Testing Mind Map Series: How to Think Like a CRO Pro (Part 44)

Interview with Lucas Vos

Get ready to meet Lucas Vos, RTL’s Senior Conversion Specialist. With over 300 A/B tests under his belt and multiple teams coached, he is truly one to watch in the space.

Lucas was thrown headfirst into the world of CRO at the Dutch newspaper, NRC, back in 2015. Since then, he’s mastered all the best optimization tactics.

So, whether you’re trying to understand the difference between website optimization and product experimentation, or searching for the right CRO certification, Lucas is your person. Let’s dive in…

Lucas, tell us about yourself. What inspired you to get into testing & optimization?

Throughout my career, I have held many online marketing positions. However, when I started working at NRC (a major Dutch newspaper) I was thrown into CRO because we installed a paywall bringing lots of traffic, but that didn’t convert well. My challenge was to turn that around.

How many years have you been optimizing for?

Since 2015, when the newspaper I worked for installed its first hard paywall. I got my start in CRO because of it.

What’s the one resource you recommend to aspiring testers & optimizers?

The CXL conversion optimization certification. Great start to get the basics right. For Dutchies: The Online Dialogue certification.

Answer in 5 words or less: What is the discipline of optimization to you?

Validation of possible improvements

What are the top 3 things people MUST understand before they start optimizing?

• There is no silver bullet in CRO
• Difference between real evidence and assumptions
• Basics of statistics

How do you treat qualitative & quantitative data to minimize bias?

Typical CRO answer, it depends. It depends on what kind of qualitative or qualitative data you have, and how well it is suited to the question you want to have answered. In short, most of the time, they bring synergy, answering the “what happens” (quantitative) and “why it happens” (qualitative).

How is product experimentation different from website optimization? Any tips to help teams get started with product testing?

Different goals and different tooling (most of the time). Most websites want you to convert into customers, or let you buy stuff. Most products are optimized for better usage, so you have other KPIs to optimize for, like activity rates, (page)views, and more.

With that, most of the time the ‘web’ tools are insufficient, so you have to do more server-side testing and have a process for that.

Our thanks go out to Lucas for taking part in this interview! To our lovely readers, we hope you found the insights useful and encourage you to apply them in your own optimization efforts.

Don’t forget to check back twice a month for more enlightening interviews! And if you haven’t already, check out our past interviews with CRO pros Gursimran Gujral, Haley Carpenter, Rishi Rawat, Sina Fak, Eden Bidani, Jakub Linowski, Shiva Manjunath, Deborah O’Malley, Andra Baragan, Rich Page, Ruben de Boer, Abi Hough, Alex Birkett, John Ostrowski, Ryan Levander, Ryan Thomas, Bhavik Patel, Siobhan Solberg, Tim Mehta, Rommil Santiago, Steph Le Prevost, Nils Koppelmann, Danielle Schwolow, Kevin Szpak, Marianne Stjernvall, Christoph Böcker, Max Bradley, Samuel Hess, Riccardo Vandra, Lukas Petrauskas, Gabriela Florea, Sean Clanchy, Ryan Webb, Tracy Laranjo, Lucia van den Brink, LeAnn Reyes, Lucrezia Platé, Daniel Jones, May Chin, Kyle Hearnshaw, Gerda Vogt-Thomas, Melanie Kyrklund, and our latest with Sahil Patel.