Why Ritsu Switched Email Platforms Mid-Growth (And What It Actually Took)

[00:00:00] Luke: you all have as a strategic priority for the business currently this expectation that the returning revenue, the returning customers are going to be more and more of the contribution of the revenue and the margin over time.

[00:00:12] So the email SMS strategy and the platform underpinning that is, is critical to make the decisions at this point that set you all up for that longer term. Could you walk us through then, related to that what led to some of these dec-de-decisions and discussions around looking for d-a different platform, considering a migration, and what really led to this process as it relates to the strategic priority for the business and what you all were looking for in, on the email SMS side of things?

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[00:01:28] Luke: Hey everyone, welcome to the Ecommerce Playbook podcast. I am Luke Austin, and I am joined today by Gil Dyen, who's the who leads marketing at Roots2Barefoot. We have the pleasure of, of working and partnering with, with them. And what we're going to be diving into today is getting into the life cycle marketing Emarsys world of things.

[00:01:53] Specif-specifically a conversation around platforms in this space and chatting through what a journey for them has looked like as it, as it relates to a migra-migration to Omnisend versus the platform they were previously on and what led to that decision, what the experience was like and and, and then some of the, the inner workings and specifics of it as well.

[00:02:14] I think this is a-- this is gonna be a pretty interesting conversation. There's not, not a lot of these conversations where we get really under the hood of plat-platform migrations the decision-making factors that lead to them, what the actual experience is like, the dos and don'ts and just, just being able to hear from someone who's in it leading marketing growth at, at a, a direct-to-consumer ecommerce brand making these, these decisions and what the experience was actually like.

[00:02:40] So, Gil, thanks for, thanks for joining us. We're excited to ha- excited to have you today. Maybe to start out, would you give us a little background on yourself, who, who you are, your prior experience, what, what you're currently doing at the brand and, and sort of tee up some of that background before we get into more of the specifics around this conversation?

[00:02:57] Gil: Yeah, sure. So very glad to be here. And I'm working with Rootso for the last two year. I have 12 year experience in e-commerce. We have a period brand in the footwear in the footwear industry running for 10 years. It's mostly Amazon. This one we took it D2C because the nature of the business.

[00:03:22] And yeah, we launched 18 months ago. We sold almost 45,000 units until now, and we hope to sell about 80,000 this year. Yeah, so-- And we're growing very fast and yeah, we happy to work with you guys.

[00:03:40] Luke: Awesome. Yeah, that's, that's great. Incredible to hear the growth trajectory and, and we're we're, we've we're excited to be part of that journey with, with you all as well in, in a small way. Before we get into the, the conversation around Omnisend and the migration let-- I- I'm curious if you could give some broader context of what the current sort of marketing mix and strategy from a high level looks like for Rootsy.

[00:04:05] We're gonna get to email and SMS, we're gonna connect it to Omnisend. Obviously, that's a that's a very strong and important part of the growth strategy for the brand. But over the two years that you've been there, and then even over these recent months, could you give a high level for folks of what are the, what are the key things that you are, that you are focused on and that have been crucial to driving some of the growth that you've seen for the brand more holistically from a marketing perspective?

[00:04:30] Gil: Yeah, I think the way we look at marketing, I think about because we have so much experience in the footwear industry. So the first thing that we're looking at, of course, it's like product production. It's product development, not product. Product development. And we put a lot of effort. And actually, the, the owner of the brand, the guy I'm working with, I built the, the brand from scratch, but he's the one that doing the all the product development and the, the main like growth platform and the main thing.

[00:05:00] You-- What- whatever we do in marketing, in the end, the big the big money in, in the product development and find the winners. And that's what we, we're doing in most of that time. And of course, I'm dealing with all the, all the online marketing, and at the moment, we focus mostly on Facebook and Google. I think about 80% of our budget go to Facebook, and that's where you can bring growth.

