Evaldas Mockus: At Omnisend, Talking to Customers Isn’t Optional

Omnisend, established in 2014, is a marketing automation platform specifically designed for e-commerce businesses, with a strong focus on email and SMS marketing. The company has grown significantly, earning recognition as a top marketing app and appearing in rankings of Europe's fastest-growing companies. Evaldas Mockus, VP of Growth at Omnisend, has been instrumental in this growth since joining in 2018. Starting as an SEO specialist, he now leads a substantial marketing team, overseeing a wide range of initiatives aimed at driving revenue through a strategic, data-driven approach.

In this interview, Evaldas shares Omnisend's strategy for measuring the effectiveness of long-term marketing efforts like podcasts and events, and discusses the company's focus on the SMB market rather than large enterprises. He also highlights the critical role of exceptional customer service as a unique selling point and touches on the challenges of team management and creating emotional connections via storytelling.

What do you think is the main difference between B2B and B2C?

Well, the first thing with B2B is that you definitely can't create those really 'sexy' ads that people share, that go viral.

The sales cycle is totally different. For example, I have friends who run big B2C companies. They don't need to think about marketing attribution in the same way. You launch a campaign, you buy Google Ads, Meta Ads. You invest thousands of euros during the day, and the next day, you know your sales metrics.

In B2B marketing, the sales funnel can take six or even nine months. So, when you're working on campaigns and specific initiatives, you don't see results immediately. That's where marketing attribution and your skills become crucial. Understanding whether the actions you took maybe six months ago are creating value for you at the moment. I believe this is one of the biggest challenges.

I'm not saying it's easy for B2C; it's different. I think you're competing with a lot of companies. But in B2B, building the marketing attribution model is the biggest challenge.

If the sales cycle is so long, how do you actually track impact? Let's say you engage in activities like podcasts, content marketing, or even trade shows or conferences. You don't get immediate results. It can take even longer, maybe a year or several years.

Firstly, you cannot expect to get 100% accurate results. We've been building our attribution model for quite a long time, and it's very clear that you cannot guarantee 100% accuracy. And I don't think it's possible to create such models in B2B. You need to ensure stakeholders understand there will be some interpretation involved.

Then, we split marketing activities and acquisition channels into different categories. Things you mentioned, like podcasts, trade shows, and webinars —if you try to attribute them directly, for example, by putting a discount code for a podcast or webinar, in most cases, the ROI will be very, very negative.

But when you conduct post-sales interviews and ask people how they found you, you start getting answers like, 'I was a big fan of this podcast. I heard your promotion and decided to try your tool'.

So, you need to gather this data from your new customers. I believe this is called self-reported attribution. Asking the customer is the first step.

What we measure is whether our traffic, registration numbers, and paying customers are growing from direct channels. All these top-of-the-funnel activities – webinars, podcasts – we are tracking quarter by quarter to see if they are impacting our direct attribution model. If you're running broad campaigns but direct traffic and direct sales aren't changing, then you're not moving in the right direction.

We previously tried to do things differently; we expected that if we ran a campaign, for example, with influencers for two months, something good would happen, and we'd see results. But in most cases, even if you check direct or influencer attribution, you don't see the data. So, we decided that if we want to see results, we need to commit for maybe six or nine months. We just push as hard as possible, and then we see if there's a positive trend in our direct sales.

If you only measure over a shorter period, I don't think there's a way to understand if you're heading in the right direction. I've spoken with other SaaS companies, and in most cases, they say you need to take a longer view and push hard, and then you'll see changes in the metrics.

Data from outside our organisation helped us build confidence, and with stakeholders, we decided this was the direction we would pursue. And now we can say that, yes, we are seeing signals in our attribution model that these podcasts and influencers are helping us.

Evaldas at the largest SEO conference in Lithuania

What proportion of your business comes from enterprise customers? Because the SaaS business is somewhere between B2B and B2C, especially if your monthly fee is, say, under 100€ or so, customers might behave a bit like B2C because it's an easy purchase.

We are a product-led growth company. Our main goal is for people to be able to try our product and purchase without needing to interact with our sales team.

However, we do have a sales team, and they assist new customers in understanding the benefits they can gain and help them close deals faster. But as a company, we don't focus on the enterprise segment. We've considered it, but we see that these customers, even the smaller ones, have unique needs.

For example, they might want to sign a contract and bring five lawyers to review it. Initially, we tried to experiment to see if we could meet their needs. But then we understood that we are focused on scaling with SMBs. For enterprise customers, if they join and purchase the tool, we can help them migrate and set everything up. But we don't offer unique solutions, unique contracts, or even things like penalties for not meeting contract terms.

