Email, SMS, and Beyond: Rytis Lauris on the Future of Customer Engagement - EP 19

I hate to say it, but people are visual and they don't believe it if it doesn't look good enough as the offer is, especially when you're trying to sell something for $1,000 online. They expect a $1,000 design ultimately.

It always feels daunting and overwhelming. And when you do it the right way with the right platform like Omnisend, it just was way smoother sailing. So it was cool. I was pleasantly surprised.

In different stages, there are different challenges. Initially, you are very small and you have a lot of things on plates, and that's why you maybe don't have enough time to listen to your customers. And then at some point, maybe you become just too big and maybe you start detaching, you know, too many employees, etc.

Hey, Rytas, I've got a question for you.

Hey, thanks for inviting.

Do Lithuanians watch the Super Bowl?

No, no, no, no. Unfortunately, we are very into basketball. So, you know, football is not a big thing here. And I think kind of like the current game was more covered because of all the things about Taylor Swift, who is actually— she's going to support because of her Personal preferences, but that was probably more discussed and covered than the game itself. Yeah, we watch NBA games. NBA game is being broadcasted here, etc. So, it's a big thing, basketball.

Got it.

I was just kind of curious because I know Canadians, they don't even get the broadcast. They have to watch like American channels to watch it. So, it's pretty interesting considering how big and broad it is here in the United States.

Yeah, the other interesting thing too is it's probably what, the middle of the night for you because it's 3:30 PST. So, are you sleeping during it?

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Yeah, that'd be quite late. That'd be like 11:30, 12 o'clock your time. Yeah, midnight. It's kind of like F1 races. I'm sure F1 races are always good time zone for you guys pretty much, but they're always crappy here in the US. They're like 4 AM in the morning or like, you know, 1 AM in the morning. My wife is a huge F1 fan and she gets up or she gets up in the middle of the night or super early in the morning to watch the races. And I'm like, That's a lot of commitment for me.

It is.

It is. But like F1 is like all across the globe. I mean, you have in Vegas, you have in Singapore, et cetera. So all across the time zone. So it's not—

Yeah.

But they always race at times that are catered for Europe and everything. So the time, the timing is always weird. Even the Vegas race like started at 1:00 AM, I think, or whatever it was. So it's quite late. Anyways, you guys ready to shoot this pod?

Let's do it.

All right, let's do this in 3, 2, 1.

From the open to the click, they're the masters of the flow. Just watch your list grow and your leads turn to go. Did we retain you so far or do we have to extend it? If you want results, you know you gotta send it. Yeah, you know you gotta send it. Yeah, you know you gotta send it. Yeah, you know you gotta send it.

What's up everyone? Welcome to Send It, where we discuss Everything and anything retention marketing, specifically in email and SMS marketing. My name is Jimmy Kim and I'm here with my co-host.

Chase Diamond.

All right, Chase, dude, we have a special guest here. Email, SMS, and beyond. We've got Ritesh Loris on the future of customer engagement. Very, very excited to have this conversation. But Chase, I wanted you to do the honors and do a little bit of that professional formal introduction first, and then we'll get into the real introduction after this.

Awesome. So, so Ritesh is someone I've known for, I think, 4+ years now, someone I've looked up to for a long time. And he's the co-founder and CEO of an e-commerce email and SMS marketing platform called Omnisend. It is awesome. We're actually all rocking the Omnisend gear here today. We did not plan it, although we did get an awesome swag box from them last week. So we're all rocking that. And with that, um, he's basically spent the last 10 years building and bootstrapping startups. And working in the digital marketing and e-commerce field. And Ritesh was well-paced to do the same with his own company. Omnisend has become one of the top-rated, if not, I think the top-rated Shopify app for email and SMS without any investment. So they're totally bootstrapped. They've done a really great job and really excited to have them here today. And I guess the last thing I'll say is I'd say the key to their success has really been their rich customer data. And their omnichannel approach. So they have omnichannel, all-in-one email, SMS, push, awesome platform. Tons and tons of small, medium, and large e-commerce merchants are using them to drive tons of revenue at a price that is very, very affordable. So long-winded, welcome to the pod, Raitis.

Hey, hey, thank you. Thanks for inviting. Hey Jimmy. Hey Chase. It's really great to see you. You know, once we connected just prior to going live, I said, oh nice, Omnisend swag. So I'm really happy that in May you. And yeah, and you just, you know, voluntarily just did it. So thank you.

We wanted to support. I mean, it only makes sense, especially not as only a sponsor of the pod, but also just obviously being that you're here, we felt that it would be perfect. And I'd wear the hat, but I'm a trucker hat guy. I put on the hat first earlier. I had this cool hat and I tried to put it on, but man, it makes my head look real funny. So I'm gonna keep away from that. But anyways, Rytus, dude, I love the professional bio that Chase kind of read about you. But you know what, there's a real story behind it. And I love to hear the real story, especially the founding story of Omnisend, only because I don't know a lot of people have ever heard it. And I'd love to, if you could share it a little bit, what inspired you and what inspired you to make the shift into e-commerce? Because I think that that's part of the story is you guys did make a shift into e-commerce in 2017 or '18. But Raitis, tell us your story, man.

Yeah. So what Omnisend is now, so basically like marketing automation platform is a spinoff from digital marketing agency. So back in the days, like 10 years ago, I used to have my own digital marketing agency. Serving our customers. So basically selling expertise and human hours. So developing websites, including online stores, running campaigns, or like coming with creative ideas and then running the campaigns on behalf of our customers. And that's how we saw that, okay, those who sell online, they have way more data about their customers and email marketing. Back in the days, we only launched email service. Provider, and in email is is really really super effective channel. And and yeah, so that's basically kind of assumption like two assumptions that we made that that there is a niche for specialized tools as were kind of all the generic email service providers were dominating the market back in the days. It was first assumption and second assumption that we made that e-commerce overall or online retail will be growing for four decades high pace. So and apparently those two those two assumptions were right and still are right. E-commerce is still growing and email is still remaining, you know, a very important channel. And that's what you clearly know. And that's why we do, you know, all the entire topic around email, et cetera, et cetera. So yeah, so that was kind of the story. And, you know, and yeah, to what Chase mentioned that we are bootstrapped, although at the very beginning we tried to fundraise, but like, you know, 10 years ago, like me pitching email as a, you know, Innovation, a startup. I sometimes felt like pitching a leather shoes for someone and calling it something innovative in it. You know, chat, chat, we're gonna kill it, etc. But they proved right and us proved wrong. So that's that's what I'm really happy about and continue this journey.

