Navigating the WordPress Ecosystem and Marketing Automation Evolution

Jonathan (00:00):
Welcome to another episode of Do the Woo. I am your host today, Jonathan Wold. And with me is Rytis Lauris. It’s great to have you. And you’re joining us from Lithuania.

Rytis (00:12):
Correct.

Jonathan (00:14):
And for those who don’t know, it’s a fantastic country in what you describe as the Baltic states. Is that, how do you describe that region of Europe?

Rytis (00:23):
Yeah, that’s usually how people call ourselves to give Lavia and Estonia. So for free states. And basically just mainly it’s because of our common history as all three of us were occupied by Soviet Union not that many years ago. And then we got independent, more or less at the same time. And so we kind of fight together for our independence peacefully, fight it, or almost peacefully.

Jonathan (00:51):
Yeah. I had the pleasure of visiting Lithuania for the first time a couple weeks ago. So you and your team there were fantastic hosts and was learning about the history, and one of the things that I thought was pretty remarkable is that you, yourself were part of what they called the Baltic wave back when you were a child, right?

Rytis (01:09):
Yeah, that’s correct. Yeah, I was at age of six. Yeah. So Baltic Wave was something like unique, absolutely unique. That’s 2 million people across three countries made a human chain, no gaps through the roads, mainly through roads, et cetera, but to three nations, 2 million people, many, many kilometers. Then the standing human chain, that’s the way we expressed our willingness to get independence back.

Jonathan (01:41):
It was incredible. I got to go to one of the museums there and see just a bunch of the pictures and references. So that was pretty incredible. And for those who haven’t been yet, although it’s still really early, there are plans to explore a WordCamp Baltics at some point in the future. So if that happens, I hope folks get a chance to come out and see it for themselves. It’s incredible part of the world.

Rytis (02:06):
Yeah, correct, correct. And definitely we will know why everyone to visit Le AF of that occasion. And yeah, it’s going to be either Leia or Baltics vets, that’s what we’re aiming at. But as well know from Meet up to regional Workcamp, it takes a little bit of time, but I think we have this idea, and of course as always, it takes a little bit of time, but I have no doubts One day we will organize it soon.

Jonathan (02:32):
That is fantastic. So you’ve had a long storied history in the world of technology. Before we talk about Omnisend WordPress and WooCommerce, I’d love to just dig a bit into your own background. Where, when did you first get started in the world of technology? What was that origin like for you?

Rytis (02:51):
Oh, that was absolutely accidental. Back in the days I was studying political sciences, to be honest in diplomacy. And one friend of, he just made a call and said, look, I have an idea, let’s do business. And I was at age of 20 ish, 2021, something like this. So I didn’t know much about neither business, not technology. I was not one of, it was tech gig who spent I hour on ICQ, et cetera, or Merck playing a games computer. And I was like, yeah, into the computers, but not very deep. And I was not a tech person per se, but then I said, yeah, why not? So more kind of from a business side, that’s how I ended up in the technological world from a business side. And I was like, okay, why not? I don’t know much, but let’s do sounds adventurous. I love adventures, let’s do it. And yeah, that’s how we established our first company. And back in the days, I hope some of our listeners remember those days and we feature phones prior to smartphones

(03:55):
And the polyphony melody or colorful screensaver was the thing, and that was you have to send text messages. So that was this early days internet protocol called the WAP prior to proper internet on your phones, et cetera. So yeah, so basically that’s what we did at that company. So I would not say that we succeeded a lot. I mean we employed ourselves, but still was a small business, but that was the first company I co-founded. And at the same time, that was already technological company. So since then I had multiple companies and vast majority of those were somehow related to mainly would say digital marketing because what Omnisend is now is a third start attempt. I failed twice prior to tomson. And Omnisend itself is a spinoff from digital marketing agents. So basically we work like coding websites, running digital marketing campaigns on behalf of our customers just basically selling human hours. But we had kind of a dream to have co-founder to make a product. That’s how we ended up building Cent is now first version of it back in the days.