We essentially say, 'You're buying what we offer'. The demands of enterprise customers, especially the large ones, are so significant, and their payment terms can be lengthy – 90 days or even 200 days later – plus all the legal complexities. In many cases, it's simply not worth the hassle.

How do you understand what your ICPs really need? How do you obtain this information?

Omnisend can thank our CEO for this. We now have mandatory conversations with our existing customers.

In the beginning, it was quite a challenge for me because it was a new experience. You need to learn how to ask the right questions. All customers are complex.

If you're talking to people from the United Kingdom, for example, they are very polite, and it can be complicated to get candid feedback; they don't always tell you the complete truth. You have a fairly long conversation, and slowly, they start to open up and can provide really useful feedback. Here in our countries, people are very direct, which isn't a bad thing. But in other cultures, that directness can be considered impolite.

If you attend these meetings with a colleague from a different department, you gain different perspectives. Perhaps a product person or someone from finance. For me, it was a very beneficial process for better understanding who our real customers are.

The second thing we started doing was organising agency meetups. These are marketing agencies, email marketing agencies, website developers – essentially, they act as resellers for us. They can recommend our tool and earn commissions. And they provided incredibly candid feedback.

In just two hours of conversation, they gave us a huge list of areas where we could improve. It's completely different from just looking at your data dashboards. Data can show you interactions, what they're clicking on, how much time they spend, and the most important features. But when you talk to these people, the context is completely different.

I've noticed that you've received some awards for customer service. What does that signify? What kind of customer service do you provide?

That's a really important area for us. We've received awards four times in a row in the United States. The competition there is significant, and they scrutinise your actual metrics. How quickly you provide support to your users, and the feedback you receive after those interactions.

Our customer success team works incredibly hard on this; it's a large team. Providing support as quickly as possible is a primary focus for them; it's a key metric. We measure this constantly and make necessary adjustments to meet our criteria.

At the same time, we need to provide high-quality support. Not just give a quick answer and say, 'Okay, it's your fault, we can't help you,' but actually resolve the issues. This is a high standard for us. As a company, we genuinely invest in this area and work towards this goal.

These awards, for example, in some European countries, might not be as relevant. But our main market is the United States, and there, a Stevie Award is a significant achievement. Our sales team uses this as a trust factor and social proof in conversations. We also use this social proof on our website, in demo forms, and in advertising.

Winning an award wasn't accidental; it was part of a long-term strategy.

But providing excellent customer service is very expensive. And you see what large companies, especially utility companies like telcos, banks, and airlines, are doing: cutting back, replacing humans with AI and chatbots. Why are you pursuing this approach when so many other companies are actually reducing their customer service?

This is one of Omnisend's core values, we promise top-notch support to our customers. From the very beginning, we had a setup with 24/7 support. I agree with you, it's expensive, but this is one of our unique selling points. We are also experimenting with AI, but not in an aggressive manner.

If someone has to wait for a support agent, we provide relevant information. Perhaps while you're waiting, you can check some documentation, or maybe the answer provided can help you resolve the issue. But we don't have a system where we force customers to spend ten minutes interacting with an AI agent, creating a negative feeling and bad experience, before a human support agent finally joins.

We don't plan to change our approach here; it's our strength.

What is your response time like? Let's say someone is interested in your product and emails or sends a message. How quickly do they receive a response? What's the standard?

We have people working in different time zones. If you're interested in a demo or product presentation, in most cases, you'll receive a response within hours to arrange a specific meeting time. For support requests, it's within minutes.

From my experience, I've realised this is a significant factor. If you're testing different tools and need additional information, while price is important, if you can react quickly and communicate with potential customers, you build greater trust from the initial steps.

But what is the role of the sales team you mentioned? In many SaaS companies, everything is digitalised, and you don't really need sales people.

The sales team focuses on two different areas.

Firstly, if visitors to our website show intent to have a demo call, our sales team handles that. And again, you can't say all buyers are the same. We know some people dislike talking or making phone calls, but others prefer this interaction to get, in most cases, perhaps reassurance that everything is fine and they can trust the people behind the product.

At the same time, if you simply start using the product, we see potential and a good fit – our sales team will reach out and offer to have a meeting. During the meeting, we clarify their specific needs, particularly regarding migration from other tools, as we have specific dedicated packages for that. We know that migration is often a pain point for everyone because you're taking on risk and accountability when making these decisions. We explain the process and outline the support we will provide.