[00:05:24] Yeah. But the way that we use email and retention, it's also very important to us. As a footwear brand, we start with a very-- I think in the first year we've been in around 12% return customers, and our goal is, is to reach in year three to reach about 45 return customers, 45%. So that's why the email is such an important component in our growth marketing

[00:05:54] Luke: Yeah. That's, that's great. So yeah, appreciate, appreciate the, that context on the, on the overall marketing strategy. So, so with that, you all have as a strategic priority for the business currently this expectation that the returning revenue, the returning customers are going to be more and more of the contribution of the revenue and the margin over time.

[00:06:15] So the email SMS strategy and the platform underpinning that is, is critical to make the decisions at this point that set you all up for that longer term. Could you walk us through then, related to that what led to some of these dec-de-decisions and discussions around looking for d-a different platform, considering a migration, and what really led to this process as it relates to the strategic priority for the business and what you all were looking for in, on the email SMS side of things?

[00:06:47] Gil: Yeah, I think like with all channel ex-- of course, you know, the big money is, you know, in Facebook, and that's where you need to be best, and that's where you spend most of the money. But with all this thing that like all the SaaS and all platform and all services, we always try to save. But I don't mean like we, we cheap or we trying to, you know, to cut corner.

[00:07:08] But we try to save and, and be m- most efficient wherever we can in, in the process in order to put all the money into, into ads and growth. So we checking thing all the time. We, we audit all the time. We try to, to improve all the time because we need to be-- We're a small brand, we bootstrap, and we want to grow fast, so we need to put every dollar that we can into marketing and into growth and not into, into SaaS.

[00:07:34] Yeah. So we do aware that we, yeah, the SaaS economy and we, we do need to pay, but we always try to pay less.

[00:07:42] Luke: Hmm. Yeah. I, I love the, I love the way that you frame that, which is, yes, saving costs as much as possible and where we're able to, but not just for the sake of saving those costs, for the sake of reinvesting into more growth for the business, right? So how do we-

[00:07:58] Gil: exactly, yeah. Yeah, we, we, we very P&L based. We, we always look-- we profit from day one, and we always look in, you know, in the bottom line. But within that, we, we try to cut wherever you-- we can and put as much as to grow. Yeah, that's that's the way we operate.

[00:08:16] Luke: Yeah, I think it's such a, I think it's such an important framing and, and any conversations that relates to the platform, the tooling, the vendors, the resourcing that brands are using, there's, there, there should always be the sort of two sides of the coin of, okay, how do we have the most efficient resourcing in these areas and save on costs?

[00:08:35] But what is the reinvestment towards growth and provide-- and driving more value that it's going to lead to? And, and for you guys it was very clear, okay, if we can save dollars in this area, it's gonna allow us to invest more into ad spend and Meta and then the creative to fuel Meta specifically, right?

[00:08:49] And that's gonna drive more, more growth for the business, and so how do we continue that, that loop, which I think is, is really important. So, so part of the leading up to this decision, the cost consideration was an important piece of it based on, based on what you're sharing. What were some of the other considerations in the conversations that you all had as it relates to the functionality or the tooling, or if we re-platform, are we going to be missing features or tooling that we had previously?

[00:09:17] In addition to the cost, what were some of the other considerations or potential concerns y'all had as you worked through these conversations?

[00:09:24] Gil: I think the, the consideration is like the main issue for me as a, as a e-com operator, it's, it's the time. My day, you know, can start with you know, at 5:00 AM, I'm talking to, you know, to our VA in, in in the Philippine, you know, talking about customer concern. And then later on you know, we-- I start working with Sagi, the owner.

[00:09:48] We start to work with the factory. We start to discuss the, you know, production development. So you need to-- every process you make in the company or everything you, you change, especially when you grow, and we are in the mid mid seven figure. So, and we hope to be like eight. We will be eight actually in the, in next year.

[00:10:10] So we need to-- I need to allocate my time right. And every process, the way I'm look, I'm always looking for a new opportunity. Sometime it just totally new start. Sometimes it's like just change or make exchanges start. But always I, I need to see that the process and whatever we do, it's will-- gonna be simple in order to, to complete it without destroying the other thing that we do in the business.