Jonathan (05:21):
So I’m curious, this political science background into technology, what was your original interest in political science? Where did that come from?

Rytis (05:33):
That’s a very good question. I’m not sure. But since the age, I would say of 1415, I was really engaged into various non-governmental activities like student activities, et cetera. I used to be the leader of Lithuanian School, children Union, et cetera, back in the days. And it was kind of very interesting. And there were the days of the years when I missed half of my lessons at school. So my teachers didn’t admire that too much, but I am really happy that parents supported and some of the principal of the school supported those activities, et cetera. So I think that was a really great environment that teach me a lot of things about life more than just sitting in the lessons and learning some facts which have important, I mean, I think that lessons are important, school is important, but those activities outside of the school is equally important when you add

Jonathan (06:42):
Yeah, the experience,

Rytis (06:43):
Yeah, experience. If you on young age, it learns you to organize things to negotiate management skills, discussion skills, et cetera, et cetera. So from there it seemed like very natural that okay, maybe it makes a lot of sense to become a politician because I was heavily involved in et cetera, et cetera. And that’s what I had to be honest, since age of, I dunno, 17 to age of 20. So I was really thinking those years that I would like to become a politician, but I ended up in business and there’s nothing I regret.

Jonathan (07:19):
So I’m curious with that initial background and interest and then transitioning to the world of technology, have you found that helpful? Have you found application from that early interest to what you do today?

Rytis (07:31):
Absolutely. And I think one of the things that, especially founders of the companies, technology companies, a lot of them are coming from very technological background, and their personalities are more introvert and that’s fine. But the big challenges we have is really public speaking, parents in front of your own organization, of your own teammates, parents in front of big stages that you have to represent your company, et cetera. And I think it’s a very important part, especially once organization is getting bigger. You as a founder, you ACEO, you have to communicate as if you are communicating to the masses, let’s call it. It’s not anymore, but to where four people always in the same kitchen knowing each other, et cetera. You have to make presentations, you have to make them smoothly, you have to inspire people, et cetera. So I would say those other skills that I learned in university in a completely different field, which is political science,

Jonathan (08:33):
One thing that surprises people. I think when you take something as big as WordPress and it’s decentralized nature and just the complexity of it being a volunteer driven project, there’s a lot that’s not technology that’s relevant to being successful in an ecosystem like this. When did WordPress and Open Source first come into your radar? You didn’t have the tech background, so when did it first come across to you?

Rytis (09:04):
Quite many 15 years ago or so. I don’t have this very specific date, but basically once after first failed startup, we ended up having team of tech people, engineers, designers, et cetera. And that’s how we started the digital marketing agency. And basically that’s where we met WordPress for first time. WordPress was mainly, that was still quite other days for WordPress as well. So mainly it was for block websites, et cetera. But blocks were super popular and everybody was willing to have a block, I’m sorry, those days. So that’s where we met. And of course our customers were requesting WordPress and there was a lot of discussion. And back in the days, June law was still very popular, et cetera, and the WordPress was competing to Jula, really head to head, et cetera. Yeah, so that was kind of a first touch and first meeting with WordPress. So quite long years ago,

Jonathan (10:05):
You have the digital marketing agency background, you’re working with WordPress. When does WooCommerce and the e-commerce side of things first come into the radar for you?

Rytis (10:14):
So here it’s kind of really heavily attached to Omnisend, and is what really Omnisend is and what I do in life and what we do. So basically Omnisend is a marketing automation tool for e-commerce, those who sell online. So very organically as anyone can use us to send emails, send us MS messages, web push notifications, but the highest value, great are those who sell online. Either those are physical goods like online retail, or it could be bookings if you are dentist or if you are a hairdresser, et cetera. And you have online booking tools, et cetera. So how to communicate with your existing customers, and that’s how WooCommerce come into place. So basically because we created the most of value for those who sell online, and the vast majority of those who sell online on WordPress, we use WooCommerce. Yeah, there are other platforms as SureCart, et cetera. But still definitely rule is has a biggest stake.

