Suzanna Chaplin is the founder of esbconnect, a UK customer acquisition business that allows brands to buy targeted email audiences in the same way they buy paid media.
In July 2026, the company named Go Ape, Simba, Broadband Genie and Costway as new customers for Optivo, an email retargeting platform launched in August 2025, which acquired a database of 17 million British consumers who chose it. Chaplin, who led the management buyout of esbconnect in 2023, said the business now works with more than 600 brands.
He told Business Matters why email is still gaining ground, and why transparency is at the heart of everything we do.
What are you currently doing at esbconnect and Optivo?
We are a small team, so as a founder, I am involved in many areas of the business, but my main focus is sales and key account management: bringing in new business and making sure clients are happy with the services we provide. I also take full responsibility for new product development and innovation, making sure we follow trends and meet consumers where they are.
One example is Optivo, an audience retargeting tool. It uses a GDPR-compliant database of 17 million selected UK email addresses to enable brands to retarget anonymous website visitors who are not in their CRM system, and are not logged in to the site, using email.
Within minutes of their visit, the ideal user is signed up to the ideal email journey, giving them the opportunity to subscribe and ultimately buy. Those who choose to subscribe are immediately added to the brand’s CRM to be trained towards conversion.
How are brands using Optivo?
Over the last 12 months, Optivo has proven itself to be a valuable and effective retargeting tool for brands. In July, we announced four new customers: Go Ape, Simba, Broadband Genie and Costway.
We have seen that between three and five percent of people who enter this process convert into customers. Go Ape reports a return on ad spend of 4.8 against its primary KPI.
What is the inspiration behind your business?
It is the idea that email is not as glamorous or high-profile as many other marketing channels like social, search, online display or CTV, but it works. It’s been around, and used, for over 30 years, and people still rely on it today. According to the Radicati Group’s Email Statistics Report 2024-2028, 392.5 billion emails will be sent and received worldwide every day in 2026, and this number is increasing every year.
When we formed esbconnect in 2014, email was not trusted as an acquisition channel in the UK, because it was associated with bad data. People are spammed with irrelevant, intrusive and annoying messages.
We want to create a transparent buying platform for email, allowing brands to use it as a reliable acquisition channel, just like they would do with social, search or display, and what we’re already doing.
Who do you admire?
There are many people, but I will call two. The first is Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn. Did you know that in 2003, together with Mark Pincus, the founder of Zynga, he bought the Six Degrees patent, which includes the basic “friend request” mechanism that every social network still uses today?
As a patent owner, he could have used his position to kill rival social media startups, but chose not to, fueling the rapid expansion and growth of the industry.
I also love Emma Grede, CEO and founder of the Good American fashion brand. I think she talks about things that a lot of people worry about, including the hard things that moms and entrepreneurs need to hear.
Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?
Where do I start? Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I guess the better question is probably whether I have done the same? And the answer is, not much. I will change most of the things I do, from how I spend my budget, who I see as my main targets and contacts, to how I market my business.
There is no blueprint for a successful business beyond the core principle of creating products that people want or need, and making sure they know they exist. How to do it depends on the situation you find yourself in: the money you have at your disposal, the people you work with, the economic situation, and of course a little luck and good timing.
But I’m proud of what we’ve built here, and there’s one thing I won’t change, the core of my business and my personal outlook on life: stay transparent.
What defines the way you do business?
Transparency without games. You can’t do business with someone unless you trust them. Or you can get away with it, but if you don’t keep your promises, people won’t come back.
We all see it in our everyday life. The restaurants you visited that you won’t visit again because of your own experience can’t be told from a trusted website. Kitchen appliances that look amazing in YouTube videos but don’t work when you try to set them up.
Due to the level of competition in every life, you must promise the gold standard to attract new customers. If you want to keep it, you have to submit. Time and time again.
What advice would you give to someone starting out?
Get out there and meet people. Human connection is still worth its weight in gold.
And I know this has been said a million times before, but only because it’s true: when you go to an industry event, the most profitable result is often not what you hear on a panel or in a keynote presentation, but the conversation you have with strangers in line for coffee or over lunch.
There is an old saying in sales circles: “People buy people first”. In an age where so much business is done remotely, via Zoom or Teams, it doesn’t make sense.