[00:10:36] So it's always need to balance. And for me, really the time is the biggest issue. It's like something you need to know that you have a good partner and someone that with a good review and can take you to the next step. Yes. So yeah, it's, it's about... Mostly I think it's about saving because a lot of time, especially with today, you know, with the, with the AI and all the component, it's really hard to compare between platform and it's too techy, yeah.

[00:11:04] You don't have time to deal with any tech issue, with all the tech issue. We just need a good partner, reliable platform that can deliver.

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[00:11:45] Luke: Yeah. That, yeah, that's-- it makes total sense. So the, the cost consideration, saving on the pricing to be able to reinvest those dollars into growth being a, a core part of this, and then connected to that, the, the simplicity of the tool that was being used. You were able to do everything that you needed to do from a functionality standpoint with Omnisend but it, it sounds like there was a piece of it that was-- there-- it's more simple and straightforward to use for what you guys needed in addition to the cost savings, that the combination of those two things is what made that decision,

[00:12:15] Gil: Yeah. The, the, the combina-- yes. And the, the promise of Omnita that they lead you and they take actually, they lead the, the transmission, the transformation. Yeah, so that's really important as well, yeah. Because if I had to do it by myself, it will be complicated. But when the way they handle it is something that it allow you to consider and do it, yeah

[00:12:38] Luke: Yeah. Yeah, that's great. Okay, so let's, let's get to that piece of the conversation now, which is the migration itself. You, you hinted at this earlier, but I think the platform migration generally, and then specifically as it relates to email service providers or there, there's, there's certain migrations that come with a lot more concern and considerations for, for a lot of folks.

[00:13:01] So walk us through what the migration process itself was like for, for you all.

[00:13:09] Gil: So yeah, first of all, estimation, and I mentioned before Omnisend take, take the lead on the whole process from start to finish. Yeah, so everything they, they take you in your hand, and they take you through. The first thing in, in, in the process, they have a, an app built for migration, only for migration, and they just you know, they, you-- they get the access, and they actually migrant all your data from everything.

[00:13:36] From email and template and whatever, yeah, and all the flow and the design, everything they... From your old platform to, to Omnisend. So that's really easy process that they do done. It takes few days bec- with all the list and everything, but it's all done in the background, and it's nothing that you need to worry about.

[00:14:00] Once that done, the next step is to, is to take, allocate about, I think four to five hour, depending how complex is y-your account, and then go through all the flow, all the email, all the handle, all the technical setup, and check it. And again, and that's also Omnisend is take you, you know, in the hand, and they lead you through this process.

[00:14:26] But it need to be done, yeah. You need to allocate about four hour to see that everything in the migrant process went smoothly and there were no mistakes, all the link are right. Sometimes the dynamic content need to be tweaked a bit. Small, very small thing, just you need to allocate time and frame a time for it and yeah, and finish it in one time, then you're all set.

[00:14:51] Luke: Yeah, that's great. So

[00:14:52] Gil: migrant point of view, yeah

[00:14:54] Luke: That's, yeah, that's great. So from a high level, what, what I, what I heard from you said is the, the migration total can take less than a week, four to five days is what it took you all. And then in terms of y- the time that you were directly needing to spend on the process was allocating a good half, half a day at least, or a little more than that to really deep dive into it.

[00:15:16] But the, but a four to five-day timeline in terms of the process total, and then in terms of your time, a good half day or, or a little bit more than that to, to be able to get it accomplished. Is that i-i- in-- is that, is that right? Are there any other sort of buckets of

[00:15:30] Gil: Yeah, I think it's even-- I think it's, again, if it's, if it's planned right, it can take less than 30 day. But yeah, more, more or less 30 days, but it doesn't require-- If it's planned right, it doesn't require a lot of your time. Just need to be planned. That's why it's so important to, after the migration, really go over everything and look at everything.