Jonathan (11:23):
Yeah, for sure.

Rytis (11:25):
Yeah. So the first iteration once we just launched Omnisend, we are around nine years old as a company. So we made the first integration around I would say seven years ago with WooCommerce. Then there was a pause for a while as we focused on other ecosystems way more like e-commerce ecosystems. But yeah,

Jonathan (11:47):
So let’s talk about that because really interested. So you start out as a digital marketing agency and you see these needs firsthand, and then ultimately you decide to go into the marketing automation side of things, and you already know the WordPress space, you’re aware of WooCommerce and what’s going on. And then you see, so Shopify is where you’ve had the most success to date, and you have this sort of choice where two very different types of ecosystems and clear benefits and trade-offs to both, right? So you focus on Shopify. For you as a founder early on, what made that choice clear? Because you could go, yeah, please.

Rytis (12:27):
It was only one criteria basically because at the very beginning we launched integrations with nine platforms, e-commerce platforms, including WordPress Woo, including Shopify, others. And there was just organic traction. That was one single indicator. And due to the nature of the system, what we understand now, what we did not understand back in the days that in WordPress it takes a bit long and Shopify was just literally new kid on the block. It was very shiny, everybody was talking about them, et cetera, et cetera, and they just caught a lot of publicity and that’s what helped us to accelerate as well. On top of that, what is different that on Shopify via App Store is a really great source of new installs and new customer, it’s a really great customer acquisition channel by itself, which is not 100% the case in WordPress ecosystem. So you have to use other channels to get customers community familiar with your product, what value can you create, how do you operate, et cetera, et cetera.

(13:41):
So back in the days for the new company, just having this organic traction coming through AppStore was just a great solution for us because at that day, up until today, we have bootstrapped companies. So we have never raised any funding, institutional funding. We’ve got few business angels, but no institutional investors, et cetera. So we always had to be very conscious about our spend and to be very effective and this organic traction coming from App Store, that’s what was the single criteria for us to focus on Shopify system. But yeah, since events thing have changed a lot, and of course we understand more way more about the marketing, about how to present yourself outside the app stores or plugin stores, marketplaces, et cetera.

Jonathan (14:33):
So when you had that initial, you built nine different integrations. Obviously you’re wanting to reach your customers where they are. You’re seeing the traction pick up on Shopify, so you focused on that. Are there any highlights that stand out to you from what you learned over those next couple of years working within the Shopify ecosystem?

Rytis (14:52):
So there were two platforms that stood out. It was Shopify and BigCommerce. So by their origins, they’re very similar. And I know that BigCommerce now is even working on something that with WordPress that you could run a online store on WordPress with BigCommerce in the background, yes, something like this. But back in the days, they were really the biggest competitor of Shopify, and they were competing, again, had to get, but Shopify took off and BigCommerce somehow stayed as a two number three player. They know, but they did not grow as fast as much as Shopify did. So what were the lessons? So basically for quite many years, Shopify was really operating as independent ecosystem and there were a lot of freedom of different players, but at some point they start prioritizing some of the players a bit more than others. So our main competitor is Kla.

(15:57):
There’s nothing to hide here. And as they went to IPOV went public recently a few months ago, so they kind of disclosed that Shopify owns 11% of them, so very commercial relationship. And that explained us a lot why they were so prioritized within Shopify and different to WordPress ecosystem, which is really decentralized and there are a lot of different players within this ecosystem. Then you can build different relationship with organizations of people, et cetera. And Shopify price is very centralized. So basically there is a small group of people making the most important decisions. So they favor you or they do not favor. So that’s kind of the difference that we see from Shopify and WordPress. So both are great ecosystems, really. Both are worth being and for any SaaS company would recommend really to explore both of them. But yeah, they are different origin and they have a different rules of the game, I would say.

