About me

David founded User Conversion, an independent conversion rate optimization consultancy in the UK, which he exited in 2021. David is now the founder of Made With Intent, a company focused on eCommerce optimization and measurement. He is the author of The Person in Personalisation, the ‘story of how marketing's most treasured possession became anything but personal’.

Q&A

How did you first get into testing ideas with experiments? What made you try it out?

“I've always been a creative person, but people focus too much on test execution and not enough on the problem, strategy, and solution. For example, one solution can have 1000 executions. One problem can have 1000 solutions. An experiment should be to test the solution and not the execution.
I was always trying to either debunk different executions or provide some evidence behind why different solutions worked. That’s how I got into testing.”  

What’s changed most about how you approach experimentation in the last year? (Has AI, team structure, or tooling shifted how you test ideas?)

“The utilization of user intent. Experimentation often uses website first analytics, so the problem statement is driven by evidence from website behavior only. E.g., the user doesn't click on ‘Add to cart’ or abandons the PDP.
But I am far more interested in understanding if the user is struggling, or if they are likely to purchase. This idea of identifying user first analytics and responding in real time is what I’m all about.”

What’s one thing people often get wrong when trying to get different teams to run experiments together?

“It comes down to getting the right purpose?

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Most teams are just moving stuff around on a page. They focus on execution, not the solution, or indeed, the problem they're trying to solve. Are you experimenting to try to increase revenue for a certain behavior, or are you genuinely doing it because it's required for evidence? Where does it sit? Marketing versus development?

That’s a great indicator of purpose.”