20Growth: How Wix Built a $100M Marketing Machine | Why LTV is BS and Why Time Return On Investment is the Most Important Metric | How to 10x Your Growth: What is the Next Great Channel with Omer Shai, CMO @ Wix

Summary

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Podcast Summary: 20VC with Omer Shai, CMO @ Wix

Episode Title: 20Growth: How Wix Built a $100M Marketing Machine | Why LTV is BS and Why Time Return On Investment is the Most Important Metric | How to 10x Your Growth
Podcast: The Twenty Minute VC (20VC)
Host: Harry Stebbings
Guest: Omer Shai, CMO @ Wix
Date: January 31, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into marketing leadership and growth strategy with Omer Shai, the long-time CMO of Wix. Omer shares candid insights on building Wix’s $100M+ marketing machine, the myths of LTV, why Time Return on Investment (TROI) is his north star, the real interplay between brand and acquisition, and how he navigates risk and channel selection. Throughout, Omer mixes anecdotes from Wix and Base 44, operational philosophy, and his brutally honest take on what actually drives scale.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Super Bowl as Growth Engine (05:18 – 12:26)

• News: Wix and Base 44 will each have a Super Bowl ad this year, with Base 44 potentially being the youngest company ever to air an ad during the game.
  • Omer on rationale:

    “The way that I'm thinking on brand activities is that it's not an empty okay, it's not only brand. And when I'm doing acquisition, I'm not doing just acquisition marketing… The beauty about Super Bowl... is to be part of that... To trust the product, to trust what our users are doing and to be in the super bowl is a message.” (07:00)

• ROI Reality: You see acquisition “spikes,” but measurement should be multi-layered. True ROI comes from both direct user acquisition and the sustained brand lift.

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Brand vs. Performance—The False Dichotomy (08:42 – 14:09)

• Balanced Perspective: Omer rejects viewing brand and performance (“acquisition”) as separate. Every marketing initiative should aim for measurable outcomes.
• Why LTV Is “BS”:

  “I never used lifetime value… I hate it so much because how do you know what is the lifetime value? How many years? …I’m using a different term. I’m using a TROI. It’s time to return on investment.” (13:48, 14:26)

• TROI Explained: Focus tightly on how soon investment is returned—not some hypothetical long-term value.

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In-Depth: What’s TROI and Why It’s Better (14:26 – 19:05)

• Short-Term Cohorts & Measurement:
  • Omer uses 1-day, 7-day, 14-day, and 28-day cohorts to see quickly what’s working.
  • “For me to move as fast as I can to impact the result of the company and lifetime value—it’s much slower than metrics that currently I have.” (14:26)
• Budget Philosophy:
  • If a traffic source or blended mix hits TROI in, say, 11 months, he’ll keep scaling up:

    “If I’m keeping the TROI on 11 months, I have unlimited budget.” (17:11)

  • “It depends how comfortable you are in the product and your risk in channels.” (17:57)

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The Power of Channel Diversification (19:05 – 24:09)

• Don’t Bet on One Channel:

  “When you are doing one thing and you are doing it tremendously well, there’s only one thing that you can be successful in. When you are doing 10 things, you can be amazingly well in three things… in the math that I know, three is bigger than one.” (21:35)

• Channel Management: Expand into many channels to both grow and de-risk.
• Conversion Rate Myth:

  “Think how stupid it is to go after conversion rate... you don’t really care about the overall conversion of the company. You care about the conversion rate on specific users that came yesterday…” (22:53)

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How to Know When to Kill or Double Down on a Channel (26:24 – 27:37)

• Brutal Iteration:

  “It’s horrible to work with me… when we have a success, I saw the success before the team…when we don’t have a success, I’m asking the team... are we investing enough, do we need to cut, or do we need to invest more?” (26:38)

• Testing & Data-Driven: Channels are kept or cut based on rigorously analyzed incrementality.

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Content, Brand, and the AI Era (27:37 – 34:48)

• Content ROI: Omer admits some content channels take longer; he only keeps investing if eventual numbers “pop up.”
• SEO & AI Search:
  • Despite predictions of SEO’s demise, Omer has increased investment in SEO and new “AI search” paradigms targeting LLMs (ChatGPT, Gemini):

    “Not down, actually up…you need to be smarter in the way that you are doing it… I need to invest more, not less.” (30:12)

• Best Channel Today: Direct (“brand—people who are coming to Wix because they know we have amazing products”) (32:06)

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What’s Broken, What Never Worked, and What’s Next (32:33 – 34:40)

• Flops: TikTok hasn’t delivered for Wix yet; sports endorsements in some forms were disappointments (“TikTok didn’t work for me yet…” – 32:33)
• Biggest Win: Brand, hands down.
• Channel Organization: People typically specialize by function/channel, but AI tools make cross-channel messaging easier.

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Talent, Hiring & The Future CMO/Growth Leader (35:10 – 37:23)

• What Omer Looks For:

  “We need to go back to the root of bringing people with zero knowledge about marketing. We need people with passion to AI… Because we can teach them marketing. We cannot teach them passion. We cannot teach them to be AI first.” (35:42)

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Storytelling: Product at the Center (37:23 – 41:15)

• Common Mistake:

  “They’re afraid to put the product in the center… eventually people are coming to you to use the product that our team created for you to enjoy and eventually to fulfill something that you imagine. So put the product in the central.” (37:32)

• On “Selling the Why”: Omer distinguishes—Apple is unique and can sell dreams. Most companies should be clear and practical (“We are not Apple… all the others need to play a different gamble.” – 38:49, 41:15)

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Competition, Market Caps & Staying Focused (44:09 – 46:19)

• Does Competition or Valuation Rattle Him?

