How OmniSend Reached $50M ARR Bootstrapped While Outranking VC-Backed Competitors in SEO (Interview with Co-Founder and CEO Rytis Lauris)

Introduction and Warm Welcome

Nathan Latka

00:00How are they getting customers more efficiently than their VC backed competitors? And that's what I wanted him to teach, and that's exactly what he's teaching today. I'm not gonna spoil the beans. Let's just give a warm round of applause to the CEO of Omnisend, Raidus Loris. Raidus, come on up.

Revenue Check and Seasonality

Nathan Latka

00:18Hey, Nate. Thanks for being here, man. I got it right. Right? $5.00. $5.00. Yes. And what will you finish this year out, you think?

Rytis Lauris

00:24>> Yes. We'll see. We'll see. With this year is a little bit more challenging, but it's always the q four is what defines the year. So still, we are only entering into the season, the high season for us. This is a very high seasonality, very clear seasonality.

Nathan Latka

00:38So The stage is yours. Coach us up.

Talk Overview and SEO Focus

Rytis Lauris

00:39>> Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So hello, everyone. So thanks for staying here and not going for a lunch. So twenty more minutes. Yeah. If you can start, countdown. Thank you. Thank you very much, and thanks, Nathan, for inviting me. And I will be talking about SEO. So what Adam showed how to use AI to to write list of goals, I would disagree to some extent or maybe at large. So I will explain you soon why is

OmniSend at $50M ARR: What the Company Does

Rytis Lauris

01:07>> it so. Okay. So, yeah, 50,000,000 ARR. I'm co founder and CEO. What do we do? We do we do marketing automation for those who sell online. So basically, if you're online store, we'll help you to communicate with your existing customer base by sending email, SMS messages, web push notifications. Yeah. You get the customer, you need to retain the customer, and that's where Omnisend comes into play.

SEO and Content as a Growth Channel

Rytis Lauris

01:33>> Yeah. And one of the our marketing tactics, is very important for us and that helped us to to grow to a certain stage is, SEO and content. Yeah. So this is probably kind of used to be for quite a while, the second largest driver. Initially, we truly belong. As you see, we launched a company ten years ago, so in 2014. We started doing SEO in twenty eighteen ish, 2019, something like this. So for initial few years,

02:00>> we really relied on app stores like Shopify app store, b commerce, WordPress app stores, etcetera. Then we started investing in in various other channels and activities to acquire our customers. Content and SEO became number two. Now it's a little bit being outperformed by agency partnerships. Maybe next year or some time ago, I sometime in the future I can talk about why agency partnerships and freelance partnerships overtake other go to market channels. But let's get back to

02:29>> this. Definitely, content and SEO help you drive traffic to your website, drive traffic to your blog, and then convert into sign ups and of course into paying customers. Okay. So in the next twenty minutes, will be talking initially about Omnisend, about competitive market we are at. Then the first three years, so that's that's the guaranteed thing. That's what we did. That's what worked for us. That's what I recommend. And the third part is about today. This

Key SEO Principles: Outcomes Over Output

Rytis Lauris

02:55>> is definitely AI, generative AI. It's disrupting SEO industry and the search industry in general. So there are I will share some insights, some learnings, but, of course, there various stage of experiment again again and not as certain as it used to be in the past. Okay. So a little bit about ourselves. So competition is truly tough. Yes. So Klaviyo, Mailchimp, they are probably the main competitors for us. Those who serve directly exactly the same customers as

03:22>> we do. But at the same time, we talk about SEO and the competition within the keyword space. We do have players like HubSpot, who's not our direct competitor. We do have players like Marketo, who's not our direct competitors, but at the same time, they compete for the same keyword. Email marketing is very broad space. Email marketing software, email, email, etcetera, is a very broad space. So we compete with those big guys. So keyword difficulty goes as

03:47>> high as 97. And PPC value for click, not for sign up, not for paying customer, but just for one single click goes up to $60. Yeah. So okay, on high seasons, on low seasons around $40.30 bucks for one single click. So really, really tough competition and yeah. So definitely investing in organic is what helped us grow. Okay. So key principles. Key principles, what our team applies, our content and SEO team applies. Initially, we focus on outcomes,