[00:15:52] Migrant, you know, it's technology. Sometimes it's a glitch, sometimes, like the dynamic field is different. It's, it's small thing, but you do it once and you're all set

[00:16:03] Luke: Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's great. So the-- my understanding is if we, if we sort of bucket the, the pieces of ESP into, into these different categories, so the lists and segments like your contact database, that portion of it, the migration for that is, is pretty straightforward. There's not a lot of, lot of work to be done.

[00:16:23] The lists and segments and the contacts come over pretty straightforward. N-now a-and then from there you can-- you, you're using the platform to send out the campaigns to your list, et cetera. The, the flows and automation piece of this, I think is the, is the thing that is the m- bigger question for me typically, which is for the flow and automation workflow, everyone has their welcome series and abandoned checkout, and they have post-purchase, and they have seven-step sequences for their win-back campaign, whatever it might be, right?

[00:16:51] The whole automation and flow infrastructure. What, what does that-- what did that process look like or what is that process looking like for you guys and being able to effectively transition and migrate over the flow and automation infrastructure that you had into a whole new platform?

[00:17:08] Gil: So i-i-in general, the, the, the migration app is taking care of it, but sometimes there is a small difference with between the platforms, so it doesn't mirror it exactly, and it doesn't translate exactly as with any other electronic form. Yeah, it's not, not different. So, so it's really just requires... So you got the basic.

[00:17:32] All, all you need to do is to, to allocate those four hours, go over all your flow, and make those small tweaks that need to be fixed and, and you're all done. That's yeah. It's no-- You don't need to think so much. You just need the, the time to go over it and, and the time that you allocate for it, and you know I'm on it, yeah.

[00:17:51] Because it just... You need to be concentrate on that then. That's it.

[00:17:55] Luke: Yeah.

[00:17:56] Gil: So very straightforward. Yes. Nothing nothing complicated

[00:18:00] Luke: Okay. And, and I'm, I'm,

[00:18:03] Gil: I, and actually I just want to add that it actually a lot of the time it's especially with flow, we do it and then we forget about it. And for me it was a really good opportunity to go again over the flow and, you know, and refresh things and make things better, you know, that change over time. And so

[00:18:19] Luke: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:18:20] Gil: this opportunity actually to, to make it to benefit

[00:18:24] Luke: Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, 'cause where my mind goes is, yeah, there's-- In all the flows that you have set up, you have the individual email sequences, you have the triggers, you have dynamic fields, you have links in, in all of them. So the-- It sounds like the migration handled a lot of that. And the, and the work that you then did after that, which is sort of QA and everything, maybe making adjustments to the au-automations, they're-- Like, all of that, all of that was handled, it sounds like.

[00:18:48] Like, the, the, the build-out of the flows and automations reflected what you guys had built out, built out previously, where you weren't needing to go and QA every single one of your flows and automations and

[00:18:59] Gil: No, e-everything is going, the template, everything, everything is there. You just need to go over it and just yeah, just make, Send it to yourself, see if things change. It's really small tweak, but just need to be done

[00:19:11] Luke: Yeah. Yeah. That's, it's an interesting perspective too. It's a good-- The timing of the migration is a really good time to audit the whole program and rethink, "Oh, let's refresh that flow. Oh, let's add another branch to our welcome series," whatever, whatever that might be. And then the, I think the final piece of the process that typically will come up in these conversations is the warm-up phase of being able to start sending out campaigns, not being able to send to your full list, sort of gradually ramping up so that there aren't any issues and your domain isn't getting flagged.

[00:19:43] What, what does that process look like on the warm-up, the warm-up phase to, for you guys to be able to get back to being full full bore on the campaign cadence that you had?

[00:19:54] Gil: Yeah. So again, it's, it's, it's an easy process. It just-- You just need to, to plan it in ahead and especially give it some, like a window and not putting in the time that you have a big sale or any big event because you don't want to do it in that. And the way it's been done, it's Omnisend is actually is taking your list, your full list, and then they break it into, into s-small audience.