  “I really don’t care. I care only about one thing. I just would like to do my best job and to see growth. I’m a freak about growth… I don’t care about any of competitors.” (44:30)

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Social/Personal Brand: Omer’s Weak Spot (45:26 – 47:47)

• Self-Reflection: Wishes he and key team members did better with personal/social brand, admires competitors’ execution here, especially Anton at Lovable (“He’s doing amazing job... I am better in watching numbers. I’m better in telling stories in commercials…horrible in my personal brand.” – 45:26)

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The Age of AI: Growth & Execution (48:12 – 51:36)

• Massive Acceleration:

  “From ideation to execution to A/B tests to go back to ideation, we are talking almost like days…this is the reason that the people that I think are going to be major key players… are going to be AI-first people.” (48:12)

• Advice for Marketers: “Stop thinking about your title and start thinking about thinking different.” (50:42)
• On Job Security Amid AI: Only the AI-first, rapid executors will win out.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• On wasting money:

  “I paid half a million dollar for the voiceover. It was fucking stupid idea that I had.” (53:26)

• On measurement and risk:

  “If I’m keeping the TROI on 11 months, I have unlimited budget.” (17:11)

• On diversification:

  “When you are doing 10 things, you can be amazingly well in three things… in the math that I know, three is bigger than one.” (21:35)

• On TikTok’s challenge:

  “TikTok didn’t work for me yet...I believe that I need to solve it. I know that I will eventually and I need to crack it down.” (32:33)

• On product-led storytelling:

  “Put the product in the central.” (37:32)

• On AI’s impact:

  “From ideation to execution to A/B tests to go back to ideation, we are talking almost like days.” (48:12)

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Final Reflections & Omer’s Advice

• Biggest Parenting Advice:

  “If you can be up because of numbers or because you would like to watch sports at 3am, it’s easy for you to be up at 3am for your kids when you need to feed them… it created an amazing bonding.” (55:37)

• What Omer Would Tell His Past Self (18 years ago):

  “You are going to win because you think differently.” (57:18)

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Key Timestamps for Major Segments

• [05:18] – Super Bowl Ads Decision & Rationale
• [07:00] – Brand vs Acquisition Philosophy
• [13:48] – Why Omer Rejects LTV for TROI
• [17:11] – TROI, Risk, Unlimited Budget
• [21:35] – Channel Diversification Logic
• [26:38] – How and When to Cut Channels
• [30:12] – Rise of SEO and AI Search Focus
• [32:33] – Channels that Didn’t Work (TikTok, Sports)
• [35:42] – Hiring for Passion and AI-First Mindset
• [37:32] – Product-Centric Storytelling
• [44:30] – On Competition and Valuation
• [48:12] – How AI Accelerates Execution
• [53:26] – The $500k Voiceover Blunder
• [57:18] – Omer’s Advice to His Younger Self

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Takeaways for Listeners

• Omer Shai’s growth leadership is rooted in data rigor, relentless TROI focus, and a willingness to iterate and double down on what works—even if that’s not what’s trendy.
• Brand and acquisition are intertwined, and mature marketers must evaluate channels by both incremental lift and risk mitigation.
• AI is radically accelerating marketing pace—if you’re not AI-first, you’re falling behind.
• Lastly: humility, continuous improvement, and putting your product front-and-center remain timeless, no matter how big the budget or how fast the tech evolves.

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Transcript

[Omar Shai]

Marketing is investment. I never used lifetime value. When you're doing 10 things you can be amazingly well in three things, another three you are going to be okay and in four you're going to fail. We need to go back to the root of bringing people with zero knowledge about marketing. I paid half a million dollar for the voiceover. It was fucking stupid idea that I had.

[Harry Stebbings]

This is 20 growth with me, Harry Stebbings now in the episode Today we have a legend of the growth world.

CMO at WIX for the last 18 years. Omar Shai is one of the OGs. I learned more from this episode of 20 Growth than almost any other episode of 20 Growth including why time return on investment is the most important metric.

For growth leaders today and and how.

He manages as granular as possible his $100 million marketing budget at WIX today.

This was an incredible show.

Get your notebooks out, ready to take some notes.

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[Omar Shai]

Okay.

[Harry Stebbings]

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[Omar Shai]

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You have now arrived at your destination. Omar I'm excited for this dude. Listen, I stalk the shit out of you with Michael Eisenberg, with mayor with many of your board. So thank you so much for joining me. Stay dude.

[Omar Shai]

Thank you very much. Really happy to be here. You know I'm a fan of your show.

[Harry Stebbings]

Dude flattery will get you everywhere. One thing that I want to start with is I hear that you've got some news and so can you tell me what the news is and go back a little bit to a time last year when that idea originated.

[Omar Shai]

So the news that we are going to do two super bowl spots this year, one is for weeks and it's going to be the sixth one that we are doing for the amazing company at the time part of it in the last 18 years. And in addition to that we are going to have super bowl spot for base 44 as well. I think that we are the youngest company ever that going to have super bowl commercial. Another interesting story to tell is the timeline of the decision to go and to purchase the spot. So we announced that we are buying base 44 around mid June 2025. I have on record message that I sent on WhatsApp to a friend of mine, Mark Zaminer who is buying the Superbowl Sports for me in the last six or ten years actually it was the TV and radio and on July 2nd I sent him a message that I would like to buy a spot for base 44 and how much it's going to cost me. So it took me, let's say 12 days, I was a bit slow to sell some amazing indication from community for people who love the product, how they're using the product, the intent, user behavior, the acquisition that we can have. And we went and purchased the spot that we are just announcing now.

[Harry Stebbings]

So from speaking to so many friends of yours, they all said that I had to speak about the historical super bowl investments that you've made. Can you help me understand the rationale behind doing Super Bowl? Obviously it's a huge platform and brand marketing wise it's amazing. But for you as a cmo, why do you think it's such a good investment to do Super Bowl?