04:19>> not out. It doesn't matter how many articles you write. It's the only single metric that matters how much new revenue does the effort bring. So we we have OKRs across entire organization as a planning methodology. So OKRs is usually, if you're aware about OKRs methodology, it's always about moonshot. Yeah, you put the high ambition, high ambitions targets, etcetera. In many cases you fail, but sometimes you you reach those. And this is where the the breakthrough moments

In-House Team vs Agencies

Rytis Lauris

04:48>> actually happen. And SEO is a math. It's not much creativity there. There's a lot of calculations. There is a lot of analysis, keyword analysis, competition analysis, and then very, very pure calculation. How many articles do you have to write? How many backlinks do you have to collect? How many referring sources do you have to get in order to reach the certain position on the search? What is important here to say, we always relied on internal team.

05:17>> We never hired agency, and this is that was a strategic decision we made. And this, until today, we keep doing this. The team, SEO team is very small. Even today, there are only five people. And at the same time, have a pool of partners. So freelance, mainly freelance is a very small agency that do write content for us and then do generate backlinks for us. And AI is a good replacement for writing content. I will touch

05:43>> in the third part. So okay. So first three years, we just started doing, investing in content SEO. Our brand authority is, almost at zero, so, you know, we have to start somewhere. So if someone of you in in content SEO are at the same stage or similar stage, early stage, so this is the piece of advice that I will give you to you. Okay. So initially initially, it took us almost three years to get, from zero

06:10>> to 40,000 visitors to our website and blog. Yeah. No. 180, but as always, it always compounds, it always accelerates in the initial initial stages, always. The most difficult in business, in revenue, in in website traffic growth, etcetera. So what are the few things which I learned at the very beginning? Yeah. So to be honest, like being a founder, a CEO, I thought, okay, I've heard like rumors, okay, you just write a good piece of content and

06:39>> Google bot will come, read it, love it, and will recommend to the entire world. No. Yes. The good quality of content is mandatory. You should not be any, at any point writing shitty content. Good quality is mandatory, but it's not enough at all. So SEO is not a free play at all. You could be a good writer, but if you don't buy backlinks, if you don't buy referring other domains, it will not work. So first thing,

07:10>> in house team, not agencies. Why in house team? Because agencies, they have multiple customers and they are not that deep into your industry, not deep into your business. You cannot actually put the truly ambitious targets, revenue targets for outside outsourced agencies, if you outsource everything. Yeah? Yes, we do outsource agencies, mainly freelancers, mainly small boutique agencies to write content and to build backlinks. But the rest is being done. The keyword research, what we want to achieve,

07:42>> the target setting is being done in house since the very beginning. And this is one of the good decisions that I would that I'm really proud of that we made and that's what I would recommend for everyone who is maybe just starting. And

Building Domain Authority Through Backlinks

Rytis Lauris

07:55>> so one tactic to increase the domain authority. Domain authority, even up until today in the world of AI, it truly matters. If you are domain authority is low, it will take you months to get your good piece of content to be ranked top in the top Google positions. If your domain authority is high, sometimes it takes you just a couple of days to get ranked in top 10 position with some keywords. Of course, if your highest

08:19>> competition keywords still takes time, it really, really becomes easier. So domain authority, it's very important thing. So the single tactic that worked for us or the main tactic by far that worked for us is we're really building a big pool of referring domains and referring backlinks. Yes, so you see now we have like almost 100,000 backlinks that are referring to omniscient.com or block omniscient.com. At the same time, 11,000 unique websites do refer to Omniscient, including like

08:51>> the ones like Bloomberg, CNBC, CNN, etcetera. So Forbes are really, really like the best of four domains. Can you get those referral links from those best of four digit domains at the very beginning? No, you can't. It just takes time. Yeah. And you know, the best thing probably that we have Mailchimp referring to us, like, you know, competitors do refer HubSpot referring to us. Yes. So competitors, direct competitors, or at least the keyword competitors do refer

09:18>> to us, and I will say how it happens. So backlinks really, really matter, and for us, it's really initial three years we focused on building backlinks. Shall you buy backlinks? Yes. Shall you buy from the low 40, websites? Please don't do that because Google recognize it, and then you can be penalized. Yeah. So if there is something for cheap in the market, usually, there is a trap. So tips how to build backlinks. So, just outreaching. Yeah.

