What Is EMTAK and How to Use It to Find the Right Companies?
What Is EMTAK?
EMTAK is an industry classification system. It shows what a company does.
Every company in the Estonian Business Registry has at least one registered activity. This is recorded as an EMTAK code.
For example, a company's activity might be related to:
- construction
- transport
- IT services
- retail
- manufacturing
Simply put, EMTAK helps you understand what industry a company operates in.
Why Does EMTAK Matter?
You can't always sell your product or service to everyone.
This is where EMTAK is useful. It helps you distinguish companies by industry.
For example:
- if you sell software for accountants, you need to find accounting firms
- if you offer services to the construction sector, you need to find construction companies
- if you are looking for partners in a specific industry, EMTAK helps you narrow the market
EMTAK lets you filter companies by what they actually do.
How to Use EMTAK?
Using the EMTAK classification, you can easily find companies operating in the right industry.
For example, if you want to find companies in construction, you search for construction-related EMTAK codes and find companies based on that.
But here is an important point.
EMTAK Alone Doesn't Build a Good Sales List
Why? Because within the same industry, companies can be very different:
- one is very small
- another is large and growing fast
- one operates only in one county
- another operates nationwide
- some are active, some are barely functioning
This means EMTAK helps you start, but on its own it is usually not enough.
Where Do People Go Wrong?
The most common mistake is targeting all companies found by an EMTAK code.
The result is often poor because the list is too broad.
It may include companies that:
- don't need your service
- don't have the budget for it
- are too small for your offer
- don't fit by location or profile
This means a lot of work with very few results.
How to Get More Value from EMTAK?
EMTAK works best when used together with other filters.
For example, you can add:
- revenue
- number of employees
- location
- company age
- VAT registration status
- growth or recent changes
Then instead of just getting companies in an industry, you get a much more precise list.
For example, not just:
"construction companies"
but rather:
"Construction companies in Tallinn and Harju county with revenue between 1–5 million euros and at least 5 employees"
That is a much more useful input for sales.
How Innovadata Helps
Innovadata helps you use EMTAK in a way that delivers real value.
Instead of picking one industry and getting a long generic list, Innovadata lets you make your selection much more precise.
You can use EMTAK together with other data and build a list based on what your ideal client actually looks like.
For example, you can check:
- what industry a company operates in
- how large its revenue is
- where it is located
- how many employees it has
- whether it meets your target group criteria
This saves time and reduces wasted effort.
Practical Example
Let's say you offer services to manufacturing companies.
One option is to search for all manufacturing-related companies. But that gives you too broad a result.
A much better approach is to search for:
- manufacturing companies
- in Estonia
- revenue from 500,000 euros
- at least 10 employees
A list like that is already much closer to the people who are actually worth calling or emailing.
Bottom Line
EMTAK is a simple and useful way to understand what a company does.
It is a good starting point when you want to find companies in the right industry.
But real value comes when you use EMTAK together with other filters. Then instead of a generic list, you get a targeted selection that you can actually use for sales.
Innovadata makes this work easier — you can quickly find companies based on EMTAK that fit your target group much better.
If you want to find not just more companies, but the right companies, start with EMTAK and filter smartly from there.