[Omar Shai]

The way that I'm thinking on brand activities is that it's not an empty okay, it's not only brand and when I'm doing acquisition, I'm not doing just acquisition marketing. So when I'm doing brand marketing I'm thinking the balance between brand and acquisition and when I'm doing acquisition I'm thinking about the balance between acquisition and brand and the beauty about Super Bowl. I'm saying it a lot of times that in the day after the Oscar everyone are talking about who dress what and the only day that people are focusing on commercials is around the super bowl. And the day after people keep talking about what was the ad of who. And all the years we keep thinking about technology and how to skip and buying at premiums in order that we won't listen to commercial on super bowl we are talking about the commercial. And you know I'm a huge sport fan and I'm huge NFL fan and I understand it's not only sports, NFL and Super bowl particular is like a celebration in the especially in the US but it's became more and more Famous globally. And just to be part of that is to be there. And I keep saying about it, you know, product is the main of our companies. We are nothing without products. But to trust the product, to trust what our users are doing and to be in the super bowl is a message.

[Harry Stebbings]

You said about the balance there between brand and acquisition and how super bowl kind of plays into that. When you do a Super bowl, do you see acquisition skyrocket? What is the impact of super bowl direct on acquisition?

[Omar Shai]

Yeah, so definitely you can see impact on the spike at the day of the spot. But you need to be smarter in the way that you measure. I believe that there are tons of opportunities at the two weeks before the game day to do a lot of marketing activities around the creative, around the PR, around the 60 second, the 30 seconds. What kind of activities you allow to do around the spot. So eventually the way again that I believe in brand and the balance between brand and acquisition, that sometime and it's okay that it's not today, it's okay that it's not tomorrow, eventually I would like to see spike in the traffic to our site. That means that if we don't see people coming relevant users. Okay, I will add the word relevant. Relevant audiences who are coming to our site. If we didn't do so, we don't need to invest at the marketing activity that we're doing. And marketing is investment and not as a spend. And eventually you would like to see the return on your investment. And for us, return on investment is users who are coming to our side, users who are using the product and eventually convert and telling other how amazing our product are.

[Harry Stebbings]

How Much was the first Super bowl that you bought the spot for?

[Omar Shai]

4.8 at 8 max spend. When you are buying a Super bowl commercial, you are paying for the airtime of during the super bowl and addition of max spend that you need to invest during the year on the network that have the right for the Super Bowl.

[Harry Stebbings]

Wow. So wait a minute, you have to like co spend. So you have to commit to spend on the network to get the spot in Super Bowl.

[Omar Shai]

Correct. There are some balancing and of course negotiation and there are some companies who invest a lot on TVS through the years. So for them it's easier. We through the years there are some times that we are on air in TV and there are some times that we are not. So it's up to negotiation, but more or less it was 4.8.

[Harry Stebbings]

What is the latest price to do Super Bowl?

[Omar Shai]

Unfortunately, I cannot say right now. It's more Than that, but it's worth it.

[Harry Stebbings]

Do you see ROI on performance alone or do you believe in the long tail that the brand marketing will override that in the time?

[Omar Shai]

I believe in the balance. Okay, so for example, in the last two years, for weeks, not for days. Okay. Currently I'm talking about wix. There are some investment, heavy investment on the brand on activity that we're doing a lot of videos with our users on YouTube, social activities, some competitions that we are doing and we are measuring eventually everything that we're doing and what we decided this year to allocate some of this money to the super bowl commercial. And in our spot this year, the product is going to be in the central. Okay, so we are not going to have celebrity, we are not going to have a lot of hoo ha special. We are going to have a product and you are going to see how other people using the product. It's almost like a direct response spot that we bought on the Super Bowl. And the reason for that, that we believed that the product was worse being the Super Bowl. This is the reason that we decided to go at WIX in the Super Bowl. In terms of base, it was a statement of new things that happen in the world. The vibe coding, the democratization of creation in general of web application, mobile application.

[Harry Stebbings]

The nice thing about being me and the challenge about being me now is people kind of hear about what we do and then send me suggestions. One of the competitors to base 44 seemingly heard about our show and asked a question which was, you're outspending all of us on paid marketing. Is this a game now where capital is the differentiator between winners and losers?

[Omar Shai]

You know, what is my effective marketing run rate right now? Guess. Without Superman, 150. Not bad. So I'm above 100. And it was above 100 like a month after we bought base 44. It took me, I think six or seven years and weeks to do what we did in base in like months and a half, in two months. It's not just to throw money, is to invest money smartly. You need to think about the marketing department of base. Right now it's more than 50 people.

[Harry Stebbings]

Marketing for base is more than 50 people.

[Omar Shai]

Yeah. Think about all the things that we need to do. Product marketing, community PR education. We have a lot of effort to implement base in higher education, in universities globally.

[Harry Stebbings]

If we split that 100 million up, and you don't have to be precise, I'm just so interested, what's the split between performance versus brand marketing for you.

[Omar Shai]

I'm not doing the separation, I'm doing activities that the goal is. We are calling it tri. People used to call it use of a lifetime value. You remember? I hated this term. I hate it so much because how do you know what is the lifetime value? What is the lifetime value? How many years now do you not.

[Harry Stebbings]

Realistically look at it? You look at a cohort of customers and you say okay, 87% lasts for four years. And so we'll take the LTV and say it's four years and that's a good enough proxy to give us an LTV that we can work back towards a CAC and then figure out from there.

[Omar Shai]

What was the quality of Gemini six months ago.

[Harry Stebbings]

Okay, this is an interesting question. Does CAC2LTV fade in importance in a world of ever transient technology?

[Omar Shai]

I believe since I joined WIX that I never used lifetime value. So I'm using different term. I'm using a TLY. It's time to return on investment. It was 2012. We are poor company before IPO and Facebook back then launched. I think they call it a page aid or something like that. And we measure everything. And I remember a conversation that I had with Avishai and I moved with this new advertising format. I did 5x in one day because I saw the result that I'm seeing from that. So I believe in building the shorted cohorts for me to move as fast as I can to impact the result of the company and lifetime value. It's much slower than metrics that currently I have. So I have one day cohort, seven day cohort, 14 days cohort and 28 days cohort. It eventually give me indication about when my troi is going to be one.

[Harry Stebbings]

Do you worry that that concentrates your attention towards the shortest term troi and not necessarily the biggest and best in the long term?