[00:20:20] And every day they, they started with a very engaged and open, open, open until you get to, to the full, full list. So you need to... And, and every day it's actually double the, double the numbers. So for us, with the 60,000, it took we had to send nine days. So you can actually-- They said, "Okay, you can send whatever the mail that you have in your pipeline," but then if you do like that, you might miss important things.

[00:20:48] So that's why it's really important for my point of view to find a window where you can send an email that it doesn't care if people get it or not, just, just for the process. But you can also do it with regular email. You just know that you're gonna miss some of the people. Yeah, so I think it's better.

[00:21:06] It's really important to find a good timing and not doing it like in a big sale or anything like that will affect your performance in the, in this process. But otherwise, it's very straightforward. They building the, the audience for you, and you just touch the email and send to this to this group.

[00:21:25] Yes.

[00:21:26] Luke: Yeah. Yeah, so the timing's a good call-out. Yeah, anyone who's considering something like this Q4 probably isn't the time period, so get- getting it, getting it, getting it done, getting it done before that would probably be a wise, a wise decision.

[00:21:41] Gil: Yeah, yeah. No. In Q4, you don't want to do a- anything dramatic. Yeah. But yeah, it definitely need to be in the off time and where you can allow, like, two weeks. It doesn't mean that you can't send an email. You actually can send, but just need to, you know, you don't want the most important email to be missed and only sent to one audience.

[00:22:01] Yeah. That is not,

[00:22:02] Luke: yeah. That's great. I-- those, those were some of the, the key things I know that we had, we had discussed. Those were some of the main questions I had, and I think the, the conversation topics that typically come up for folks as it relates to what a migration entails, what the process looks like. Gail, I'm curious, is there, is there anything else outside of what we discussed as we, as we land the plane here for folks?

[00:22:22] Anything else that is is worth communicating or that you want to make sure that we touch on about this

[00:22:27] process or Umara SMS more broadly?

[00:22:29] Gil: I think first of all, yeah, as, as we say few time during the conversation, it's planning. Just it doesn't like big plan. Just find the time and allocate time and lock time for it and for the process. For the whole month, yeah, it j- it just you don't need to be on it for one month, but just find the right time to do it.

[00:22:50] And the other thing that Omnisend have really, really good customer service. They... I'm, I based in in Bangkok, so, you know, I'm working on a weird time zone, and they really available 24/7, very fast, very efficient, like very professional. So that's, that's a big plus. And yeah, I think it's really if you consider doing like chain like this, it's just, you know, yeah, it's definitely if you need the money to grow and if you want to consolidate anything in, in the process, just in your stock, just do it.

[00:23:30] Yeah, it's very easy, and I think I highly recommend. We still in the very early stage of seeing the result, but we send already few emails, you know, for our engaged list and, and the results, they seem very good with open rate and yeah. And all the... Everything looks good, yeah, from technical point of view.

[00:23:51] Luke: Great. Great. Well, thanks Gil for walking us through that. And I'll, I'll throw out there as well for, for anyone still, still with us in, in the process, we have, we have integrations to all the major platforms, including, including Omnisend. We, in our process, we plan out, we plan out our for- the forecast every day, every dollar across email and SMS.

[00:24:11] We have targets for each of the channels that we track against, and we build out an email plan to make sure that there are enough emails, enough SMS, and that the campaign send cadence, the campaign types allow us to be able to hit the business forecast that we have built out. And Omnisend and the integration with those folks is one of, one of the new ones that we've connected in Statlas in our system to be able to do the same with them as well as for the other major platforms that, that most folks are on.

[00:24:33] So Gil, appreciate your time. Appreciate you walking us through what the experience has been like for you. And excited, excited for what you all have in store over the next couple years as the brand continues to grow, as the returning revenue and the email SMS channel becomes-- is more and more important as contributing to that.

[00:24:50] Gil: Okay. Thank you so much for your time and yeah, I appreciate it

[00:24:55] Luke: Great. Thank you

[00:24:56] Gil: Okay, thank you