to your cold email campaigns to increase the likelihood of positive replies.
Pricing
If you subscribe to Lemlist’s free plan, you can use the Chrome extension to find and verify new contacts. However, you can’t export more than 100 emails.
For more features, like personalized onboarding and automated LinkedIn actions, there are three paid plans, starting at $69 per month. The yearly plans, however, come at a discounted rate.
7. Ontolo: Best for multi-channel outreach
Features
Ontolo’s main features include:
- Multi-channel outreach: Link building outreach doesn’t need to be solely email-based. With Ontolo, you can reach prospects across different channels, including social media and phone calls, from a centralized platform.
- Personalized outreach: You don’t have to think about what to write in the next follow-up message. Ontolo provides customized templates for your cold emails, social media messages, and phone call scripts to help boost engagement and response rates.
- Integrations: This outreach tool can integrate with CRMs, social media profiles, and marketing automation tools. Thus, you can connect your outreach efforts with other parts of your marketing strategy.
- Relationship management: Track every interaction you have with your contacts. Store their contact information, communication history, and key details.
Pricing
This outreach tool offers three pricing options, starting at $97 per month. Each plan comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
For a custom plan, you’ll have to contact the company directly.
How to choose the right outreach tool for your needs
Before choosing an outreach tool for link building, you should first have a clear understanding of your goals, workflow, budget, and resources. We know so many options are available that it’s easy to get overwhelmed.
Here are some factors to consider to help you make the best decision.
Assess your budget
This is an essential factor, as you don’t want to overspend. Some tools are free or have affordable entry-level plans. However, others offer premium features at a higher cost.
Questions to ask yourself:
- How much can I spend each month on outreach?
- Is my outreach strategy a long-term or short-term investment?
- Which features do I really need? Unlimited email campaigns? Unlimited email warm-up function?
For example, if you own a startup, you might prioritize essential features like email tracking and follow-ups. If you own a larger agency with ongoing outreach, you can invest in reporting and advanced automation.
Consider the learning curve
Some outreach tools are easy to use, while others may require more training. Check how much time and effort you can dedicate to learning a new tool.
Ask yourself the following:
- Are there tutorials available online? Can the customer care team help?
- How quickly can my team adapt to the new tool?
- Does it come with a free trial?
If you’re just starting out, you might opt for a tool that has a simple interface. If you run a large agency, you might consider investing in more advanced features,
Understand your workflow needs
Make sure that the outreach tool fits seamlessly into your existing workflow. Consider who will be using the link building tool and the level of automation and customization you need to implement.
Ask yourself the following:
- How many team members do I need to access the tool?
- Can the tool help with scheduling and managing follow-up messages?
- Which parts of my outreach process do I want to automate? The content writing part? Email scheduling?
If you’re managing outreach for multiple projects, you’ll want a tool that helps you keep everything organized and easily accessible. Tools with customizable workflows and tagging systems can be a game-changer for staying on top of follow-ups.
Wrap up
Effective outreach is the backbone of any successful link building strategy. There are many tools for email outreach that you can use for email tracking and follow-up automations. You can then do an A/B test to see what works best.
Think of it this way. Outreach isn’t just about sending cold emails or LinkedIn messages. It’s about building long-lasting, meaningful connections and positioning your brand for growth.
Need help with link building outreach? You don’t have to do this alone. At uSERP, we’ve helped ActiveCampaign, Preply, and Glassbox (and more!) increase their search engine rankings through high-quality backlinks.
And we can help you, too. We handle all outreach ourselves! Book an intro call with us to get started.
