Optivo for Emarsys: Recover Anonymous Visitors, PECR-Compliant

Emarsys visitor identification through Optivo, by esbconnect, finds 10-30% of anonymous visitors who are not on your CRM and emails them under PECR and GDPR -safe consent. Encouraging them back to site to purchase or via a frictionless in-email opt-into sign up to your CRM. If they do opt-in, it creates opt-in contacts in Emarsys via API. Optivo email Retargeting and visitor identification technology is driving 4-18x ROAS.

What is Emarsys visitor identification, and how does Optivo do it?

Emarsys is built around contacts you already hold, particularly for browse and cart abandonment automations triggered by known-customer behaviour. It has no way to see the anonymous majority of your site traffic, people who browse or view a product and leave before ever becoming a contact record. Optivo’s tag sits on your own website, not inside Emarsys, and identifies a portion of that anonymous traffic against a permissioned email graph. Optivo, never your business, sends the retargeting email, acting as sender of record under its own consent chain throughout. This enables you to retarget anonymous site visitors not on your CRM via email and protect the sender’s reputation and domain health of your email program.

Where you provide Optivo with API credentials for your Emarsys account, opted-in visitors are created as contacts using Emarsys’s contact creation endpoint, with consent fields set from the outset. Optivo can also check a contact’s existing opt-out or opt-instatus back from Emarsys before sending, so anyone already on your consumer base is never emailed or those that unsubscribed is excluded. This ensures you only retarget via Optivo, those that your could never reach.

Does Emarsys need to be given API access for this to work?

Only if you want contacts created automatically and or to use it for suppression management. Suppressions (removing your current contacts from any Optivo sends) can be managed via Emarsy, or via a bulk upload to a secure s3 bucket, or via the tag on site, we can in real-time add an email address to your suppression file .

Should you choose to give Optivo permission, this would be a connection you authorise with your own credentials, not something that happens by default. Without it, Optivo still identifies and emails anonymous visitors under its own consent chain, the API connection automates creating opted-in contacts in Emarsys and keeps targeting suppressed for anyone already excluded there or current customers.

Why can’t Emarsys identify anonymous visitors on its own?

Emarsys’s browse and cart abandonment automations trigger off contacts it already holds. Anonymous visitor identification requires a pixel that identifies someone before any contact record exists.

In order for optivo tags to correctly identify someone, the consumer must accept marketing consent on your CMP on the site.

Optivo then has permission to read information about them. We then match that information (information like IP address, device, user agent etc.) back to our consumer email graph and if we have a match, we check we have explicit consent to mail them and they are not on your CRM. If we do and they are not, we send the email.

The database behind Optivo is esbconnect’s and all consumer records are opted in to receive marketing emails under www.opt-me-in.com. we provide them with information on the the types of emails they receive and the brands we work with at the point of opt-in. Then during the welcome journey, they receive an email dedicated to Optivo. They can opt-out at any point.

See our full breakdown of how PECR applies to anonymous visitor identification for the specific regulations and ICO guidance involved. In short, Optivo operates as sender of record under its own consent chain, so your business never holds or emails a list of matched identities directly.

What results should a UK Emarsys user expect?

Two figures matter here, and we would rather understate them than oversell: typical match rates run 10-30% of qualifying anonymous traffic, and campaigns built on those matches have delivered 4-18x ROAS across live UK ecommerce accounts. Both figures move with traffic quality, basket value, and how tightly the retargeting message is targeted to the browsing behaviour that triggered it.

Across esbconnect’s live UK ecommerce accounts, results in this range are typical rather than exceptional. Match rate and ROAS both depend heavily on traffic volume and basket value, which is why we have given you a range rather than a single headline number.

How does the Emarsys connection work day-to-day?

Optivo’s tag runs on your site and identifies and emails anonymous visitors continuously, independent of any connection to Emarsys. Where API credentials are in place, anyone who receives an email from Optivo and chooses to opt-in to the brand are they created as newly opted-in  contact in Emarsys.

Prior to Optivo sending an email it checks opt-in status in Emarsys before every send so anyone already unsubscribed or active customer is excluded automatically, keeping Optivo pure acquisition, focus on net-new email growth.

Your existing Emarsys automations and campaigns for known contacts continue exactly as they are, this process only adds newly recovered, opted-in contacts to that pool.

Is this compliant alongside our existing GDPR obligations for Emarsys data?

Your existing UK GDPR obligations around the contact data already inside Emarsys are unaffected. Optivo only writes new, opted-in contacts via the API connection you authorise, and only when the consumer explicitly opts-in.

It checks existing opt-in status to avoid duplicate targeting. The compliance question specific to anonymous visitor identification sits under GDPR and handled through your CMP (consent management platform) on site

Next step: See how Optivo would connect to your Emarsys account.