Jonathan (17:04):
So with the WordPress ecosystem, you have that early experience, you got to watch it. You have from that digital marketing background, you had the early experience with WooCommerce, quite a bit of time has transpired since. You’ve learned a lot from the time that you spent in Shopify and BigCommerce’s ecosystem. Looking at the others, as you look back on WordPress’s growth, the growth of the project and the ecosystem from when you first came into now, are there anything that stands out to you? Anything in particular that stands out from the arc of that time?

Rytis (17:37):
So I would say ecosystem is way more mature and the project is way more mature. So as I mentioned, kind of the first time I met BigCommerce or I had an opportunity to work, I’m not a developer myself, but just basically start building websites. So basically that was kind of bloggers focused and tech savvy focused. So now in WordPress you can run any website, you are willing, any store, complex store. I know that just WooCommerce just launched via point of sale system. So what does that mean that they’re taking it offline as well? So basically you can really run complex business cases, WordPress with all the plugins, all the ecosystem is covering the most complex business cases in the world. So that think is the main difference just from more niche. And even once we launched our first integration with Omnisend back in the days, that was kind of more in capabilities was more narrow.

(18:38):
And I think that’s where Shopify was doing bad at that time. But since then, a lot of things has changed. WooCommerce was acquired. I think WooCommerce was still independent maybe at the time or that was just around the time of acquisition and the day. So yeah, kind of the ecosystem matured a lot. I think the WordPress became way more robust and WooCommerce all and other offers that to run either online stores or to run subscription businesses, et cetera. Back in the days they did not exist at all seven years ago, et cetera. They were super small. And now we really see good solutions, good plugins that really help any kind of business to be run on WordPress. So that’s the main difference I would say.

Jonathan (19:33):
Let’s dig a little bit into Omnisend as an organization. So marketing automation is at the the heart of it and workflows and this e-commerce focus. How would you describe your ideal customer? What’s the type of business that you’re best suited to serve?

Rytis (19:48):
So it’s small to medium sized businesses that sell something online. So it could be, as I mentioned, physical goods, like physical goods for online stores. It could be digital goods like bus tickets or songs or creative products. It could be even bookings, those who like hair salon, hairdresser, dentists of the medical clinics, et cetera, that have solutions on the WordPress in this case or any other solutions to make bookings online and to make payments online. So basically those all kind of customers, that ideal customers for us, and that’s where we create the most of the value. Why do we create this value for them? Because we, due to our deep integration, we synchronize a lot of customers data and based on that data, we help to run campaigns, automated campaigns, manual campaigns to segments, specific segments. And what does that mean? That basically each of the customers receiving fewer messages, but those messages are way more relevant and they are way more accepted with joy. Advertising, advertising. We still are in bad space of oh, you advertise to people, advertisement is bad, come on. But we all consume, we all buy products and there are brands that we hate. There are brands that we love as a consumer, and that’s fine. So we basically help our customers to become those loved brands because we help them to send less advertising messages with way more relevant content. And from our customer side, from e-commerce business side, it’s again very beneficial because just conversions are way better.

Jonathan (21:43):
So one of the challenges that I’ve found with marketing automation is this, it can be quite overwhelming, especially for small businesses to get started, where if you just hand them a bunch of tools, it’s like, well, what do we do with this? If you’re hand similar to authoring content and WordPress, if you’re just handing a blank screen, it can be quite intimidating. Where do you start, right? This is a challenge that agencies often face when they’re working with customers where, alright, just give us your content and the customer’s like, I don’t know. So for you, when you’ve built this whole suite of tools, you have all this experience, how do you handle that challenge for small businesses when they’re like, okay, we want automation, we want this type of stuff, but oftentimes they don’t know where to start. How do you guys think about that?

Rytis (22:24):
Yeah, Jonathan, so you pointed very, very good aspect here. And as we focus on SMB small to medium sized business, I mean some of those small businesses, I really like micro business, it’s just one man show and there is a person who just is good in doing something and then started selling online. So what does that mean that this person is coding a little bit and just launched the WordPress, installed WooCommerce and installed, and then you say, so what’s next? So because of this focus, there are kind of two great values of Omnisend. So we always keep the learning curve very flat. And what does that mean that we have a lot of presets built for you. So to start communicating with your customers, you can write no single line of text, no single image to be uploaded. There’s a lot of, just an example, we extract the brand assets from your website, your logo, your color, your phones, et cetera.