[Omar Shai]

No. So to go back. So we did 5x and Avishai told me, even though you are getting the money like we close after four months. I don't have enough money to invest in those four months. Okay, so you need to slow a bit down. What he did after that, he went in purchase Facebook stocks. He didn't tell me and he didn't buy me some. He's not a friend. Avisha is not a friend.

[Harry Stebbings]

But you know what I love about Israelis? You guys are money makers.

[Omar Shai]

But the way that is comfortable, you're comfortable with. So for example, we as a company that now, now I'm talking about base. Okay. So we as the Weeks Corporation are Comfortable, for example, in Troy of 11 months, of 12 months or something like that. And the beauty bit about Troi, that is measure every traffic source and the blended traffic as one. So I know every source, the tri that I have, and I have tri of everything as a mix. And we are saying, okay, we are comfortable and tri of let's say 11 months or 12 months, something like that. And if I'm keeping the tri on 11 months, I have unlimited budget.

[Harry Stebbings]

Help me understand that. Why is 11 months the sign that you have an unlimited budget?

[Omar Shai]

Because it's something that you are comfortable with as a company. Because you take into consideration retention of the users and users who are doing upgrades and users that moving to more expensive packages and churn inside.

[Harry Stebbings]

Do you think that needs to compress in a world where an anthropic model Opus 4.5 changes the game for so many. And you know, we've seen it. Claude Code has cannibalized a lot of cursor's business overnight. And everyone's canceling Cursor. Does that. Troi, time to return on investment again for people. Does that need to compress with this technology cycle?

[Omar Shai]

It depends. How comfortable are you in the product? It depends. What are the traffic sources and what is the risk and the way that you're managing your risk. Right? Let's say if I have very balanced traffic sources of 10 traffic sources, let's say, and every one of them bring in 10% of the collection or the ARR of the company. It will take me some time to be on a risk when a new company jumping in and offering a product while when I have just the one traffic sources, let's say LinkedIn post by CEOs or something like that, that you can be more like a trendy product. And then the risk of a new company of a new product, that coming to the same audiences with the same techniques put you on a risk. So the way I'm thinking about it all the time, that I would like to have as many traffic sources that I can have in order to build a business for the long term.

[Harry Stebbings]

I get you, but is it not a game of 80, 20 when 20% of the traffic sources drive 80% of the outcomes?

[Omar Shai]

It's all the time. It's a tricky one because I saw some, let's say about Maurer, okay, that when we bought him, almost all of his traffic came from social. Everything. Okay, it was LinkedIn posts. It was, let's say, some posts and some community efforts. What we are doing, we are bringing the multiples okay. This is the reason that I need a lot of people in my department to do a lot of things. So I'm doing social and I'm doing education and I'm doing YouTube and I'm doing Facebook ads and I'm doing TikTok and I'm doing Twitter and I'm doing search and I'm doing SEO activities. I'm doing a lot, a lot, a lot of things eventually, because this is how I believe that you need to build a business in a mature way to reduce the risk and to find arbitrage all the time. I would like to find the arbitrage of tomorrow.

[Harry Stebbings]

Let's get to the arbitrage of tomorrow because I do want to talk about that. But if we think about being like a relatively early stage founder, how do you advise them when you have a channel that's working? Do you just double down, keep going? Don't worry about diversifying against your point there. Don't build the traffic sources that are diverse. Just double down. Or be expansive and have a portfolio of channels from an earlier time.

[Omar Shai]

I think that you should do both. I think that you need to do 10x of the things that are working for you, but all the time to open in new areas because you don't know what's going to be tomorrow. That means that I talked with someone and I shared with them that we are doing super bowl spot for Bass and he told me or that we increased the budget in aggressive way. And the first thing that he thought that he told me, he said, why are you doing that? Are you afraid of. And I looked at him, man, I'm not afraid of anything, okay? I have opportunity and I'm trying to optimize any opportunity that I have in order to build sustainable business.

[Harry Stebbings]

Let's play a thought experiment though. What if we took the budget that you are now putting into SEO into performance and we said Social has worked so well for Mayor and Bass. Let's own Social. Let's do UGC like never before. Let's absolutely double down on May Or's brand and let's just suck the air out of the room on Social. Why would that be a worse strategy than the diversification?

[Omar Shai]

Because. And it's a. It's like projects. Okay, let's think about project. And again, this is something that is part of the way that I'm the methodological of the way that I'm thinking and working in the last 18 years. When you are doing one thing and you are doing it tremendously well. There is only one Thing that you can be successful in. When you are doing 10 things, you can be amazingly well. In three things, let's say another three you are going to be okay and in four you are going to fail. In the math that I know three is bigger than one.

[Harry Stebbings]

I'm a venture capitalist, but I would agree with that statement.

[Omar Shai]

So three is bigger than one. Again, when you are going all in on only one thing, a lot of time you are playing, you are talking with the same audiences. Let's say you are very good at X. Okay, I'm doing an amazing job at X. But the audiences and X, eventually on Twitter there are only specific users with specific intent, specific behavior. And what about the other users in the world? You don't want to talk with them. They're different, but they're very good at. It's like going after conversion rate as a matrix. Think how stupid it is to go after conversion rate.

[Harry Stebbings]

Why?

[Omar Shai]

Because 10% conversion rate, is it good or bad?

[Harry Stebbings]

Depends on how many people are in the funnel.

[Omar Shai]

Exactly. So if you are not paying for the next 1 million users and they cost you, let's say nothing and their conversion rate is just 1% compared to the 10% that you had before, is it good or bad?

[Harry Stebbings]

Again, depends on the top of funnel. It's good if it's a large top of funnel. A million or 1%. Yeah.

[Omar Shai]

No, it's amazing, okay, because you didn't pay for them and they didn't cost you nothing and they cost you nothing. So you don't really care about the conversion of those users. You care about the conversion rate on specific users that came yesterday and on those users you would like to improve. I will explain what I'm saying, okay? Because I'm not sure that I'm clear. Let's say that I'm bringing traffic to WIX from New York. Users who search for website builder of those users. I would like those users to convert on a better way on a daily basis. I would like my product to be better, the messaging to be better, everything to be better in order to increase those user conversion. In general, I don't really care of the overall conversion of the company.