09:50>> And potentially US CEOs, maybe marketers, etcetera. You keep receiving emails, oh, I would like to post this this this content on your blog. You might find it spammy yourself, but believe there are a lot of people who actually accept your content to their blogs, to their websites, if you provide a good quality of content. That's okay. You don't put your name on it. It's it's like ghostwriting, but you still get the backlink and this is what

Tactics for Earning High-Quality Backlinks

Rytis Lauris

10:14>> you want to do that. Another thing that works really well doing various research. In our case, at least once per year, we do email marketing ground up. What's happening in our industry? Whatever, you know, conversion rates, clicks, opens, what are benchmarks, etcetera. Or we just do something like the recent, like super successful research about why Americans are buying on Tamil, the Chinese marketplace. It has been quoted by Bloomberg, CNBC, Forbes, founder, etcetera, etcetera, a lot of

10:45>> trusted sources. So if you provide interesting content, journalists will take, not from first time, sometimes you have to provide first piece, second piece, third piece. So this is where you get the high quality free backlinks. So you buy mid range backlinks, you basically, get good quality by providing a good quality research. So that's about kind of building authority. Now when you get to to go for it level, and it's today, you know, AI, generative AI, Charge,

How AI and Generative Search Are Changing SEO

Rytis Lauris

11:15>> GBT, Gemini, changes the landscape a lot. So what I'm gonna share now, it's more like experiments. Again, what we experiment, what works, what doesn't work, it's not set on stone yet because the industry itself is evolving very, very fast this year. So initially what happens, so more and more people actually do search not within the search engine. It's on Chargebeepti. You ask, what is the best email marketing solution on phones. ChargeBP on Gemini. And this is

11:46>> and this is just a real example. Yeah? If if you ask what is the best email marketing platforms, and for ecommerce focused platforms, there are two recommended. There's Klaviyo and there's Omnisend. Klaviyo is way bigger, this is a public company, but at the same time, our main competitor. So if you are not listed here in this answer, you're gone. Yeah? So people will not visit your website, will not explore you. So this is very important to

12:09>> get into the results and to get into the brain into artificial intelligence. As we can get into the brains in our true customers or prospective customers, we need to do the same to get into the brain into artificial intelligence. At the same time at the same time, even the Google, Google is embedding Gemini as a default search engine in Google. Nowadays, if people are googling this, AI overviews is the top result that is being shown. And

12:36>> here you can see, you know, Omnisend is not already in the first position. Yeah. We are listed there in in the list down below a little bit, but like, you know, Brevo, HubSpot, other players are listed as a top player. So we really have to overcome this one. And how to do that? This is this is a trick question. This is a trick question. And,

12:57>> you know, and initially what happened initially that Gemini especially and Google Charge GBD was was like maybe more accurate, but Gemini was totally inaccurate. And we took they they basically browsed the websites that in, like, in first, sometimes, you know, third, fifth, tenth page of Google search, and they made the, like Gemini made the conclusions based on that website data. But now the recent research shows that basically if you want to be recommended by AI tools,

13:30>> you have to be in the top search positions. So Gemini now puts into the AI overviews the results from the the content they get from top 10 Google search positions. So still, what does that mean? But basically, you have to do SEO play in order to be listed on Google, in order for artificial intelligence to take those websites as a trusted source and to recommend you once people are asking. What is the best email marketing solution

14:00>> for e commerce? So basically, that's where we get back to that like more traditional, traditional, SEO play. Still, you have to be listed in various listings. So top 10 content is the king. This is your goal to get. And again, the keywords, there are so many keywords. Yeah, I'm referring here and I'm showing examples of the most competitive keywords, but there are hundreds of other keywords, and in your case, that are not as competitive, and you

Affiliate Collaboration and Listicle Strategy

Rytis Lauris

14:28>> start there, and that's okay. Know? So another thing which really, really truly became super important nowadays and what was not the case in the past, the collaboration between teams. And look at this example, if you search for like email marketing software, a lot of top 10 results via affiliate place. You can see here PCMag, this is an affiliate play. Email vendor selection, affiliate play. Forbes is listed there. Zapier to some extent is affiliate. Yeah. So what

14:57>> does that mean that your content or SEO team is not actually capable to get into those listicles because they ask you to pay to be listed there. Yeah? To pay revenue share, to pay upfront, etcetera, etcetera. And they only have like six or five recommended software in those listicles. So it's even the competition. It's not only the money you can buy the position there, you have to convince them. So in our case, what does happen? Like,