Yeah, no, that that story of raising money, I know what you're talking about, especially because at the time you're probably raising money, vertical SaaS wasn't a thing quite as much as like wide, you know, spectrum SaaS. They wanted you to serve everybody, and your TAM had to be incredibly. And then I think it was like 2020, 2019 when vertical SaaS started to really take off where people said, oh, you need to be for something, you need to be for this specific thing. And then people started funding for it. And we did see email kind of take back off and get funded along the way. But there was a period in which it was extremely tough in the market. So I can definitely relate there.

And, you know, afterwards we fell in love with the bootstrapping model and ourselves, we don't even call it bootstrapping. We call it being customer funded.

Yeah.

So basically, it's not that we work for our investors to become rich, but we work for our customers to earn money. As we only have like month-over-month payments, so there is no prepayment, long-term contracts, etc. So our customers make a decision each month again and again if they believe in Omnisend and they pay upfront for one month, but only for one month. So they kind of reconsider if they still are willing to invest in this product as they believe that this product will create more value for them. Them in comparison to what they pay. So that's kind of the main driver and at the core of entire Omnisend philosophy currently that, you know, once we stop serving our customers well and we stop creating value for them, we will get out of business.

Hey, it's Chase and I hope you're enjoying the pod. But if I could just have 30 seconds of your time, I want to tell you about our special friends at Omnisend. Omnisend is an all-in-one email and SMS marketing platform built specifically for e-commerce brands. They make it super easy to engage your customers, drive repeat sales, sales and create those seamless personalized experiences that we're always talking about on this pod. And one thing that I love about Omnisend is they're trusted by over 125,000 e-commerce merchants around the world, and their users absolutely love them. They have a 4.8-star rating from over 5,800 reviews on the Shopify App Store. It's an obvious choice for your email, SMS, and push needs. In fact, I'm actually in the process of moving over my own email newsletter and some of my clients, and they have been fantastic. Their support and their platform has been amazing, and there's tons features, and it's been surprisingly very easy to use. And the whole migration process, I know it sounds daunting, it's actually been a breeze. It's been way easier than I could imagine, and their team has really carried a lot of the weight of that migration. And they'll do the same for you as well, as they have a great automation tool. They're going to help bring over your contacts and all your other important data that you need. And they aren't raising any prices, right? They're not going to raise prices like you— on you constantly, like some of the other ones, you know who we're talking about, and call them profile-based pricing alignment, really fancy term that no one means. But Omnisend's not going to do that. They're going to speak the That we speak. They're not gonna raise prices on you constantly. So if you're looking to take your email marketing and your SMS marketing and your push to the next level, I highly recommend that you check out Omnisend. They've got the tools, the automation, and the expertise needed to help grow your brand so you can ultimately thrive. Head over to omnisend.com/sendit to learn more and start scaling your customer engagement today. And let them know that Jimmy and I sent you. Now back to the pod. Yeah. And the fact that 125,000+ Brands and companies trust you guys, right? You're clearly doing something right. So that's awesome. I've got another question for you. So let's start with like the big picture thinking. You know, how do you see the marketing automation landscape evolving over the next few years? And where exactly does Omnisend kind of fit into that picture?

Yeah, of course. So we are living in interesting times and interesting themes like rise of AI and becoming a default to some extent. I have no doubts that it will. Become more default. So, so I have no doubts that the power of like impact and then significance of automation will, will increase. And we already see that, you know, automations are extremely important for everyone who sells online. But I believe that, you know, with the power of AI, you can even personalize even, even more and go into more granular details and send like very specific messages on a better time. So still now kind of marketers have to think about the scenarios And we still think of, like, limited amount of scenarios. And with AI, I have no doubts there will be highly hyper-personalized scenarios, etcetera, that, you know, Jimmy and Chase and readers will receive completely different messages on the best time for them to read, etcetera. Now you can do a lot of that, but still, you as a marketer, you have to, you know, to experiment with those to play and, and etcetera. So I believe AI will, will, will do that a lot. And, of course, what we believe here at Omnisend that, like, in midterm, like, the overall user interface phase probably will change how we as marketers, how we compile emails, how we design emails, etcetera. So a lot of that will be potentially, highly likely replaced or assisted at least by AI. But at the same time, I have no doubts that, like, fundamentally, like, email will not die as it was trying all the other channels, all the tactics were trying to kill it. SMS will not die. And in general, like, retention marketing and, like, ability to have relationship, like, with your customers directly will remain very important. So, so that's, that's what we see at Omnisend as well, that, you know, definitely we have to and we are adding more and more AI-powered features. But at the same time, of course, fundamentally, it's exactly the same, help to keep relationship, to build relationship and keep relationship with your existing customers in order for them to purchase again and again. So That's our view.

Yeah, no, that's really cool. And, you know, as people talk about email marketing is dying or email as a channel is ever going to die, the reality is, is if you look at something like direct mail, which is still not dead and it's still thriving in this space, right? I think that email is the new standard when it comes to what actual physical mail was. Most companies want to email you. Not only is it quicker, cheaper, and more effective, it's seen often in your inbox. Now, I know more and more people are getting emails, but the reality is, is like if you're sending emails emails to people who want those emails, they're going to want to read and want those emails anyway. So with that, Ritesh, I'd love to think about the shifts, the future, right? When we start thinking about how the— what major shifts like are happening right now, because you said, you know, email has been this— you know, I always talk about— Chase and I talk about all the time, it's been a lot of the same stuff for the last 20 years, and little things are changing, things are getting better and stuff. But how do you see brands adapting to continue to deliver results in this day and age with email marketing shifting today?

