How Omnisend grew partner-attributed revenue over 200% YoY by realigning strategy — and returning to PartnerStack

Omnisend is a marketing automation platform built for the needs of eCommerce and online businesses, offering tools for email and SMS marketing, push notifications, Google Ads, Facebook Ads and more, helping over 125,000 eCommerce brands grow every day. Trust and strong customer relationships are core to Omnisend’s mission, with features designed to help merchants deepen connections with their customers.

The same values — trust and strong relationships — are also key to the success of Omnisend’s partner program. When Marty Bauer, Director of Sales and Partnerships, took the lead of the program in 2024, he quickly uncovered a critical issue holding their agency partner program back: the lack of a PRM solution that both his team and their agency partners could truly rely on. 

By implementing strategic changes — including a pivotal return to PartnerStack — Omnisend transformed its partner experience and unlocked new levels of growth.

Making the right choice for their partners

Before Bauer stepped into his role of Director of Sales and Partnerships at Omnisend, the team had already transitioned away from PartnerStack to a different solution early in 2024. Unfortunately, despite months of migration, it soon became clear that the new vendor wasn’t the right fit — especially for their agency partners.

“We moved from PartnerStack to another vendor because at the time, the teams thought that the grass was green on the other side, but it clearly was not,” Bauer explains. “It was a heck of a lot more expensive and the support, service and user experience for our team was really frustrating. But we could get through that — we’re here not to serve our processes, we’re here to serve our customers’ needs.”

Within his first few months in the role, Bauer started to hear the same message echoed across his calls with agency partners: they were frustrated with the painful processes and experience of using the alternative platform. 

“It was unanimous,” he shares. “Every single phone call I had with an agency partner that we worked with had the same feedback. It was just the same drumbeat over and over again.”

Internally, the Omnisend team also struggled with inefficiencies, but the turning point was partner feedback — or, in many cases, silence. Some partners outright complained, while others simply stopped bringing in new business to avoid dealing with the platform.

“The user experience for our agency partners was so bad that when we started talking to partners, a lot of them had stopped bringing us new business because we had moved off of PartnerStack to that other vendor,” he notes. 

“The process there was just so frustrating, painful and cumbersome to get set up on that vendor that it was just a non-starter for them.”

A new strategy — and a return to a trusted solution

It was clear to Bauer that if Omnisend wanted to revitalize its agency partner program, strategic changes were needed — starting with moving away from the vendor they had recently adopted.

Bauer and his team evaluated their options. They considered other platforms — including returning to PartnerStack. Ultimately, they chose to come back to PartnerStack for a few key reasons.

First, their agency partners were already familiar and comfortable with it.

“We learned that many of our existing agencies and partners had other PartnerStack accounts for other vendors, and it was a no-brainer for them when we came back to it,” he shares.

Second, Bauer was impressed with the high-touch, responsive support he received during the evaluation process — especially compared to other vendors.

“Nikita [Zhitkevich, VP Sales at PartnerStack] helped navigate the process for us, and you could tell that he was invested,” Bauer shares.

“He wanted to earn our business, and that meant a lot to me. He didn’t just live in our inbox. He wasn’t just sending follow-up emails. He was texting me, ‘Hey, I got this answer for you’ or ‘I’m sending you the document to sign or review here,’ or ‘Here’s the proposal, here’s the revisions.’ That was all done via text and phone call, which I found very helpful because I’m very busy running multiple teams.”

In contrast to other vendors that stuck rigidly to process, Bauer appreciated PartnerStack’s flexibility and commitment to making the move back work.

Navigating the migration process away from an alternative platform

Migrating to a new platform is rarely easy — especially with aggressive timelines and holiday downtime in the mix. But for Bauer and his team, the partner experience had declined so significantly that they couldn’t afford to wait.

Bauer notes of the PartnerStack competitor platform, “We were not willing to wait another year. It was that bad of an experience for our partners.”

The team initially set a goal of migrating within 30 days — and while the full migration took closer to 60, they completed the technical integration in just a month.

Bauer's team really bought into the process, despite some hesitations after going through a migration away from PartnerStack so recently. 

As Bauer says, “The first thing they said when we told them we were moving back was, 'We just spent months on this and it was a horrible experience. Why don't you just make it work first, give it another year?'”

But this time, things were different. PartnerStack’s team matched Omnisend’s urgency and stayed closely aligned to support the aggressive timeline, even during the hectic holiday season.

After kicking off the integration process in mid-December, by the end of January, they had migrated hundreds of partners to ParterStack. By February, their first partner payouts from January went out of PartnerStack.

“ParterStack’s help along the way was huge,” Bauer notes.

Responsive customer support: a difference-maker

Since returning to PartnerStack, Bauer has also been impressed with the level of responsive customer support — a key factor in building trust in the platform.

“It’s such a refreshing experience working with our CSM, Gina [Gillis]. She doesn’t always have all the answers, but she’s willing to help us and responds quickly,” he shares.

Bauer recounts a recent example where they discovered a few partners were incorrectly marked to receive revenue share — partners who no longer held the roles requiring payment.

“Gina responded that day and had an answer for us on how we can stop this going forward.”

Alternatively, Bauer sent the same message to another vendor and was still waiting on a solid response a month later.

Bauer’s team appreciates the clear and consistent support as well.

“My team loves reaching out to Gina, too. There’s trust there, which is the only thing we can ask for,” Bauer adds. “The fact that she’s just responsive means there’s trust there that we’re in good hands.”

The right tool to support a revitalized program

Over the past year, Omnisend’s agency partner program has undergone a major transformation, driven by a renewed strategic focus, a dedicated team and a return to the right tools — including their move back to PartnerStack.

“Historically, 10–15% of our new business came through Agency Partners. In Q1 of this year — the quarter where we implemented PartnerStack — that number exceeded 40% for the first time,” Bauer shares. “Additionally, we’ve seen over 200% year-over-year growth in partner-attributed revenue.”

Bauer credits this growth to both the strength of the team’s partner engagement strategy and the infrastructure they’ve built with PartnerStack.

Bauer emphasizes that having a system his team trusts — one that lets them focus on partnerships rather than processes — has been crucial.

“We just know that there’s trust in the ParterStack system. It’s really helped us just get back to doing what we want to do in partnerships.”

As Omnisend looks ahead to the next phase of growth, partnerships are central to the plan, and PartnerStack is part of the foundation that will help enable it.

“As a bootstrapped company that’s profitable and growing, the path to hitting our next major revenue milestones is going to come through our partnerships and our agency partnership program and in order to do that, we have to have a very strong program.”

PartnerStack: Powering Omnisend’s team and vision

PartnerStack has changed the day-to-day experience for both Omnisend’s internal team and their agency partners, removing friction and restoring trust across the board.

“Our team stopped worrying about issues with our PRM. Our team no longer wakes up and complains about this. Our partners no longer complain about this either, and it was the overarching theme of every conversation we had when I took over the partner program.”

This shift has done more than just ease frustration — it’s also enabled Omnisend to pursue the bigger-picture goals that matter most.

“One of our visions for our partner program is to become the easiest team in our industry to collaborate and work with, and ParterStack makes it a lot easier, because partners know ParterStack,” he says. 

“ParterStack provides a great experience for the agencies and partners, which makes their life a lot easier, which makes it easier and more enjoyable for them to work with us.”

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