[Harry Stebbings]

But what you care about is your day two conversion to paid. Correct.

[Omar Shai]

I care about the tri of the company. I optimize the tri of the company. That means I have a goal of Troy of 8 months and my job is to bring as many as much money collection for the company in the troi that we agreed on. That mean that if my brand improved and I have more users who are coming to me that I not need to pay for them. It gives me opportunity that I can decide if I would like to increase the TRI of the user that I'm paying and I can decide about it with my partners if it's the right thing to do or it's not the right thing to do.

[Harry Stebbings]

How do you think about the divergence in TRI or the contrast into Troi between wix where you've got, I would imagine more retained users, more small businesses, which is stickier versus base 44, where people are also using Replit and Lovable and Gemini and they're much more promiscuous. How does the TRI vary between the two?

[Omar Shai]

So the tri, it saves me from that. Okay, because in the matrix of Troi, the churn of those users, the users who are moving from one product to another, it's already calculated because again, those 50 people that currently are part of the marketing department of base, except to three, all of them came with me from weeks. So I brought everyone, those 50 people from activity that they did in weeks to Base and they have all the experience in terms of measurement. And we know exactly the right way to measure things. So we are measuring it differently. But the philosophy is the same.

[Harry Stebbings]

How are you measuring it differently?

[Omar Shai]

For example, the percentage of monthly users, for example, the percentage of users who are paying us more. The packages at Base are more expensive than the packages in wix. So TRI calculate everything inside.

[Harry Stebbings]

Can I ask going back to the 10 channel conversation because I think that's so interesting. You said three work, four, three don't work. What are your biggest lessons on how to know when to cut a channel? When do you stop spending on a channel that isn't working?

[Omar Shai]

It's horrible to work with me. Okay, Because a lot of time when we have a success, I saw the success before the team. I know that we are successful here. Okay, let's move on. Okay, let's be more aggressive. For example. And when we don't have a success, I'm asking the team, and today the methodologic that the team is asking themselves on the daily basis, are we investing enough? Do we need to cut or do we need to invest more? So a lot, a lot of measurement, a lot of data inside that we are using and a lot of tests. For example, one of our product, we weren't sure that the YouTube activity that we're doing is effective. So we replaced this product commercial with other products commercial to see the impact. And we saw that the incremental impact is very low or doesn't exist and we modified the amount of budget that we're investing. So we keep challenging ourselves on a daily basis.

[Harry Stebbings]

How do you think about channels like content, which obviously I do, where the ROI is very long, often you have to build an audience over a year or two. Quite a lot of budget actually to build that. But when it works, it really works. How do you think about that in a world of Troi confidence experience.

[Omar Shai]

I'm very experienced. I think that I am the most experienced CMO in every public company in our technology sphere. So I saw a lot and I have no problem to fail and I have trust with my partners and I'm sharing a lot, a lot of information with my partners. I'm sharing a lot about the things that we are doing and I'm doing. And eventually if you are doing some things and the numbers are not popping up from the data, you need to ask yourself, do I need to do it or I need to change the way that I'm thinking? So I have to share with you. So there is some philosophy that I preach for. For, I don't know, I think eight to nine years. And I did some tests with my team that I saw different indication for something that I preached for nine years and I changed the way that we are measuring everything in three days after I saw the authentication.

[Harry Stebbings]

What did you see that caused that change?

[Omar Shai]

I saw incremental impact of some search activities that we did.

[Harry Stebbings]

What does that mean? Can you unpack that?

[Omar Shai]

Yeah, so. So for example, I don't see search as impact on brands. So compared to other activities, search is something that I'm measuring specifically by tri that I'm comfortable in compared to let's say YouTube or social or LinkedIn or different other social activities that we there search is specific and we measure search for a long time in one way. And when we did the test, I think it was. I think it was September 7th and in September 11th I asked for everyone to come to all hands. I explained the different way that currently we start working and we implement it two days after. And you don't need to be afraid to preach something else when the data are showing you something differently or something new that you didn't know before.

[Harry Stebbings]

Everyone is talking about the death of SEO. Has your investment in SEO changed over time? Down in a world of AI?

[Omar Shai]

Not down, actually up because there are so many more things that need to be done today. A lot of the AI appearance currently impact with similar activities of SEO, but you need to be smarter in the way that you are doing it. Again, for companies where the marketing budget is more than $100 million, when you're saying a lot of investment is in percentage wise, it's maybe not a lot. So it's more about the way that you're thinking, the challenge that you have and the headcount that you have. So actually today I have to say that I need to invest more on SEO related AI search method. So I need to invest more and not less.

[Harry Stebbings]

Are you investing in AI search today in terms of how you appear in LLM rankings? If I go to ChatGPT and say what's the best website builder, are you investing to make sure that you show up in the top three?

[Omar Shai]

Yeah, definitely, although the percentage is very low. And again, what's happened in the last two, three months that I think that Google changed? Again, the way that we are using AI using search and again, in general, when you are looking at most of the traffic, the relevant traffic in the world, it's still on Google. Okay, it's still on Google. So yes, the more early adopters already moved from the regular traditional search, tons of users, the regular users are still using it in a regular way. And we need to do both right now. We need to be relevant for the AI search and we need to be relevant for Google search and not only that, for our users, we need to teach them both. We need to teach them to do SEO and we need to teach them how to be relevant for MLM searches as well.

[Harry Stebbings]

What's your best performing channel today?

[Omar Shai]

Brand people who are coming to wix because they know that we have amazing products that are going to help them achieve their goals.

[Harry Stebbings]

It's so funny. I had Nick from Revolut on the show and he said my number one lesson that I wish I knew when I started was how important brand and brand marketing was. For years I ignored it and it's the most important thing. So not surprised to hear that. What channel did not work when you thought it would and what did you learn?