Initially, where I would start is really Okay, omnichannel marketing. So email as on its own is very, very powerful, period. But on top of that, once you augment it with SMS, with web push notification, with potentially WhatsApp, yeah, we try, we had WhatsApp like 4 or 5 years ago. It didn't work that bad back in the days. Now we have like third-party integration and then seems like it's starting to work better and better. So potentially it will get back or at least in certain Countries, maybe not, not globally, but, but so overall kind of integration of different channels. That's, that's a, that's a thing. And that's a thing which is technically feasible for already quite a few years, but it's still being underutilized, I think, across the marketers. And yeah, and I don't know, guys, how you, but like, you know, I love talking to customers and I have at least one interview with a customer per week, different kind of customers, etc. And when you ask marketers or business owners, so Do you use both email and SMS? Oh, yes, of course. So how do you use SMS? Oh, you know, during Black Friday, we send out a blast. So, and this is kind of like really, really underutilized. And I think, like, once we talk about, like, this hyperpersonalization, etc., so having more channels to reach the customers in the channel which is the most preferred by the customer, not by you as a marketer, I think it's kind of the first thing and it's a merger thing. And of course it will— it is important, it is underutilized, but the importance of it will increase, of course.

Yeah, I think as you're talking about that, you know, when you think about omnichannel, I also think about the unified theory, right? Like bringing that unified experience together. And you're right, everybody wants it. But the reality is nobody's really figured out how to crack it or actually deliver that experience. It's mostly because not everyone has email, not everyone has SMS. And sometimes people only have one version or another. And let's face it, SMS is tremendously easier, maybe more cost of it, but it's easier to send an SMS out than an email just because of the design and the things that you have to do. And, and people just started to kind of enjoy it. But as we've seen over the last maybe year, year and a half, 18 months now, SMS is starting to lose its kind of like its potency that it used to have. And email is starting to continue to rise and take back off too. So I definitely understand that thought process.

Yeah.

Another thing which I think, like, how marketers should should prepare for it, and this is kind of not not a topic which is being touched a lot, but like list hygiene and overall deliverability. And of course, like what we like soon to be one. I mean, yeah, it's one year since the major change in in Gmail and Yahoo policies, and the and our assumption that we have that you know and and those. Internet service providers and inboxes, basically, they're experimenting more and more with AI. So basically, they're replacing human filters and human logic with AI, which is an absolute black box.

Yeah.

So you, you, you, if there are tactics, if you kind of do something a little bit not right and you get blacklisted, so there are tactics how to remove. It takes time, etcetera. But with kind of AI filters, etcetera, once intelligent artificial intelligence classifies you as a bad actor, Because it's not not that clear how how to become a good actor in front of eyes of artificial intelligence. So yeah, so basically kind of like keeping keeping taking care of list hygiene and et cetera. I think it is very important as well, and not not oversee. It's very important for the marketers.

Yeah, that term bad actor, good actor—that's how I know you own an ESP because most people don't use those terms. That's a very much a deliverability terminology that's in the market. But you know, I don't think it's a bad thing for all the spam filters and the changes happening because they're just trying to help make sure that people have the best experience out there and try to protect and block the amount of spam emails that are out there in the market are absolutely incredible sometimes. So definitely, definitely something very interesting. I completely agree.

So that's what happened with GDPR, with California Consumer Privacy Act. You know, everybody was, oh, what's going to happen now? It was just very positive changes. Both of them were very positive changes because like, you know, just better practices. Applied and then it's still the channel works and the consumer, the receiver of messages is happier because fewer messages, way more relevant.

Yeah, for sure. Do we want to talk a little bit more about SMS? I know you kind of mentioned it. I was kind of curious about like where you see SMS in the marketing mix and kind of how things are changing. Do you guys want to talk about that or should we move to—

Yeah, let's talk about SMS.

Yeah, Rajesh, do you mind kind of talking to us through like where you see SMS fitting in and kind of what the changes you've seen happen around text messaging over kind of consumers' expectations?

So I would say kind of it's— the mix is the right word here and a good distinction. Yeah. So it has to be in the mix. Yeah. So SMS works as a standalone, but what we touched already, but it works the best if it is like in the mix with other marketing channels. So with email, etc. Yeah. All combined, once you once you put in especially SMS is effective and what I always encourage customers to use and for like post purchase automations and don't expect from like not each SMS should convert you directly, but like post purchase experience. Yeah. Okay. We dispatched. Did you receive? How did you like it? Leave us a review. Could be like on the review side. Could be just internally, etc. It should have been delivered. How did you like? The delivery service. It's not you who, who cares about delivery. I mean, you outsource it, but you show the care of a customer, and it costs you like nothing. Yeah. And does not convert directly, but you build your brand. You build relationship for the future conversions. You keep yourself on top of your mind as a caring brand. Not only you delivering a good quality product. I assume you deliver good quality product. Yeah. But you show care on top of it. Yeah. So once you put it in the mix, like, you covering entire customer journey with both email and SMS messages, not only trying to convert with each message. I think that's where those practices and those channels become really, really powerful in mid and long-term marketing and increasing the lifetime value of the customers for you.