(23:30):
And we apply it to the templates already. Of course you can edit them if you will, but you can just use like this, you have a risk kind of the copy. There are best practices embedded into the product. So all the segments, automation workflows based on our customers, all of our customers experience and what works the best of industry, best practices, et cetera, it’s all embedded into the product. So the learning curve is very flat and with a few clicks of a dongle, you can start utilizing marketing automation and never end up as you say in this blank canvas that end that, oh, I didn’t know what to do. So it’s kind of one thing. Another angle we always keeping our prices more affordable comparison to the main competitors in marketing automation field. So again, it’s kind of a focus to SMBs and our bootstrap origin allows us to do that. And I think it’s very important for small businesses to have an affordable solution and have it very simple to start using. And of course once you advance, once your team grows, you have more sophisticated needs, we cover those as well, but the learning curve is very flat.

Jonathan (24:50):
So I want to touch on the service industry side of things. So WordPress, one of the big parts of the WordPress ecosystem is the service providers, freelancers, agencies, because WordPress on the one hand is highly flexible. There’s a ton that you can do with it on the other, it can be pretty overwhelming for folks to figure out how to navigate all that. So they’re often working with a service provider to make that happen. So how do you think about the world of service providers? So on the one hand, you’ve done all this work to have good defaults and no code needed to get started. Where do the service providers come into your thinking in through the customer lifecycle?

Rytis (25:24):
Yeah, once we are getting back to this ecosystem, we were never very, very well established and WordPress ecosystem. So I would say we are still quite new here. That’s how I would consider ourselves. So outside WordPress relationship with agencies, freelancers is very, very important part of our business. So that’s what we do. So basically we have this agency partner program, and it’s not kind of affiliate program, but we help agencies to, there are two things basically. So we help agencies to better sell better services, like providing some expertise, know-how various researches that we provide. Okay, so what is good benchmark, open rates, click rates, conversion rates, et cetera. Okay, what is success? What is not success of this Black Friday? So basically that’s what the agencies of freelancers are being GED by their customers. Although maybe you are more engineered, we would like to develop website, but your customer is willing to get a bit more holistic knowledge from you.

(26:31):
And this is what we help our partners to really simplify and to have. I mean, sometimes you can be an expert in marketing automation, but you maybe could not be an expert in marketing automation, but certain level of knowledge and understanding will really help you to sell your services. So that’s what we do, that’s what we do and that’s what we support our partners with. On the other hand, actually what we expect from a partners, so really to drive customers to us and is like commercial relationship as well as we do have revenue sharing for all the agencies, for freelancers, and we really have long lasting relationship with that. So that’s how WooCommerce is very, very important part for our growth relationship with agencies and partners. And that’s what we would like to establish here at WordPress Ecosystem as well.

Jonathan (27:25):
Yeah, that’s one of the things that we find that works best in the space is when you can focus on aligning incentives. So for instance, you helping the service providers by giving them insights and information that they might not easily have access to on their own so that they’re able to help their customers by giving best practices and guidance, especially because you have that small business focus. And then on the back end, being able to align incentives because those agencies will often be the frontline for those customers. They’ll call them up and to be able to have Omnisend as a partner. I like that you guys are taking that approach. Now you’ve mentioned a few times, so you’re new to the WordPress space, obviously you’re not new to WordPress as an ecosystem, but in terms of a focus for the company, you’re now putting energy into that. And how’s that experience been for you so far? You’ve went to, I know that you went to one of your first word camps here recently. What’s that been like for you stepping into the space?