[Omar Shai]

I think TikTok didn't work for me yet. I think that sports endorsement in some kind of way didn't work for me as I expected it to work. I know today much more things about sport endorsement from a lot of work that I did. But TikTok, man, I don't know. I believe that I need to solve it. I know that I will eventually and I need to crack it down. Also LinkedIn, I think LinkedIn potential is enormous. The arbitrage again is enormous. Is there. The targeting is not perfect as an other solution yet. But I believe that those two are having tons of opportunity for us.

[Harry Stebbings]

When you look at channel composition across the team, do you break channels down to specific people and allocate three to SEO, four to YouTube, three to TikTok or do you have a blended across to make it a more cohesive unit?

[Omar Shai]

Today it's much easier to keep cohesive messaging because the AI tools, you know, helping us. And I remember the time where I was browsing and was seeing something that it's not our brand and doing like screen service and sending it to some people angry. How can it be that we're doing such a crappy work? So it's a mix. Okay, so for example, the team were buying traffic. They are buying from one centralized team on all the channels. The people who are managing communities, they're doing it maybe to one channel or two talent. The people who are doing SEO, just doing SEO mlm. So it's very depends about the skill of the people, the channel that we are working and the things that we are doing in this channel.

[Harry Stebbings]

When you look at the makeup of your channels today, what would you most like to change?

[Omar Shai]

I would like to crack TikTok and LinkedIn again.

[Harry Stebbings]

Why do you not just accept that it's in the three that don't work? Interviewed some of the best growth and CMOs and CEOs of the world. Very few have had success with TikTok. Do you not just say, okay, it's a bad channel, fuck it, let's focus on SEO again, AI search and leave it aside.

[Omar Shai]

I don't know, I just.

[Harry Stebbings]

That's not how you work.

[Omar Shai]

No, it's not. The things that bother me are the things that I'm not good at, not the things that I'm good at.

[Harry Stebbings]

If I gave you 100 million more in your marketing budget, what would you do?

[Omar Shai]

I will give it to Lior back because I have all the money that I need to stay in the healthy path of the way that I believe that I need to run the business and the market and of the company that I'm responsible to. I'm investing my money, our money. I'm not spending it.

[Harry Stebbings]

How do you think about the people in your team? I spoke to Michael Eisenberg and he said about the Omur Shai diaspora, the talent that you've built around you. One thing that's striking when I speak to you, Omer and we didn't know each other before, this is bluntly how scientific you are in a lot of ways. You fundamentally are so attached to money and the Flow of capital throughout your business, which isn't always common in all CMOs. What non obvious traits do you look for in the people that join your marketing or your growth teams?

[Omar Shai]

First, I more couldn't care about my users than money, so I don't agree with you. Okay. The first things that push me is to listen to our customers and to bring more of the users who are happy and the users that are not happy to help them to be happy in the product and to bring more like them. Every time that we are talking about the marketing department at Wix, I'm saying that we are okay department in a product company. We are not a marketing company. Okay? And it's different approach because it helps us to push the product and to be part of making the product better. So this is first, the second, I don't believe that we are building rocket science and you just need the people with ton of passion, smart, talented, that maybe no one else is giving, are giving them chance. Today I talk with Shai who is running the marketing of base 44 and we talked about the talents that we would like to bring into the department and we would like people who are AI savvy that think about AI. And we said we need to go back to the root of bringing people with zero knowledge about marketing. We need people with passion to AI. Just currently students, universities or just graduate from university. Because we can teach them marketing. We cannot teach them passion. We cannot teach them to be AI first. Okay? It's something that oh, you have it or you don't. Marketing. I can teach them. I can teach them to be a good listener. I can teach them how to tell a story. Passion about being the best in the world. Something that I cannot teach.

[Harry Stebbings]

What do most people get wrong about storytelling Today you said there, I can teach you how to tell a good story. What do most people get wrong about how to tell a good story Today?

[Omar Shai]

They're afraid to put the product in the center. There are so many emotions or funny and you know, in general is tricky to tell a story right now in the world and not to hurt someone. You know, let's be, let's be honest. The world is so divided that you're really afraid to tell any story because someone can be offended or to understand it in a wrong way. But in general people will go down on you because you put the product in the center and you didn't say something bigger than that. Why eventually people are coming to you to use the product. Okay? To use the product that our team created for you to Enjoy and eventually to fulfill something that you imagine. So put the product in the central.

[Harry Stebbings]

How do you feel? Super interesting. How do you feel about them? Like the Simon Sinek, who's a very famous speaker and has said before about selling the why not the what. Apple are brilliant because they sell the creativity that their products allow. The ability to paint beautiful pictures on an iPad and what's unlocked by it, not a Quantium processor. And the what? How do you feel about selling the why not the what? Given the product centricity that you said there.

[Omar Shai]

How many Apples are in the world? Apple is one as a company, right? And we can talk about, let's say 10 more. Not in the level of Apple that can tell a story like that and all the others. And eventually I remember a launch of a product that we had, okay, we launched a product, we move from Flash, you know that WIX used to be a Flash based platform from 2008 to 2012 and in 2012 we move from HTML5 to Flash. And I worked on this launch for months. Eventually I wanted to say it very clear. I used the KISS methodology to keep it simple. Stupid.HTML 5 is now on Wix and I had a lot of plan and everything. Like I back then used to have tons of media buying deals and I replaced all the spots that I had in one second. All of them were manually by the way, by my team. And I replaced every spot that you had from Create a Free Flash website to HTML5 is now on Wix. And when I showed the spot back then, it wasn't a spot, it was just, you know, static. 300, 250 and 728 on something like that. The dimension of the banners. I saw the vision that I had to one of my board member and I saw how upset he was. Then he opened the announcement of Apple on the iPhone and I told him, we are not Apple, okay? And the product that we are currently giving to the world, it's not iPhone. We just would like them to know that we used to be Flash and now we are HTML5, that all this is what I need the people to know. I don't have the money that Apple has, I don't have the media attention, I don't have the user attention. I just need the users that think about us as maybe going to be not relevant because of Flash. They need to know that I'm relevant because currently I'm HTML5 and I need to shout it for everyone. So eventually it's been humble in the world and understand that Apple there is only one maybe. OpenAI Claude, there are tens. But all the others need to play different. Gamble.