No, I think that when you think about the SMS channel and the now effect, right? It's like when you send, most people are either opening or engaging with it. And even when you see the data, It's like an hour or 2, usually about 2 hours. Like the drop-off rate is absolutely incredible with SMS, unlike email, which you may see a huge spike and then it's a constant stream for 24 to 48 hours. We definitely see that in the data all the time. And I think there's always a big confusion that happens in this market because people wanna treat them separate channels. And I know we kind of talked about the unified thought of things, but the thing that I always think about is it's the same human on the other end of that computer or the phone. And, you know, a lot of people don't know how to kind of approach that unified experience. Like, if you're listening to this pod and people listening are gonna be retention marketers, what do you say to people when you talk about how do you effectively integrate email and SMS into a single strategy? Like, what should they do as step number one ultimately?

So probably kind of the best or the most simple advice for me would be, you know, don't think about like email automations, SMS automations, email campaigns, SMS. There are automations, automated campaigns, and there are bulk campaigns. Yeah. And you have to combine both of those channels. Yeah. So the best is putting both, both, or even adding like web push notifications as a channel, 4th channel on the single workflow of automation. Yeah. We send email. If it's not being read, let's follow up with SMS. Same post-purchase experience. Yeah. So if we, if we do We do send follow-up by email. We do send SMS, etc., and we combine it. And and to what like we constantly do various researches about our customers' behaviors and and and results, etc. And what we see that combining both email and SMS have almost like 47, almost 50% of higher chance of conversion. So I mean, this is this is just dramatic increase. Yeah. So and that's the basic advice. Yeah. There are no SMS campaigns, no email campaigns. There are campaigns, and you use different channels to reach. reach the users, the buyers in the best channel, and they choose which is the best channel for them, not you.

Makes total sense for sure. And with this, right, like your platform Omnisend, you guys literally exist to create this unified customer experience for brands and marketers like ourselves, like those that are listening. And with that, what do you see as the big obstacles brands face when trying to go omnichannel? Right? Like everyone now knows listening to this podcast that like omnichannel is the holy grail. What are some of like the obstacles that people actually face when trying to do this?

So, Pragar, the main and first obstacle is email lists are usually way bigger than SMS lists. That's a first. You're basically kind of collecting and then they are disconnected. So we touched it a little bit like connecting. So it's connection in the mindset, then do not have like silo data. Still using different tools, I use email marketing tool and use SMS marketing tool. Yeah. So the data is disconnected. It's siloed and, and it doesn't work. And it's no way to put it in a single workflow. And it's not no way to have a single customer profile and view. It's very important. Like, you know, I know that this is Chase. I know his phone number. I have consent to send SMS. I know his email, maybe second email, etc. I track cross-device and I have it on a single profile. So that's the first thing. And that's why it is important to use like unified tools that cover those different channels and help you to do that. That's the first thing. And then a second is again about thinking differently. So messaging sometimes is inconsistent that I send the same day, I send one campaign by email and completely different message via SMS because those are 2 different campaigns, you know, but I have to support. I mean, if I'm sending SMS, it's an email. So the content has to To correlate to one another, and it has to support one another. Yeah. So if I have very special campaign today, etc., I have to to double the message and to strengthen it, etc. Not not to have it detached. And of course, like managing consents could could could be a challenge, and especially with phone numbers and with phone numbers. So and again, like vast majority of your of your audiences in the states, so it's easier. But us, like operating globally, we see that there are other challenges outside the states. It's not that easy terms of. From SMS, so that again it adds another layer of complexity to this channel a little bit, or at least to the mindset of a marketer.

What's up, guys? Real quick, I need just 30 seconds of your time. You already know that personalization is the holy grail of retention marketing. It's that unicorn that we're all chasing, no pun intended. But let's face it: time, resource, and nonstop content change. Can make it incredibly difficult for any retention marketer to create real personalization. Well, not until today, that is. I'm really excited to share that Nacelle's new AI-powered product recommendation solution is here, and this AI-powered suite goes way beyond basic customers also bought recommendations. It actually analyzes the entire customer journey. Yes, that's right—from first click to checkout. So you can deliver hyper-relevant experiences to each of your customers. Okay, let me make this super super simple for you so we're on the same page. So basically, their AI. It's going to analyze each customer's complete product journey. It's going to create a product collection to automatically push into your email marketing campaigns, which is going to generate a dynamic landing page with those exact personalizations and those exact recommendations. This is going to create a true unified personalized experience at scale, and merchants can transform their e-com store with AI-powered product recommendations that understand their customers' actual behaviors, not just their purchases. So if you're an e-com brand hungry for next-level personalization, you know, the ones that you always hear people talk about but they don't actually give you a tool to use. Now you have one. You have to check out Nacelle's new AI-powered product recommendation today and let them know that Jimmy and I sent you. Now back to the pod. For sure.

Yeah, that makes sense. You know, Chase had a really great, like, advice piece when we were doing our Black Friday pod about the fact that if you're sending an SMS out, you should always send that— if you can see that you have an email going out or an SMS going out and you don't have their SMS number, you should be sending that same message on an And a lot of people don't do that. And the reality is, is because their data is siloed and they have no idea how to put that data together. So there's a true advantage of being able to put that data together and actually segment those people. Hey, these are on my list of customers. However, I have no email, no SMS address for them. Let me send them an email. I was already there anyways. I might as well get something out. So, all right.

Well, like another, like very practical. So how often do you see email campaigns that are targeted to collect consent to send SMSs? Yep. I barely see. Rarely. Yeah. You have already one channel. Boom. Or like, or signup forms. Yeah. Signup forms usually, again, there is one form, single form to collect both email and phone number consent. But we know who already subscribed to an email. Just, yes, still continue showing subscription forms, but remove the email field. Just SMS consent. So just, you know, such a—

It's such an easy concept, but so many people fall into this stuff. I mean, we all know what the data and availability of web tracking today, like who the person is on the other end, and if they've purchased before, you should be showing them a different pop-up if that's the case, or if they have their SMS only, we should be showing their email and so forth. And I don't know why brands don't spend the time there. It's just good customer experience to be doing that. But the reality is, obviously, they're worried about 1,000 things right now. And sometimes, you know, having the right thought process and people to go talk about it, like Chase and I are and you are today on this pod today, it's all we can do. It's the only way we can help move the world forward. All right. I have a question now because, you know, one of our recent reports that we got from you guys was one of our favorites, the 2024 recap. And the one thing that stood out that we've been beating the drum with, as people have been talking about, is that 37% of sales came from 2% of the email volume. And the shocking part about the number was it was all automation in place. I'm talking about your workflows, your triggered stuff, and the things that come into place. And it made us really— not only have we been talking about a lot on the web, people are talking about and realizing, hey, I set that up 3 years ago and I haven't touched anything. So here's my big question for you today. You know, what are What are the pitfalls you guys see by brands that are falling into with automated campaigns and how do they avoid them? What do you tell people? This is really important, obviously, based on the data. How can you go ahead and attack that?