Rytis (28:20):
It’s amazingly welcoming. That’s my experience really. The ecosystem is really welcoming and really, really open and people are really friendly. And to be honest, I’ve heard some rumors that for us, some politics in WordPress ecosystem, et cetera, we have not faced it yet maybe or maybe we’ll never face. I just know maybe just if you come openly to the people, if you don’t pretend what you are not and you openly tell who you are, et cetera, maybe that’s what you get. So, so far it’s only the best impressions and really the best experience so far. And we really start working already, like partnering with some other plugins for hosting companies, et cetera, et cetera. So it’s really, really, really great ecosystem and Workcamp US was just a really great event, met a lot of people and everybody seemed to be really willing to help you to understand, to navigate et cetera. Everyone wants you are U and putting just more effort as you said. Yeah, technical integration is already for a while, but just this really getting to be a part of ecosystem, it really takes time. Even now we understand the nature of ecosystem would like to sponsor contributors to WordPress project, et cetera. So really again, there’s a lot of help from different players within ecosystem to find ways the main pain points, et cetera, and the way we as a company or our colleagues, individuals can create the most value for the ecosystem.

Jonathan (30:08):
I love hearing that you described the ecosystem as welcoming. You see a clear alignment of value for you as a business and the customers that you want to serve in the space. Why do you think that is? So it’s a mature space at this point, 20 plus years old. For you as someone given your political science background, given the experience that you’ve had in other ecosystems as well, why do you think WordPress is welcoming and sort of the way it is today?

Rytis (30:35):
That’s a very difficult question. I think it’s kind of decentralized nature probably. And I think it’s just people who admire freedom and just the relationship because probably with decentralized nature, and again, that’s just my guess and my assumptions from initial impressions. So I would say probably highly likely that those people who are engaged in this ecosystem, they are that kind of people because more about giving and understanding than I will get of course something in return. But I have to be giving. It’s not about just getting for me, for me, me, I think that’s just probably with decentralized open source nature of ecosystem, what brings line kind like-minded people and us as we are bootstrapped. So we kind of sheer probably similar mentality, maybe that’s why it’s just we easy to talk. We never had limitless financial resources, et cetera. So that’s why we always had to navigate and treat people well because that’s the only way and people will treat you well and it’s not about putting more money and buying everything, it’s just making relationship.

Jonathan (31:51):
Yeah, that’s a good point. One of the ways that we talk about this is this concept of shared ownership and it’s this idea that because it’s open source in a proprietary platform, we can all enjoy the benefits. And I do the same. I encourage, if a startup is focusing on e-commerce for instance, and your customers are on Shopify, awesome, go there and serve them. That’s important to do. At the end of the day though, that is Shopify’s playground and they’re going to do whatever they’re going to do. They’re going to invest in whoever they want to invest in. They’re going to create whatever commercial relationships they want to. Whereas in the WordPress space, because it’s open source, I think there’s this recognition of shared ownership that the more, and this is for us and I’ve, I’ve been doing this do the Woo thing for a while, it’s always great to see someone coming into the space.

(32:41):
And it’s not just because I think you’re right, there is this sort of shared values and this we value freedom and choice and we like that and seeing that in others. There’s also this recognition though that the more success that a company like Omnisend has in the space, the better that we all are for it because of this idea of shared ownership. So I dunno, that’s been our best take so far. I think it’s a good question. Why is it still growing? Why does it work? And I think it’s the open source nature combined with the decentralized aspect of it that leads companies, whether they’re conscious of it or not, to recognize that, oh, this is ours too. We can do what we want with it.

Rytis (33:22):
Agree, agree. I think that’s important. Yeah.

Jonathan (33:25):
Yeah, it’ll be interesting. So I’m curious now for you as a company, you have this background, you’re now coming into the space and I want to just call out because I’ve had the chance to observe you guys. There’s a lot of things that we as really appreciated that you’ve been doing well, you’ve taken careful interest in code quality and just through the standards process and preparing the integration that you guys have up on WordPress dot org, you’ve been attending community stuff, you’ve been to getting involved, you guys are sponsoring Do the Woo, which we think is fantastic for folks coming into the space. What are some of the lessons that you’ve learned, some of the guidance that you would offer? I know that you’re still early to this, but you’ve already learning things in the process. So if another SaaS is thinking about the WordPress space just based on the experience you’ve had so far today, what guidance would you offer them?