[Harry Stebbings]

I think you're too Israeli in your storytelling, my friend. I think you win when you sell what someone can be. Nike are a brilliant example where they teach you that everyone can be an athlete. Everyone can be an athlete no matter what shape, size. You put on some Nike trainers and you can be an athlete. If I was pitching on your team today for that super bowl ad, I would do a story which shows a very early child at the doctor's. I would show that child at 3 years old at the doctor's at 6 years old, on holiday, at 9 years old, opening presents at 12 years old, going to a new school. And I'd say wix, the company that powers families throughout all ages. And it's the business that gives you those opportunities. Tell the story. Fuck HTML5 or Flash, no one cares.

[Omar Shai]

You don't remember back then of 2012? You're too young for that.

[Harry Stebbings]

Okay, yeah, I was like 15.

[Omar Shai]

All the stories was about the war between Apple to Adobe, about the support or not support of Flash and on iPhones and how Steve Jobs blocks Macromedia and Adobe from implement and install Flash on iPhone devices. But all the things that currently you mention, I have those spots, okay? They were on tv. I'm telling them on a daily basis, every day because eventually I'm telling how you are building. For example, I have one of my most successful spots. We are calling it the bakery and there is a one person, a kid actually who is in his parents kitchen doing flour full of flowers and eventually how he opened a restaurant. Okay. And everything happening inside the WIX website. Harry, I have so many spots and I proud that you call me Israeli but at the same time if you will ask Americans or British. By the way, where do they think WIG's headquarters are? They will tell you New York or San Francisco. They never think about us as Israelis in the ways that we are telling the stories. Never. By the way, Michael Eisenberg that you talk with, he had blog post 2013. It was in February or January, something like that. When he talked about two companies back then it was Conduit and Wix that have problem in the way that they are building the brand and telling the story and part of that that we don't have the talent in Israel. Do you remember the answer that I gave you? What is the most efficient traffic source that I have two weeks is the brand. I think that we did a pretty good job through the years.

[Harry Stebbings]

I think you've done a Great job through the years. I'm getting into some interesting territory. How do you then feel when you have ratlit raising at $9 billion, lovable raising at $6.6 billion and then you have wix with a market cap of like four and a half? I'm like, what the fuck?

[Omar Shai]

I really don't care. I care only about one thing. I just would like to do my best job and to see growth. Okay? I'm freak about growth. I don't care about any of competitors. It's not that I don't care. I respect them. I respect everyone about what they're doing. The messaging, the valuation. I don't really care. I respect what they're doing. They're telling good story to investors. I just would like to build more than 100 million efficient marketing budgets to my companies. I would like to build to sell in more than $2 billion at Wix and eventually people will understand the story. I just care about growth. I'm a growth person.

[Harry Stebbings]

Which capacitor from a growth engine perspective do you respect the most?

[Omar Shai]

I respect everyone.

[Harry Stebbings]

I respect like Anton at lovable is very good at social. I respect the way that he's built brand around his personal social.

[Omar Shai]

He's doing amazing job. He's doing amazing job. I would like to do on social. As good as they are doing, I really cherish the way that they are building their own Persona online. This is something that I'm crappy on, okay? I am better in watching numbers. I'm better in telling stories in commercials. I think that I'm horrible in my personal brand. For example, not a lot of people had the chance to do podcasts with me. I'm not investing in that.

[Harry Stebbings]

Why are you not pushing Mayo to do more? Like, I've met Mayle and had him on the show. Amazing dude. He could do a lot more. If I'm you, I'm like, anton is eating your lunch on personal brand May or you've got great personality. Fucking get out there. Tell the story about hires, about new products, about what you're excited about.

[Omar Shai]

You're right. I would like to. And it's going to happen. You're right. There are so many things that I'm doing a crappy way.

[Harry Stebbings]

But dude, after 18 years in a position, you're not doing much in a crappy way. That's.

[Omar Shai]

No, no, there are some. No, I think that There is a one spot that I wrote in LinkedIn that someone just mentioned it to me two days ago. I consider myself as an undrafted NFL player. Okay. That I'm waking up in the morning and think about how I should do better in order to join the squad. And I need to work better, I need to look better, I need to do better social. I know all the things that need to be done. But at the same time, you know what we did in the last five months since we bought base 44, I don't think there are a lot of marketing department that achieve something like that. The amount of content, the success that we had, the amount of study and learning that we had, the collections that we got, the ARR that we are building, the maturity of the channels that we are working on, so many things that are putting us in a great position for 20, 26 and above. And when you're talking about us not doing social good enough with more, I 100% agree with you and happy that I agree with you. We know because I see potential. Every time that I see potential, I'm happy.

[Harry Stebbings]

I agree. I always ask people whenever I do talks, which is more and more now it's like, hey, how many people have heard of 20 VC? Quite often there'll be like 20 or 30 that haven't and I'll be like thrilled. And I want that number to be quite large because it's like great. I have more listeners to get. There is a market that I don't have that I can get. How does growth and marketing change in a world of AI Wow.

[Omar Shai]

Execution, telling stories. Think about the thinking process and execution process of two, three years ago. How tedious it was like to tell something that I would like something. Then they are going and trying to understand what exactly you wanted and they're coming back three weeks later with 11 different ideas and think about the amount of feedback that they gave to themselves on those three weeks. And they're coming to you and you hate all of them. You may be so some opportunity in one of them and they went again and they came back to you three weeks later or two weeks later with some development of those two projects. And eventually in six months you will be happy with what you got today. For example, for me, I can be so much clearer in the ways that I'm sharing my thinking with my team. Okay. I can write something and bring almost like I'm talking about football, like almost to the 60, 60 yard of ideas that I have. I'm okay to be challenged on that. I'm okay like that they will bring something, but the time frame became days or they came hours. Okay, okay, you don't agree with me on something, go you have four hours. Bring me something better. I think that first in the ideation, second in time of the execution, the time frame to create something is getting shorter and shorter and shorter without hurting the results. So you still see some, you know, AI spots that you wish could be better, especially with when you implement human insight. But in four, five months, in a year, from ideation to execution to AP tests to go back to ideation, we are talking almost like days. And this is the reason that the people that I think are going to be major key players A players A in my team are going to be.