So the first pitfall, and yeah, so this is kind of exactly, and that's what I love seeing increasing year over year because once we launched 10 years ago, that was our big vision, that entire marketing could be automated. The ultimate vision of a product, what Omnisend is now, was like one-click email marketing. Just you click a button, do my email marketing. And, you know, there was pre-AI and we didn't even know how to do that. But that was our vision. Apparently, marketers want to have this human touch and then they don't like black boxes too much, at least from What what we see in our customer base, but like yeah. And so but still like automation is great and love seeing that means that is way fewer traffic in coming into customers inbox, but it kind of bears. So I mean both sides are super happy. Fewer advertising, which advertising? I mean it's inevitable, but still it's not the most loved thing in the world for us as consumers. We are marketers and we do marketing. But once we turn ourselves into consumers, we love the more targeted one. So that's great. And talking about like what the pitfalls. So first, it's underutilization. And again, so similar with SMS to what we see among our customer base. So I mean, usually they set up 2, 3, up to 4 automations and they just forget. What you mentioned, Jimmy, in the example, I set up 3 years ago and I forgot. So first thing, you have to have 10 automations. Have to cover entire customer journey with automations. And it just, it requires you like, you know, one day of work and you can cover entire customer journey instead of like, you know, making campaigns again and designing them and thinking and spending so much time. So that's the first pitfall. 2 is great. And yes, like cart abandonment is the most effective and potentially will remain the most effective. But look, now it generates you maybe 70 to 80% of the automated orders. Why not to make it 20 and 30? Still, it will be the most effective automation, but let's add more. So the entire customer journey from, like, browse abandonment prior to really even adding something to a checkout, like checkout abandonment, to welcome automations, or from welcome automations to the entire post-purchase experience. Yeah. We delivered. Can you leave us a review, etc.? How did you like? Would you like to recommend? To the follow-ups, like 2 or 3 months It doesn't matter of, of the cycle of, of your customers buying cycles, etcetera. But, like, you know, it, it all can be covered with automation. So that's the first thing. And, and second, like, yeah, you know, experiment, etcetera. Although it works, but usually if you would run some experiments with, like, A/B test with maybe, you know, subject lines and then design and call to actions, etcetera, etcetera. Although, yeah, we put the content automatically, but the, the call to action The narrative around in the message, etc. It's what you can experiment. And of course, as we already touched, integrate more channels than just one single.

Yeah, 100%. That's awesome. I know, right, we are all in love with automations because they just punch above their weight. But let's talk about campaigns because that seems to be the one that a lot of people do more of. Those always seem to be sexier. Do you mind sharing a couple testing strategies for email and SMS campaigns? Like, what do you view and what do you see based off all the data that you're sitting on? Like what elements are the most crucial to test? You know, subject lines, send times, offers, etc.

So all of them are important. But the way we are, we think and I think is like, where do you start? You start with an audience. Yeah. So that's where you start. So is it better to send kind of a bigger audience or like more targeted audience, etc.? So that's the first step where you, where you start. And it's, it's worth experimenting experimenting with that. Yeah. Second step is really when do you land into the audience's inbox? Yeah. So time, sending time. And yeah, that could be like send time optimization when you set like across the time zone. So you have AI advice, etcetera. But still, you know your audience the best. And, you know, it's kind of a Tuesday, Thursday morning is traditionally the most effective, etcetera. But like we see some industries like Industries like in hospitality or, like, travel agencies, etcetera, we have quite a bunch of those kind of customers who sell, like, packages, so, you know, like, leisure deals, etcetera. Weekends are great for them just because people relax. They're not in, you know, that's where they are at home with family, and that's the right time to explore it. Yeah. So that's the second thing. Yeah. So segments, the best time to send. Then, of course, once we land in the inbox, we have to think about subject lines. And it's, you know, the first impression. And of course, everyone judges by the subject line. If I'm gonna— okay. By the subject line and by the external circumstances. If I'm so busy now, maybe I will ignore the newsletter today, although I may be reading read the newsletters of this brand, and I'm a fan of this brand. So, yeah. So subject lines are important. Yeah. Omnisend has, like, free— doesn't matter if you are our customer or no— subject line generator, subject line tester, AI-based tools, etcetera. So can really help you with and really invite everyone to Google and to find it.

And it's—

you should not be our customer to use it. And, and, of course, once they open that, we lock our subject line. They are in the content. So I believe in like call to actions. I'm not, to be honest, that strong believer in design. If it's not ugly, then it's like call to actions matter the most and more than just, you know, having very beautiful but no CTA buttons.

So Chase, you know very much about ugly design with great call to actions. It's a joke that Chase and I have because, you know, You know, some of the things that Chase has in the past, I mean, they've converted very well, so they've all worked and they've got great call to action, but the design hasn't been very good. And I've been upleveling some of the things that he's working on. I'm like, dude, we've got to work on the design. And he's like, but the call to action works. I'm like, yeah, but design still matters a little bit. But call to action, of course, matters way more. So yeah, I think that's hilarious. All right, Raitis.

More kind of on the Chase side, Jimmy. Sorry.