So your sales team doesn't handle cold outreach?

No, they only work with leads who are already engaged, warm leads or people who have shown interest.

What is your most efficient or effective marketing channel for generating leads?

Previously, it was very clear that our visibility in different marketplaces, like the Shopify App Store, WordPress App Store, e-commerce platforms, etc., was the key driver.

But as we grew as a company, we identified limitations. You need to be visible to both bottom-of-the-funnel and top-of-the-funnel audiences.

Around five years ago, we started investing quite heavily in different acquisition channels. And now, after five years, what is very clear is that beyond a certain company size, you cannot grow as fast as you did previously. So, you have to broaden your approach and target different channels.

At the moment, we are heavily focused on affiliate and influencer marketing, and SEO content marketing. There's also a big focus on agency programmes and paid activities. We see that if you invest more in, for example, influencer marketing, your other channels also start to grow. You might think, 'Okay, I haven't increased my investment in SEO and content,' but you see that channel is also growing faster. So, you develop the hypothesis that visibility and scale in one channel are also helping your other channels to grow.

You've mentioned influencers several times. Who exactly are the influencers in your business?

At the moment, we are focusing on four main areas.

Firstly, SEO influencers – people who write content about e-commerce businesses, best tools, review websites, and so on. You want to be listed and reviewed on these websites and achieve high positions in their rankings. If you're, for example, in sixth position in a list of the top ten email marketing solutions, you're simply not visible. So, you work very hard to get into the top three if you want to generate sales.

How do you manage that? Let's say, if I were a micro-influencer who writes about marketing, and I created a list of top email marketing or software solutions, I couldn't risk my reputation by putting someone who pays me.

Nobody is going to risk their reputation by recommending random tools. It's not about the money, you need to build a relationship first.

The website owner or influencer needs to test your product. They need to understand that it's a genuine product because thousands of products appear every day, and they receive numerous pitches. I was in a meeting in New York with a big publisher, PCMag, and the journalist showed me her mailbox; she receives around 200 pitches per day. So, just imagine how high the competition is.

So, first, you try to get noticed, then you build a relationship, and then you present your product?

We've had situations where some journalists have reviewed the product and provided feedback that certain aspects need improvement. We work on those areas and then provide them with the updated product again. It's not as simple as just going and buying these positions.

Top influencers understand their value; they respect their audience and need to maintain trust, including in the eyes of Google. It's a significant undertaking. You might work with some websites for a year, even eighteen months, before you get listed.

So, it's not like working with a teenager on Instagram who promotes your hair care product?

That's a different matter. When I mentioned SEO affiliates, we also have YouTube influencers.

Again, you want to work with people who have established trust. You try to find those who align with your ideal customer profile (ICP). They need to work hard and provide high-quality information. Then, you get in contact with them and try to present your product.

But in most cases, if a person or website is already well-established, it's not primarily about money. If they are just starting out and are small, then yes, in most cases, if you offer some budget to begin with, they will work with you. But you cannot expect them to generate significant revenue or influence. It's quite a challenging game. It might involve following these influencers around the world, meeting them at conferences, and trying to build their trust. With smaller ones, it might be easier to reach an agreement, but you shouldn't expect a major impact.

For example, in terms of brand visibility, which is also a significant factor, focusing solely on the sales pipeline has limitations. You still need to work on the top of the funnel; you're trying to reach a broader audience.

Regarding Instagram influencers, we've only recently started working with them. If they have a good number of followers and create quality content, they understand that this is a real business. Their audience trusts them. And it's not simply a case of, 'Okay, I'll pay you, say, 3,000 EUR for a collaboration, and everything will be fine'. You need to sell your product to them first. It's more complicated than we initially expected.

Can you describe your ICP profile? How specific or narrow is it, particularly when we're talking about influencers, not customers?

Our main focus is on e-commerce. If someone is just creating a blog about lifestyle, we're not the right fit. You need to be generating revenue from your website. We say, if you have a checkout process, you are the right customer for us.

We also have a large customer base in the fashion sector. So, fashion, home goods, and related categories are significant for us.

Geographically speaking, the US is a huge market. I've heard strategies suggesting you should target the market state by state, or even county by county, focusing on smaller areas, otherwise you can deplete your budget instantly.

It's definitely a huge challenge. With paid advertising, you target specific locations where your existing customers are based, or where the main searches for your competitors are occurring.