[Harry Stebbings]

AI first people you worry about older people in the economy, in the labor market. And what I mean by that is you mentioned there that hey, we want young people out of university fresh AI first. Sam Altman said that young people use AI as an operating system for life and that older people use it as a replacement for Google. I think that's probably true and we see it a lot. Honestly, if you are in your 40s, it doesn't look great for you. Plus, do you worry about that?

[Omar Shai]

I think there are a lot of changes that are going to be to the work sphere. I do worry of an increase in the unemployment rate. I think government need to think how to solve it. But as a person who is part of that, the only thing that I can shout on everyone is stop thinking about your title and start thinking about thinking different. Okay. Because this is how I measure myself and how I believe others should do and definitely people who are not going to be AI first in term. I can talk just about marketing for now. Okay. Again, I'm trying to be humble and not to preach about anything else. People who can dock AI with me and take this ideation to execution and a B test fast. Those are the people that eventually are going to be my A players.

[Harry Stebbings]

Dude, I could talk to you all day. I do want to do a quick firearm with you. Okay. Otherwise I'm going to take up all day.

[Sponsor/Ad Narrator]

If we start on what do you.

[Harry Stebbings]

Think is the most underappreciated growth channel today? Brent, what was the best brand marketing activity you did and what was the worst?

[Omar Shai]

To think about intent and take every ad inventory that I can get back then and to show beautiful commercial to relevant audiences was the best arbitrage that I did back then in 2008, 9 and 10. And again it's the balance between acquisition and brand. The worst. There are so many and I don't remember. There is like I don't remember failing. Failing. Okay, so I'm failing. I analyze it on the spot. I implement the things that I learned from that, but I don't remember that.

[Harry Stebbings]

What was the most expensive one, good or bad? Bad.

[Omar Shai]

I did some horrible star projects in New York that I took some park and decided that people will look to the sky and they will have a. That eventually they will create something like bullshit mumbo jumbo like that. It was the first and second. I had a very good spot that cost me very low to execute with my team in a beautiful way. And I hired someone really famous to do voiceover and I paid way too much for this voiceover.

[Harry Stebbings]

How much did you pay for the voiceover?

[Omar Shai]

I paid half a million dollar for the voiceover. It was fucking stupid idea that I had.

[Harry Stebbings]

If you want, I'll do a voiceover for half a million dollars for you.

[Omar Shai]

If you want, then he's a very famous one and you can identify him to the spot. It was more like comprehensive thinking. Horrible call, horrible call.

[Harry Stebbings]

The big celebrity payments, they never work out well. I've been in so many companies where honestly just like 5 million bucks to Ronaldo to do an Instagram post. I promise you it does not work the way you think it will.

[Omar Shai]

And it's part and we talked about to be smart in endorsement of celebrities because you will never believe that Ronaldo will build a website for himself. Okay. When I start doing sport advertisement, I put Cun Aguero. Do you know Cun Aguero?

[Harry Stebbings]

Yeah, of course I do. I'm a Google fan.

[Omar Shai]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Cun Aguero was sitting in front of computer and created a website for himself. That was part of the thing, stupid things that I did. I think it was 2014 or something like that.

[Sponsor/Ad Narrator]

How much did you pay for that?

[Omar Shai]

So it's not a lot because it was part of the partnership that I have with the City. So part of the partnership that you have in Citi, you can use the player as players as resources and you are doing some activities with them. And there are a lot of amazing things that you can do with players. Today we are doing with Manchester City, brilliant things. Working with our customers, with users combined between the strengths. But we don't put them in front of computer and telling them to build a website.

[Harry Stebbings]

Did that just not do well as a campaign?

[Omar Shai]

No, that's not it.

[Harry Stebbings]

What is the hardest part about your job today with wix?

[Omar Shai]

My job is not hard. I don't think about my job as hard. I love to have the ball in the last seconds when we are minus two. I love pressure.

[Harry Stebbings]

Are you More scared of losing or more excited by winning?

[Omar Shai]

Excited by winning.

[Harry Stebbings]

Do you have children, Omar?

[Omar Shai]

Yeah.

[Harry Stebbings]

You seem like a very wise guy. What's your biggest parenting advice given the many years you have now? Parenting?

[Omar Shai]

I have a gift. My gift is eventually. I know that there are some researchers that show differently, but I'm a very good multitasker. I think that one of my the biggest compliments that my daughter, now she's 18 years old, gave me was how involved I am in her life and her sibling life, even though I'm working as CMO for 18 years. And you know, it's like I said, thank you. It's such an amazing compliment. I know I'm not good in getting compliment. I'm not good in that. But when she told me that, I got like goosebump. And eventually, you know, if you can be up because of numbers or because you would like to watch sports at 3am, it's easy for you to be up at 3am for your kids when you need to feed them. So part of the agreement that my wife and I had before and she brought our kids to life was that I'm the only one who going to feed them at night. And it created an amazing bonding between of me, of anyone, every one of them. Again, it's the gift of multitasking. And I can live happily with not a lot of hours of sleep those.

[Harry Stebbings]

Hours that I have. Yeah, I'm very impressed by the way, with you doing nighttime feeds in that way. Jesus Christ. But final one for you. What do you know now that you wish you had known when you started as Sienna Wicks 18 years ago? You can call yourself up the night before and say, oma, you should know this. What would you say you are going.

[Omar Shai]

To win because you think differently?

[Harry Stebbings]

Dude, I had so many good things and I wasn't sure where to take this show. And you know, I have all these notes and the joys of what we do is like natural conversation is the most exciting part of it. You've been amazing. So thank you so much for being so brilliant.

[Omar Shai]

Thank you very much. It was true pleasure to talk with you, Harry today.

[Harry Stebbings]

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[Harry Stebbings]

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