Yeah. You know, I used to, I used to not care that much, but I do believe that design does help with the branding side of things. And there's a perceived value that comes with the nice design. And people sometimes, I hate to say it, but people are visual and they don't want, they don't believe it if it's, if it doesn't look good enough as the offer is, especially when you're trying to sell something for $1,000 online, they expect a $1,000 design ultimately. Right. So I think there's a case on both sides.

It has to be beautiful. Completely agree. But once we talk about like, let's say experimenting, so it's way easier to experiment. with call to actions in comparison to like redesign every time, etc., etc. But yeah, it doesn't have to be ugly.

No, that makes sense. All right, Raitis, I want to shift gears a little bit because there's something that I wanted to ask you because you guys are a true global ESP. I think this is really powerful for you guys and you guys have an inherent different knowledge. I mean, first things first, when I learned about your SMS program and how many countries you guys serve, I don't know of any other SMS provider that does that, not as easy as you guys do. But another place that really sparked my interest was really around privacy regulations. I'm talking GDPR all the way to CCPA. So we're talking 2 different places of the world. You know, I would love to know how Omnisend is helping their brands stay compliant while still leveraging all the personalization that's out there.

Yeah. So first thing is, you know, more or less kind of like GDPR and CCPA is kind of like enforcing more or less global best practices. That's, that's the first thing. And internet service providers, they try to be compliant or request, request like the marketers and then brands who communicate via email to be more or less compliant. I mean, although they maybe do not state that, that, you know, there are parts of the world where opt-out policy is absolutely okay, even in the States, in different states that that is okay. But, but in fact, if you really want to, to, to, to have good deliverability, if you want to be placed properly in consumers' inboxes. So like the more compliant with those regulational acts you are, the better it is for you. That's the first thing. And they do not— they're not that different. Just maybe the, you know, with you, even within Europe, there are different countries that interpret in different ways. I mean, if it's Germany, it's super strict. Everything is super strict.

Yeah, very strict.

Yeah. If there are other countries, hey, just, you know, if not too many complaints, you're good to go, you know. Just, I've read about one country. Okay, I will not maybe mention that country for the marketers not to spoil, but you know, the agency operates in that way. They only investigate 10% of the most complaints received marketing, like campaigns or brands, etc. And they just ignore 90% of within the half capacity and that's how they operate. I mean, that's probably logical. Yeah, if you have thousands of people complaining, could be that something scammy, fishy, etcetera. And the rest, we just ignore. Yeah. So that, that's kind of like, in general. Yeah. And what, what tools do we have? So, you know, it all starts with subscribe. Yeah. So all our opt-in forms, they, they are compliant. They are compliant, and it's by default already. If you use our forms, it's, it's compliant. We have double opt-in for, for you to use GDPR. All the consents that are requested for both email and SMS compliance across countries, the, the copyright is there. It's, it's already legally, like, Proven and proofread it by with lawyers, etc. So just by using our default forms for collecting subscribers, you're already compliant. That's the first. It's where it starts, you know. And in general, like personalization and using first data party data. Yeah. So we use our one. I mean, the the tracking is happening new, not on behalf of Omnisend, but on behalf of our customers. So that's a first party data and and. That's, that's what they do and then only share with us to, to, to automate campaigns, etcetera. So all that combined is, is really what, what is compliant. And, of course, like, kind of like, you know, portability of the data. If, if end customer requests us to, to delete, we, we fully delete all the data on the traces we collected about the, the customer. So all those kind of like, could, could be like basic things, but, but in general, they, they cover. And, you know, our customers should not care too much. And as long as they don't use some, some mailing list, which they occasionally do, especially around Black Friday, Cyber Monday, holiday season, the list bumping for, for that one week or what, few campaigns. All right.

I know you're enjoying this pod, but I wanted to stop you just for 30 seconds and tell you about something very special that Chase and I I've been working on. Between the two of us, we have over 20 years of experience in email marketing. And when we teamed up to do this pod, we realized we had even a bigger opportunity to put our minds together and create a certification program that takes our 20 years of knowledge and share it to the world. And that's why we created Ecom Email Certified, an end-to-end course and certification program that's designed to take anyone, regardless if you're a newbie to an experienced marketer, founder, exec, Agency marketer or any other marketing professional to teach them everything we know about email and SMS marketing, from deliverability to AI to copywriting to design to strategy. We cover it all. It's loaded with 175 plus modules, 25 hours of education combined with quizzes and community, all designed to educate, test, and certify you as a full-fledged email marketer for e-commerce. And since you're listening to this pod, we want to reward you. you for your loyalty. So we're gonna give you a coupon for $100 off this certification. Jump over to ecomemailcertified.com, use coupon code SENDIT, that's S-E-N-D-I-T, no space. Join our certification program today. Now back to your pod.

Yeah, that's awesome. So I think a lot of people hopefully listening know this by now, but I've been kind of mid-migration from Klaviyo, which I was for a long time, to Omnisend. And I'm really excited. Obviously, I'm rocking the shirt. I'm really excited that everything's been going great. Jimmy's been helping me with it. Right Issue team has been fantastic. So I can really tell like the blood, sweat, and tears that you guys put into this platform over, you know, its lifetime. And it just feels like every week and every month it's getting better and better. You know, it's been easy to use. The support has been fantastic. So one question I was curious about is, do you mind sharing kind of any standout success stories of ecommerce brands? So I'm talking about my own experience right now. It's been fantastic. But do you mind sharing like any kind of Omnisend customer success stories that you've been really blown away by or excited about?

