Using WordPress as a SaaS Platform with OptinMonster

Thomas Griffin https://thomasgriffin.io 1
Using WordPress as a SaaS Platform
By:Thomas Griffin (@jthomasgriffin)

Who am I?

I am a partner and CTO of Awesome Motive, Inc. and the technical Co-
Founder of OptinMonster. Prior to OptinMonster, I founded Soliloquy, the
fastest WordPress slider plugin, and Envira Gallery, a revolutionary gallery
solution for photographers. I also builtTGM Plugin Activation and serve
over 30,000 happy customers.
Thomas Grifﬁn

To improve is to change; to be
perfect is to change often.
Winston Churchill

History of OptinMonster

The OptinMonsterTimeline
We meet to discuss the
awesomeness that would
become OptinMonster.
OptinMonster is Born
We failed to build a SaaS
model, so we pivoted to a
WordPress plugin.Totally
worth it.
OptinMonster Launches
We moved from an MVP to a
rock-solid v2.0 release, building
a very feature-rich platform
with even better technology.
OptinMonster 2.0 Lands
Our customers are demanding
solutions outside of
WordPress, so we hit the
ground running building the
hosted platform.
OptinMonster…SaaS?
Jan. 1, 2013 Sept. 24, 2013 Aug. 24, 2014 Oct. 8, 2014 May 5, 2015
The OptinMonster hosted
platform launches, allowing
OptinMonster to be used on
any website.
OptinMonster App

The Moving Process

Epic Considerations
•Data Migration

•Scaling

•System Architecture

•Security

•Payments

•Onboarding

•Support

•Caching

•High Availability and Redundancy

•Interfaces

•User Experience

•Development Workﬂow

Practical Applicationÿ

Over 7 billion requests served since 2013.

500 million requests served last 30 days.

5 million leads generated in last 30 days.

(That’s a bunch of requests to email service providers)

And WordPress handles all this??!?!?!

YES!

Meat and Potatoes

Database
•InnoDB preference over MyISAM

•add index to wp_options autoload

•use persistent object caching with Redis to prevent extra queries

Users
<?php
wp_*_current_user()
*_user_meta()
•start with simple subscriber user, strip
permissions, add caps from here

•custom data keys for account access
using user meta

Optins
•custom post type for handling each optin

•custom data storage using JSON (https://thomasgrifﬁn.io/wordpress-
performance-outside-box-handling-retrieving-data/)

•custom AJAX requests for saving and generating data

•public output generated at save and update intervals for performance

API Requests
•scaling API requests (https://thomasgriffin.io/a-creative-approach-to-
efficient-and-scalable-wordpress-api-endpoints/)

•this solution works for admin-ajax.php requests too! (https://
gist.github.com/thomasgriffin/11b859f0531a812bb273)

API Requests
<?php
/**
* Plugin Name: Custom admin-ajax.php Helper
* Plugin URI: https://thomasgriffin.io
* Description: Whitelists the plugins to be loaded during admin-ajax.php requests for performance.
* Author: Thomas Griffin
* Author URI: https://thomasgriffin.io
* Version: 1.0.0
*/
!
// Check against the request URI.
if ( ! isset( $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] ) ) {
return;
}
!
// If it does not match the admin-ajax.php route, do nothing.
if ( strpos( stripslashes( $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] ), 'admin-ajax.php' ) === false ) {
return;
}
!
// Ok, this is an admin-ajax.php request. Filter available plugins.
add_filter( 'pre_option_active_plugins', 'tgm_whitelist_admin_ajax_plugins' );
function tgm_whitelist_admin_ajax_plugins( $plugins ) {
!
// Only modify the ajax requests performed by our own plugin.
$action = isset( $_REQUEST['action'] ) ? stripslashes( $_REQUEST['action'] ) : false;
if ( ! $action ) {
return $plugins;
}
!
// For this example, we will target the heartbeat ajax request.
if ( 'heartbeat' !== $action ) {
return $plugins;
}
!
// Prevent any plugins from loading during the request.
$whitelist = array(
// my-custom-plugin/my-custom-plugin.php
);
!
// Return the whitelist instead of the default plugins.
return $whitelist;
!
}

Caching
•literally cache everything with persistent object cache (preferably
Redis) and fastcgi cache with Nginx

•this makes 99.9% of requests hit cache

•minimize impact of non-cache hits to DB

Infrastructure
•we love Pagely!

•custom setup on AWS using ec2 load balanced instances, RDS
(database), Route 53 for DNS, Elasticache w/ Redis

•smart cache purge policy on updates and save requests

•utilize MaxCDN for images and API script requests

Development Flow
•absolutely everything starts on local!

•marketing and app site split into two separate installs

•staging and production environments

•git feature branch dev - (http://nvie.com/posts/a-successful-git-
branching-model/)

•custom vagrant boxes for easy dev on boarding

Support
•all requests through HelpScout - easy ticket sharing, notes, workﬂows

•integrated with Gravity Forms to automatically tag and segment
requests

•TONS OF DOCUMENTATION

•fuzzy search and user “creates docs for us”

•happiness reports to identify trends, ways to improve

Support

Notifications
•simple notification system for in-app updates

•custom post type and user meta to check for view state

•pulsing dot to notify users of new notifications

Jobs and Queues
•daemons and workers to handle intensive, long processes

•utilize redis + job queues to prevent server overload

•useful for monthly conversion reports, platform data insights

But the most important ingredient…

YOURTEAM!

Processes and systems help,

but your team makes the difference.

So WordPress…Worth It?⋆

That’s all, folks!

Using WordPress as a SaaS Platform with OptinMonster

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