15:22>> team makes the analysis. Look, we have to be listed in all top 10 results. A couple of those are our competitors, so we will never be listed there. Or even sometimes we make an agreement with competitor. Look, we list you number two. Of course, you will list yourself number one, but you list us number two, we list you number two in exchange. Let's do that. Yeah. And this is how you start dominating those results. At the

15:46>> same time, SEO teams go to affiliate team and say, look, there are four affiliate websites we need to get into those listicles. And then affiliate team does the job in order to get into those listicles, and that's how help SEO team to drive their results. Second thing, what is very important, you know, the content which is owned by you, if you want in those top 10 positions to have at least one article, which is on your

Author Authority and Authentic Content

Rytis Lauris

16:12>> own website or on your own blog, what Google requires more and more is actually to be authentic. So the the writers, the author, it has to be the real people, and they have to be authorities online. So this is just one example. We have few colleagues from from who will make them, like celebrities that Internet algorithms would understand that this is Bernard. He's a real person. He is, you know, writing about himself. He's talking on webinars.

16:38>> He's talking the he's he's on podcast as a guest. Yeah. So I'm one of those faces and like other employees are other faces who write content afterwards. Even like, you know, about his personal life, he's talking to CNBC. So Google sees, okay, that Bernard is a truly like respectful person and he writes a good piece of content afterwards. So it's important. So that's another thing which was not was as necessary in the past, but actually became

17:07>> very important recently. And backlinks still matter. Backlinks still matter. So if you want to come high into high positions with your own content, you write good piece of content, the offer writes good piece of content. The offer has to be authority. The quality of the content is good, but still you need backlinks to refer. You can wait organically, but usually have to accelerate this process in order to to have referring links and domains into your good

17:39>> piece of article. So that's basically you know, about the listicles, what Adam was talking prior to that about this, like, AI writing listicles, and and content. So, we are skeptical. Yes, we do use AI to help us to assist the right piece of, like, content, good content, but AI should never be the full full full, or the only offer as Google just penalized so many websites that were producing a lot of good content, good content sometimes

18:11>> even, very good content. But a Google was already able to recognize if it's AI, fully AI written content. I don't know how AI maybe is catching another AI. Yeah. But there there were so many websites penalized and like, you know, we had one experimental branch of website, which was a fully AI written. It just got down to zero. No results at all, like penalized to zero. Not so. That was that is our experience, and otherwise would

AI-Written Content and Google Penalties

Rytis Lauris

18:42>> be not to rely too much on AI writing your your content.

Future of SEO in an AI-Driven World

Rytis Lauris

18:47>> Okay. So for the future, adapting to AI as your world, definitely, it will continue. It's just experiments. I share what works now, but it can be disrupted here in our upcoming few days. Being able to set, to attribute SEO effort will be more challenging just because if someone search and chat GBT or Gemini and then enters, your direct link into your browser, it's very hard to attribute. That's what we see actually the growth of direct traffic

19:16>> is growing. There is a growth. So highly likely people search on AI. Collaboration across teams, it will the need will increase. And, you know, general brand awareness, which to be honest, myself as a founder was a little bit skeptical about, you know, general brand awareness initiatives. I will always love the market that is very, very attributable, that is very like tangible, it's very easy to calculate everything, etcetera. But, you know, now I believe that in the

19:46>> world of AI, general brand awareness will become more important. It's the same as like human brain. Yeah. If artificial brain will not see you as a market player, they will never recommend you. That's it. Yeah, they have, I mean, they have, Gemini, ChadGBD, other solutions, they have to see you as a decent market player. Otherwise, they will just not recommend you. Doesn't matter if it may be very broad some sources who you who list. Yeah. So

Closing Remarks and Team Recognition

Rytis Lauris

20:15>> in the last twenty minutes, so you know, doesn't matter if your competition is stuff you can do, and you can even like while bootstrapping without like over funding, just you have to be efficient. You have to look at SEO or entire marketing in my point of view as a math more than as a creativity. And of course, like AI is disrupting the world and then it's disrupting content SEO, but you can still conquer it. So this

20:40>> is our small team, so thanks to them for doing a great job. Thanks to them for helping me to prepare this presentation, And thank you everyone for listening. Thanks.