Yeah, sure. So I think like that I can, I can mention maybe like one agency with a brand. So it's Invisible Brands, it's an agency in this case, based in Germany, leading, leading e-commerce and email marketing agents in Germany. And they migrated the customer to us. And I think it's very interesting because it shows like the absolutely omnichannel approach outside even Omnisend. Yeah. So it's a streetwear brand. It's a streetwear brand. And what they did initially, they launched a consent collection and subscriber collection campaign on TikTok. Using common sense forms, they were promoting that. Okay, this is they are you know streetwear, so their audience is on TikTok, and they but that's how they converted the the traffic, which is unpredictable, you know not owned, etc., into into first party data, into you know content, into subscribers. So basically TikTok visitors, TikTok fans or viewers converted into into subscribers, and. And the promise was that, you know, early access to the new collection and you're gonna, gonna get earliest access. And yeah, and then we put automation, then we put automation in place about, okay, we will be sending out everyone who subscribes for that like few days prior to, like basically we will be sending pre-drop email for you. So, and it's a really, really great example. Yeah. So first working with agency to help them driving their TikTok audience into owned audience, into subscribers with a promise that you're gonna be the first to learn and you will get better price and exclusive right to purchase pre, prelaunch, etcetera. And, of course, it was kind of a really, really blast and a really great campaign. And once they launched this pre-drop campaign, you know, what's the number? I haven't known. So basically, in 10 minutes, they made $370,000.

€20,000.

Wow. In first 10 minutes after launch of an email campaign. So that's amazing. And for that brand, it is, it is really substantial.

Wow. No, that's— I love a good pre-launch story. I think, you know, Chase and I, we did a whole pod about event marketing and how like it's really exciting when you can get your audience behind you all ramped up and jazzed up, and then being able to like get them out excited about it and purchasing all at the same time because you make a milestone or an event that is occurring. It's how humans like to run. I mean, if you look at the Super Bowl, for example, like we did, it was an event, right? All these people from all over the world, mostly the US, but all over the United States that came over, spent a ridiculous amount of money to be at this Super Bowl for a single event. And that doesn't happen. And, you know, there's a lot to learn from that. Like, people want to be a part of something. And even if it's just buying something or a new release or a new collaboration or whatever it might be, Mm-hmm. Um, all right, Ritus, I, I have a good question because a couple pods ago, Chase and I, we talked about ESPs and all the things that you should be thinking about when making a decision about ESPs and so forth. But one thing we didn't talk about is really, I think the hardest thing that people don't really think about when they're making that decision to make a changeover into ESP, it's the learning curve, switching into a new automation platform. And as someone who's seen so many people make this decision, I wanted to ask you, man, what was the hardest thing that you had to learn when you switched over to ESP? What should you be thinking about? What should marketers be thinking about to overcome that learning curve ultimately?

Yeah, it does exist. So I completely agree. So, you know, at Omnisend, once we build the product, so we always say it to ourselves that, you know, the initial learning curve has to be as flat as possible. It has to be powerful In advanced section, but like you know to start benefiting it has to be as as you know as as as as simple as possible, as easy as possible. That's the first thing. At the same time, look you know so probably kind of the first thing if you already on another ESP, so you know ask for migration help and in Omnisend we gladly do that and it's. It's partially automated. It's in combination with manual help, but we are experts and we really help to do that. If you are new or you want to migrate yourself, so usually it's the best is just to start simple. Don't overthink. Yeah. Start with initial steps. And yeah, we talked here today that, you know, combine use email and SMS, automate more and 10 automations instead of 2. But you should not start from like doing all of that from scratch. And, you know, leverage prebuilt workflows. Even the copyright is prebuilt, etcetera. So it's really easy. Easy. It's very easy to start benefiting and start, you know, earning and having receiving first orders, especially from automations campaigns. Of course, you have to design yourself and think about the products that you want to, to, or whatever service or products you want to advertise, etcetera. So that's, I would say, kind of where, where you start. And from there, you, you you, you start doing, like, testing, A/B testing, and then playing around, etcetera. So that probably would be my advice. And, of course, kind of, you know, if you're doing yourself and then without assistance, so knowledge base, articles, videos, that, you know, in our case, we provide this. But overall, you know, listen to, to, to Jimmy and Chase. They have a lot of good advice. So, but not, again, Not probably, I mean, I think you're launching the new course now, yeah? I'm not sure if it's kind of like really for advanced level or is it for newbies, but I have no doubts it's really where people can learn and just, you know, very practically start applying it.

Very, very cool. That was awesome. That's good advice for people as you're thinking about it. I mean, A, I think it's always great when a company is supporting you with the migration thing. That's definitely a huge piece to it. But also prebuilt stuff is helpful. And so is people who are like me who like to go do it themselves, like having a good knowledge base. And I can definitely say as I've been helping Chase out, the knowledge base is definitely there.

Yeah, it's been night and day easier than I imagined through all the support, you know, Jimmy's, your teams, the resources you guys have available. So it always feels daunting and overwhelming. And when you do it the right way with the right platform like Omnisend, it just was way smoother sailing. So it was cool. I was pleasantly surprised.

Thank you.

I know we're kind of getting towards the end. I have one or two more questions. I think Jimmy might have another question or two, but one of my last questions is like, what's on the horizon for Omnisend, right?

I know obviously you mentioned a little bit about AI and whatnot, but what are some upcoming features or solutions you're excited and able to Yeah, so first thing, so we just improved our reporting a lot, which was, we were behind in the market, to be honest, for quite a while. But we kind of rebuilt a lot of our fundamentals, how we track data, et cetera. And that's why it took a bit longer for us, but now it really opens new horizons for us to be faster. So we will be improving our reporting. That's for sure. Upcoming second thing, what is really planned is like recommenders. We will be improving our recommenders a lot. We do have recommenders in campaigns and automations, etc., but now we will be improving them a lot. So that's, that's again a lot of new AI features coming. And then initially a bit granular, like, yeah, we assisting you there, here, etc., with a bigger vision. To potentially at some point, what we touched already, to replace the entire user interface, how you interact actually with your with your campaigns, with your emails that you're sending out, etcetera, SMSs as well. So that was kind of like the closest thing to come, and there is as well like visual uplift, but highly likely in Q2 because we think that kind of our communication outside the Product is more energetic, more more fresh than inside the product already. So we see a lot of potential there, and we have very specific plans. Just need to time us find a time slot to implement those.