But when you're dealing with broader activities like PR campaigns, events, influencer marketing, or content marketing, you're not thinking about specific states; you're targeting broadly.

But I completely agree with you. If you're solely relying on paid ads, doing so with European budgets is challenging. You need to be very strategic and target specific locations.

What's your biggest challenge as a marketer at the moment? What keeps you awake at night?

I believe challenges change quite rapidly depending on the stage of the company.

One thing I was thinking about before our interview is people management. When I had a team of ten people, I was very close to everyone. I knew what they liked, their performance; it was easy to provide feedback if something was missing. Now, my team is over 60 people. Learning how to delegate, how to trust them, and how to have an impact on people when there are two or three layers between us has been a significant challenge.

Are they based here, or is it a remote team?

Most of the team are based in the Vilnius office. Some colleagues are in other cities in Lithuania, and we have colleagues in the United Kingdom and the United States.

We experimented with different setups during COVID, increasing the number of colleagues based abroad, but I found managing a large number of remote colleagues quite challenging. People didn't feel as connected; their involvement was different, and they didn't always understand how decisions were being made.

I believe that simply having a coffee together in the office provides a greater understanding of what's happening. When you're trying to change people's behaviour, you're losing ground because your competition is moving fast, particularly in the United States. You need to find that sweet spot.

Aside from this management challenge, what's the main marketing or communication challenge?

The marketing challenge I've been focusing on recently is how to create emotion around the brand. I believe that in Europe, especially Eastern European countries, we are good at data and analysis; we can measure many things and operate at a high level. But when it comes to storytelling and creating an emotional connection between people, your customers, and the brand, that's an area where I believe our countries face the next challenge – learning these skills and reaching the same level we see in Western countries.

We built a brand marketing team, hired people, and invested money and resources into them, and we are learning how to do this. We tried to do this with existing resources, but honestly, with my background in performance marketing, it's a big challenge for me to be creative and think about storytelling.

How do you educate yourself, or where do you get information? What are the most useful methods – events, seminars, webinars, podcasts, books, whatever?

One thing, and I believe people don't utilise this technique enough, is that if I see someone is visible and achieving great things – for example, I'm listening to a podcast or reading articles online – I simply add them on LinkedIn and send a very honest message. I'll say, 'I was listening to your podcast, and I was truly inspired. Perhaps you could spare 15-30 minutes to discuss some specific topics with me.' It's genuinely helpful for connecting with significant players in the market. While you won't get a 'yes' from everyone you reach out to, if you are consistent and ask for help from time to time, you can have some very inspiring meetings.

Another thing I tried was using platforms where you can hire external consultants and have consultations with them. For me, it was an interesting experience, but I didn't feel I was gaining entirely new insights. People who sell their time for consultations are often not deeply specialised. They provide good knowledge, but I felt I was at a similar or higher level, and I didn't see significant value in it. However, if you're not very experienced, I highly recommend doing it. There's a website called Growth Mentor, where you can find interesting people to talk to.

The best book, and one I recommend to everyone, is 'Thinking, Fast and Slow' by Kahneman. I've read it twice and need to read it a third time. For me, it was a valuable book for building confidence. When you're on LinkedIn, you might think everyone is incredibly successful and intelligent, and you're somehow behind them. But the book explains all these things and how people make decisions, how we understand the events happening around us every day. It's not a pleasure read; it's an educational book.

From podcasts, Tim Soulo from Ahrefs is doing a really great job now. The first iteration wasn't as successful, but he's more assertive this time around and the content is very good.

Evaldas received the Marketing Transformation of the Year award from the Lietuvos marketingo asociacija (LiMA) at CMO Summit 2025

And if you could pinpoint one lesson from your career, say, if you could turn back time and do something differently?

In the beginning, I lacked confidence in myself. When more experienced people challenged me, my initial thought was that I wasn't good enough. I focused on that feeling of inadequacy.

When I joined Omnisend, our CEO started to educate me – he explained that feedback, even negative feedback, isn't about you as a person. It can be a great opportunity for you to step up and move forward.

I realised I needed to change my mindset; I wasn't going to be happy feeling that way. After I shifted my mindset, I started to feel that I was growing quite rapidly. I can accept very candid feedback, sometimes even harsh feedback about what I missed. But I understand that it wasn't done with bad intent.

The second thing is the people you surround yourself with. Having meetings and talking with experienced people and getting their advice is definitely helpful. As I mentioned, just reaching out to people via LinkedIn and learning from their experiences also helps boost your knowledge very quickly.