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- 🎯 How to win on B2B app stores
🎯 How to win on B2B app stores
The ‘ride-the-whale’ playbook
Read time: 4 minutes 37 seconds
The stories we hear: raise zillions, grow 100%+ MoM for years, reshape an entire industry.
The stories we miss: quiet companies building hyperefficient growth engines powered by the investments of giants.
The ones finding the white space in established ecosystems, embedding their product downstream from the whales, and growing to eight figures without the spotlight.
I love speaking to people running companies you’ve probably never heard of that are absolutely crushing with unconventional playbooks.
This week I got to jam out with Eugene Ernoult (CMO at Weglot) on how they’ve used app stores / communities / ecosystems to grow their website translation tool to $30m ARR with just 55 employees (!!)
Enjoy.
— Tom
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How to win on B2B app stores
Chess Move
The what: A TLDR explanation of the strategy
Weglot transforms websites from single-language to multilingual in minutes with no-code implementation.
Rather than relying solely on SEO and ads for direct customer acquisition, they turned Content Management System (”CMS” - i.e. website/publishing tool) App Stores and partner ecosystems into a high-leverage growth channel.
This strategy let Weglot distribute their product via platforms already investing heavily in their own growth, such as WordPress, Shopify, Webflow, and Squarespace (for context, Wordpress powers ~43% of all websites on the internet today).
By maintaining the highest % of 5-star reviews among translation apps, ranking highly for app store SEO keywords like ‘multilingual’, and being an active member within each CMS community, Weglot generates both users and ambassadors at scale.
Riding the wave of major platforms rapidly expanding their user base.
The elegance of this strategy is its efficiency: Weglot has grown to 40,000+ paying customers, most of which are ‘self-serve’ via the CMS app stores and don’t require a high-touch sales motion.
All while staying independent from any single CMS platform, and maintaining the ability to replicate the playbook to new ecosystems as they emerge.
💡 | Strategy Playbook: Embed within ecosystems where your customers already make decisions and look for solutions to their pain. |
Breakdown
The how: The strategic playbook boiled down to 3x key takeaways
1. App stores as primary distribution
The insight that sparked the strategy came directly from user needs that co-founders Rémy and Augustin experienced firsthand.
Struggling with international expansion on previous projects, they recognised that the market lacked a solution combining both quality translation and simple website localisation.
This personal pain point evolved into Weglot's core strategy – betting on a no-code product that marketers could implement without technical help, just as website ownership was shifting from IT teams to marketing departments.
After ~10 people asked, "Why don't you have a WordPress plugin instead of just JavaScript?", the team realised:
A plugin would simplify product installation
App stores could serve as a powerful distribution channel
Approval from established platforms creates social proof
Weglot launched their first WordPress plugin at WordCamp Paris 2016, and immediately saw the potential of replicating the playbook in other nascent ecosystems.
"If you're there at the beginning, you have the first-mover advantage. Which was the case for us on Shopify." — Eugène Ernoult, Weglot CMO.
Weglot launched as one of the first translation apps on the Shopify App Store in September 2016, giving an immediate visibility boost (compared to entering an established marketplace).
Succeeding in each platform required a tailored approach:
"WordPress is open-source and values community contribution. Shopify users prioritise ROI." — Eugène Ernoult
This informed everything from features to marketing optimisation.
For example, Weglot redirects Google Search ads for keywords like "wordpress translation plugin" to their WordPress Plugin Directory page instead of their website.
Despite losing tracking control, their A/B testing showed this generates 2x the conversions, since people would rather quickly install a free app with great ratings, than evaluate pricing pages and case studies on an unknown website.
The strategy worked: by 2021, 80% of all Weglot’s self-service signups came directly through app stores.
2. Ecosystem opportunities beyond app stores
Weglot found several creative entry points to tap into broader CMS ecosystems, beyond just app store listings:
SEO ecosystems: Recognising that multilingual sites represent an SEO opportunity, they built a presence at SEO industry events and forums.
Ambassadors: To scale efficiently, Weglot developed a community of ambassadors to represent them at events, with 13 representatives covering 24 events in 2024 - half of their total event presence.
3rd-party reviews: Since many leads used Google (rather than CMS App Store search) to find translation solutions, Weglot built an exceptional reputation on high-ranking external review platforms like G2, Trustpilot, and Google reviews.
Hosting events: In 2024, Weglot ran their own "International Marketing Summit" with 860 registrations, and speakers from companies like Canva and HubSpot.
Perhaps their most novel distribution flywheel was when they identified Webflow as a high-potential market in 2020. Webflow had no app store at the time, but rather than waiting around, Weglot:
Identified the "Made in Webflow" gallery as an alternative distribution channel.
Partnered with a prominent agency to build a showcase website on Webflow, about Weglot.
Created a clonable template so community members could use (not just get inspired by) the website.
To this day, the site is Webflow's 8th highest-rated template, and continues to drive traffic and new users to Weglot.
3. Partner networks for leveraged distribution
Agencies form the backbone of Weglot's partnership strategy:
Web development agencies (primary focus)
SEO agencies
Growth and marketing agencies
Translation services professionals
The growth trajectory in the number of agencies recommending Weglot tells the story:
2021: 700 agencies
2022: 1,300 agencies
2023: 2,100 agencies
2024: 4,500 agencies
These partnerships deliver high-quality leads at lower acquisition costs:
"The agency sells Weglot to the customer, installs it, and onboards the customer. The customer just has to subscribe. We have nothing to do!" — Eugène Ernoult
Thousands of agency partners promoting Weglot across different markets creates a powerful force multiplier: Agencies function as an extension of Weglot’s team → particularly when the product makes their lives easier, they become advocates.
This also creates a feedback loop where agencies provide real-world implementation insights that directly inform Weglot's product roadmap, ensuring features align with actual market needs.
The partnership strategy extends to co-marketing initiatives (webinars, content, resources) with strategic partners like HubSpot, SEMRush, Brevo, and Yoast (WordPress' most popular SEO plugin).
Today, Weglot has a dedicated team of specialists for technical partnerships, agency relationships, events, and B2B influencers.
The result: Efficient and leveraged distribution to many millions of prospects (without many millions in ad spend).
Rabbit Hole
The where: 3x high-signal resources to learn more
[1 minute read]
Since the website was such a stunning showcase of Webflow’s capabilities:
Webflow were incentivised to promote it everywhere
Users who cloned it were (a) happy, and (b) exposed to Weglot (at the same time - the most powerful combination in marketing)
A win-win-win that continues to generate value for Weglot + Webflow + users to this day.
[3 minute read]
It’s one thing to sponsor events.
It’s another thing to run your own.
Multiplied effort, but multiplied value.
[1 minute read]
PH is the ‘ecosystem marketing’ initiative that everyone tries, but most stop there.
Just one of thousands in the Weglot playbook.
[1 minute watch]
All the marketers reading this know: you can have all the distribution in the world, but without a stellar product + a crystal clear unique value proposition, you’re building on digital quicksand.
Here’s some inspo for your positioning:
The one-liner statement: “Weglot translates your entire site in minutes, with no coding required.”
The one-minute explainer: This video.
That’s all for today’s breakdown - next one coming in hot in <7 days.
— Tom
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