Very cool. No, I know that sounds like there's a lot in the works there, and I'm excited to continue to watch that. All right, rightus. And WhatsApp.

And WhatsApp. It's still in consideration, but highly likely this year later we will. We launched WhatsApp as well. We launched, we had it.

Yeah, you guys had it at one point. You guys were ahead of the curve there and then you guys pulled back on it. But I will say, I'll tell you one thing, in my deep research, and the reason I have this deep research, at one point I almost acquired a WhatsApp company because I was so curious about it. I went digging deep. And the thing I learned about it that's really hard is because of the whole Meta's control over WhatsApp, there's so many barriers and walls and engagement bubbles and messaging limits. As a marketer, it kind of deterred me and turned me off. in a lot of ways. And I know it's an important channel overseas, especially maybe not in the US quite as much, but it's— they sure make it hard ultimately. And hopefully Meta starts to realize that they can make this a more common and usable channel for marketers and it would create more adoption even into the US ultimately. So it's definitely something that I learned about a lot. So yeah, I totally understand that. All right.

Right.

I have my last question and then I think Chase has one more for you. But I want to switch over to talking about founder life, and I'd love to kind of give like that, like, here's a founder who's done something incredible. You've bootstrapped from zero to, I think, like $55 million or something plus now at this point. What's the piece of advice you can give to other founders that are listening to this podcast? Like the one thing you wish you would have known before launching Omnisend and how you can help growing founders today move forward. Like, what can you tell people out in the world?

Today? Just, you know, do things.

Do things. Take action. Yeah. I mean, that's it.

Take action, not be in motion, unstuck. It's, it's, there's no need to make a perfect product, a perfect service, as long as you learn fast and you iterate and you improve, improve, improve. So, that's probably kind of, you know, Nike. I'm not sure if I I'm a big fan of Nike products, but I'm a big fan of their slogan, just do it. You know, it's the best advice as a founder as well. And of course, second thing which is extremely important, doesn't matter which business you're at, to listen to your customers. And in different stages, there are different challenges. Initially, you are very small and you have a lot of things on plates. And that's why you maybe don't have enough time to listen to your customers. And then at some point, maybe you become just too big. And maybe you start detaching, you know, too many employees, etc. So, of course, it is very, very crucially important through all the stages of your business. Yeah.

Love that. As you said, customer first, right? Like customer-funded, customer first. I mean, that mentality of having that bootstrap experience, I definitely can, you know, my first 2 businesses were very bootstrapped and I totally understand that mentality. And, you know, I've been on both sides of it and it's very easy to lose touch with your customers if you don't have that mentality. So kudos for you and, uh, those listening as founders, definitely a good piece of advice there is just love your customers and be a part of them. They've, they really do. They pay your bills and it's kind of important these days.

The only reason you exist, actually.

Yeah, 100%. Chase, what's your final question here? I know you got one last burning one that you wanted to ask.

Yeah, this was great. I, you know, I have a lot of notes. I'm going to go watch this back. This was, was awesome. So I appreciate you being here. Thank you for sharing all this. gems. To kind of wrap this up, if listeners were to take away one thing or maybe two things from the conversation about email and SMS, what should it be?

Omnichannel automation. Combine channels, automate marketing.

Love it. Easy, easy. I love that, man. And we thank you for being here today and we look forward to seeing you down in Commerce Roundtable Miami. So anyone who's listening, I know we've sent a couple emails about this, but Commerce Roundtable Rightus will be there, I think, right, Rightus?

Yes, yes.

Okay, yeah, he'll be there so you guys can really come nerd out, geek out, talk to him more about Omnisend, learn about email and SMS. You know, I think that anyone who's been in this space this long 100% knows so much in depth. And so, you know, not only Chase and I, but also being able to talk to Rightus will be a great, great experience for all of you guys. And with that, Rightus, that is a wrap to this episode. So we thank you. I know it's a late evening over there as you're calling in, so we thank you for your time here today. And for those listening, Listening, if you enjoyed this podcast today, please make sure you like, subscribe, follow, leave us a rating on your favorite podcast listening platform. You can follow the show on X, LinkedIn, YouTube, IG, TikTok, and there's a few ways to connect with us. First and foremost, if you enjoy what we're talking about, which is retention marketing, we drop a newsletter at Ecom Email Marketer. We drop that newsletter now three times a week, so check the show notes below and get on. That list. Secondly, we have this brand new certification program. You probably heard the commercial in the middle of it, but just one more time if you haven't heard, we have a great certification, end-to-end, 25 hours of training, includes a final exam, gets you a certification probably for your social media. You can get this at ecomemailcertified.com. Again, link in the descriptions. Use coupon code SENDIT to get $100 off that certification. And last but not least, following us on social. First of all, Rydus, are you on social media?

I am.

Sure. LinkedIn, X a little bit, but LinkedIn. This is—

Okay. LinkedIn. So if you want to follow Ritesh, jump over to LinkedIn and follow him. Chase, where do we find you?

Most platforms you can find me, Chase Diamond, no A in Diamond.

Yeah. And one place that Chase has really turned me into lately is Threads. So you can even find Chase blowing it up over on Threads now. He's inspired me lately, so I'm going to jump over there. But you can find me today mostly on LinkedIn. LinkedIn and X here today. So with that, guys, thank you for listening. Thank you for tuning in. Thank you, Ryders, for being on here. And thank you, Chase, as always. We'll see you next week. Thank you. Cheers.

From the open to the click, they're the masters of the flow. Just watch your list grow and your leads turn to go. Did we retain you so far or do we have to extend it? If you want results, you know you gotta send it. Yeah, you know you Gotta send it. Yeah, you know you gotta send it. Yeah, you know you gotta send it.