Rytis (34:21):
So probably kind of like to what you emphasize as well, probably to understand the decentralized nature of WordPress. It’s very important. It’s one thing and then another thing I would say what they face from the early days and advice that were given by many folks and by you as L is really just in ACA systems. Usually if they’re closed ecosystems, so many is the main asset. Basically you either have to convince a very small group of people that you are the best to partner with or you just need to know those people from whatever

Jonathan (35:00):
Your

Rytis (35:00):
School days or so. So that’s kind of more and more kind of that lobbying. I would say that it’s

(35:08):
Few transparent, et cetera and just very, very narrow group of people. And on the very hand, what does that mean? That basically if there is no kind of personal relationship, so basically this is just purely a very pragmatical financial conversation from the very beginning till the very end. So I think that in WordPress ecosystem there is way more idealism I would say, and willingness really to build a better internet. And I think it’s just again, coming from the origin as when Matt coded to WordPress for the first time back in the days. So just willing to improve and make internet better. And of course we are business ourselves, we are for profit. And in this ecosystem there are a lot of people who are profit for profit. Either you are a service provider, engineer, run

Jonathan (36:03):
Hosting

Rytis (36:05):
Boutique agents. We all are willing to earn money to feed our families, to earn our salaries to be successful. But at the same time I think there is that aspect that really contributing to the be internet is what is WordPress is really about. So I think to understand it early and not to try to buy with money, I think it’s very important.

Jonathan (36:32):
Yeah, I love that. And it’s a subtle thing and it’s like if you’re not paying attention, you can walk into this space and it’s like, oh cool, okay, so we just need to, if you compare it directly to a centralized ecosystem to something closed, then it’s like, okay, well where do we have to pay to get traffic? And it’s like it doesn’t work like that here. And then if you show up to a WordCamp for the first time and you’re comparing that experience to these other sort of for-profit conferences, it can be very different. And that takes some adjusting and getting used to. And yeah, I appreciate what I’ve observed the approach that you guys have taken to step in, ask questions, being curious. So as you look at the future, if you think about the next couple of years in the WordPress WooCommerce space, what are some of the things that you’re looking forward to or concerns that you have? Just either side of it.

Rytis (37:23):
So definitely kind of like now initial steps, what we’re doing where we do understand ecosystem play in each ecosystem you have to create value for our customers. So we have no doubt for those who sell online, we create value just if they use Omnisend as market automation tool in comparison to other generic email service or SM service providers, we create way more value. We have convinced that multiple times including in WordPress ecosystem, et cetera. But what is very important as well to be integrated within the ecosystem, and this is still the missing piece with us, that if someone is using WordPress WooCommerce and some loyalty plugin or forms plugin, if they are integrated with send, this is very convenient for the customer because then you have all the data exchange, it just works seamlessly, et cetera. And in vac systems we have 140 integrations or so. So WordPress, we have this way, fewer of those. So that’s a big focus for us to create this seamless experience for all of our customers. And integration, integration with other plugins, with other solution providers is the top focus now for us.

Jonathan (38:45):
So I’m curious to unpack that a bit more because one of the benefits of WordPress is that we have all this choice and options, but one of the challenges that end users very quickly face is that stuff just doesn’t really work together. And because we have all this freedom which we love, there aren’t really shared standards, it can be all over the board. So for you as an organization, how do you think about that process? You see that you want to be where the customers are. You mentioned forms, plugins, that’s a great example. How do you currently think about builders are another good example. How do you think about that process or how has that been for you? Have you noticed any challenges? I know it’s early, but in this sort of decentralized space where people can kind of do what they want, has that been pretty straightforward? Are you finding it challenging? How do you think about that process of creating these integrations?

