S6E12 - CRO Lessons I Wish I Knew Earlier with Edd Saunders

Starting a career in Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) can be surprisingly difficult. Getting your first experience, working with developers, prioritizing experiments, dealing with failed tests, and proving the value of experimentation all come with a learning curve.In this episode of Experiment Nation, Eline speaks with CRO and experimentation leader Edd about the lessons he learned during his first years in the industry, and what he wishes he had known sooner.They discuss:• How to get your first CRO experience when you don't have a CRO background• Why agency experience can be a powerful accelerator for learning CRO• Getting buy-in from developers and explaining experimentation to technical teams• Why traditional prioritization frameworks like ICE and P.I.E. don't always work• How to prioritize experiments using potential business impact and MDE• How to build a CRO career from digital marketing, analytics, UX, or other disciplines• Why your first experiments don't have to be perfect A/B tests• How to deal with failed and inconclusive experiments• Why CROs should spend more time in the problem space and less time generating test ideas• Using quantitative and qualitative research to identify customer problems• Jobs to Be Done, surveys, stakeholder interviews, and customer journey mapping• Why experimentation should generate customer intelligence, not just conversion lifts• How previous experiment results can inform your next hypothesis• Dealing with imposter syndrome and the fear of failure• Why CRO professionals should "have strong opinions, but hold them loosely"• The importance of learning from mistakes and communicating them effectivelyOne of the biggest themes of the conversation is the shift from "What should we test?" to "What problem are our customers actually experiencing?"For CRO practitioners, that's an important distinction. The goal isn't simply to generate more winning experiments. It's to understand customers better, validate problems, and build a growing body of evidence that makes future experimentation more effective.Whether you're starting your first CRO role or you've been running experiments for years, there are plenty of practical lessons here.Chapters:00:00 Introduction01:03 Meet Ed: 10+ Years in CRO & Experimentation02:26 An Unusual Path Into Digital Marketing05:22 Discovering Experimentation Through Email Testing08:34 How Previous Careers Can Prepare You for CRO10:20 How to Get Your First CRO Experience12:28 CRO Communities, Courses & Learning Resources15:42 Why Practical Experience Beats Theory16:00 The Hardest Parts of Starting a CRO Career16:24 Getting Technical Buy-In From Developers17:30 Why CRO Prioritization Frameworks Don't Always Work18:32 How to Prioritize Experiments Based on Business Impact21:38 Getting Your First CRO Client or Project23:01 How to Create CRO Opportunities In-House24:29 Why Agency Experience Can Accelerate Your CRO Career27:19 Turning Digital Marketing Work Into CRO Experience28:21 Experimenting Beyond A/B Tests30:08 Learning From Failed Experiments32:00 Overcoming Imposter Syndrome & Fear of Failure34:41 How to Communicate Mistakes at Work37:29 Get Out of the Solution Space38:43 Finding & Validating Customer Problems40:25 Stop Chasing Wins, Start Chasing Learnings45:14 Using Jobs to Be Done in CRO46:42 Surveys & Stakeholder Interviews for Customer Research47:24 Customer Journey Mapping for CRO50:40 Don't Forget the Human Behind the Data51:57 "Have Strong Opinions, But Hold Them Loosely"53:41 Keep Learning Beyond Traditional CRO Resources54:29 What CRO Can Learn From Radical Candor56:04 Final Thoughts#CRO #ConversionRateOptimization #Experimentation #ABTesting #GrowthMarketing #UX #DigitalMarketingBackground music:"Background Hip-Hop Urban" by CoffeeMusicLicensed via AudioJungle under the Music Standard License.

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