Rytis (39:36):
Yeah, so actually that’s what we’re working now on and the question we have and we have to answer right now is we have to expand our existing plugin to support all of those integrations. Basically we have three choices now on the table and we are evaluating all of those and all of them have pros and cons. So first and first choice, second choice is really to build plugins for the groups. Let’s say all the forms, all the website builders, all the loyalty programs would be integrated and you basically have form builder to Omnisend one plugin. A lot of form builders that are being supported in that way or the referred options to really build many one-to-one integrations in many different. So that’s what we are considering. Now, if the listeners have any advice, maybe you did something, maybe you learned some lessons in the hard way and you have any advice that really would love to get those advices and then maybe, oh, don’t do this, go that path, et cetera. This is the stage we’re currently at.

Jonathan (40:45):
Yeah, so I think this is an important moment too, and I want to echo the same for anyone listening. So there isn’t a clear cut from my observation, best practice for how this gets done in our space right now. So yes, it is mature, but it’s mature in terms of its growth and the depth that it has. But what I would describe, there’s quite a bit of work to still be done on in these categories I would describe as professionalizing how we do the work in the space. And so we’re not going to lose the benefit of the freedom yet. It’s challenging for someone, this is what I’ve observed for someone coming in like, okay, what do we do? We want to work with all these different plugins for instance. But they all have different ways of doing things. So it’s a lot of work.

(41:33):
And I just want to encourage anyone listening that if you’re in that space, especially in WooCommerce, what I’m hearing from you to read us is this openness to feedback and wanting to figure out, okay, what’s the best way to do this to serve the customers? And it’s going to take some work, it’s going to take conversations, talking to the products, and ultimately you have to do what’s best for your customers. So you think about the customer experience part of it and what I’m excited about as an observer is I think there’s a lot of opportunity to improve how this gets done to make it more efficient, to make it easier to bring more products on board so that you can serve those same customers together. I appreciate that you guys are putting the work into it and I’m looking forward to a follow up in a year or so when we can.

(42:18):
Okay, how has that been going? Because I think this is one of the barriers to other software service providers coming into our space. They come to this point and they see that it’s not uniform, it’s not standardized, and it can be pretty overwhelming. And yeah, I appreciate that you guys have been putting the effort into figuring that out. And for those listening, I just encourage them to follow up. What is the, just on that thread specifically, what’s the best way, if someone’s interested in learning more about Omnisend and exploring an integration, what should they do?

Rytis (42:51):
Yeah, so Omnisend.com probably that’s the best source. And personally my email is retails@omnissend.com. So we’re willing to catch with everyone in app, for everyone app and for agencies, for other partners. So we just omnisend.com/partners. So this is a dedicated landing page for service providers, for other plugins, et cetera. So basically you can register there and then basically different teams will reach out to you and we’ll see how can we work together. So that’s what I would invite. And really, if you have any experience, so please drop a message, visit our website, let’s connect and let’s work together.

(43:37):
So this is kind of again, being new, so really, really willing to explore this opportunities to work. And we are already in the conversations with some companies, some like no, the initial focus is mainly on the website builders and the forms. It makes a lot of sense for our customers because you can do some marketing, you can communicate with your existing customers if you only have their contact data. So basically forms is just very, very natural step, initial step for us. So if you have a form plugin, if you are website builder. So we are really open to talk to find ways to work together on the initial stage. And of course from there we’ll go more in depth as there A of loyalty solutions, payment solutions, UGC, like you generate content. It makes a lot of sense and we know it from other ecosystems that to have all those integrations, it’s really creates a seamless experience for the customers and it creates value for the customers if they really integrate that. And then we provide the best experience event for their end customers and that’s how we can earn more.

Jonathan (44:52):
Well we appreciate the value that you’ve been bringing to your customers and we’re happy to see you guys coming into the space, looking forward to watching as that develops. It was great to see you guys at WordCamp and looking forward to seeing you at the next.

Rytis (45:05):
In Asia we’ll meet Asia.

Jonathan (45:07):
Yes, Asia, that’s correct. So we’ll look forward to seeing Omnisend there. Thank you.

Rytis (45:12):
Likewise. Thanks for inviting.