For the first of our Conversion Conference speaker Q&A sessions I had the opportunity to chat with Raquel Hirsch, President and Co-founder of, WiderFunnel. A self described “eternal optimist,” Raquel has an MBA, has taught at several universities and knows how to pick a great restaurant. I can’t wait to see her speak at Conversion Conference East in New York City – October 19th-20th.
1) What do you think is currently a hot trend in optimization or conversion?
We are seeing tremendous value for clients by deemphasizing the testing of graphic elements (e.g., colors of buttons) to testing Value Propositions. Attaining conversion rate lift is tactical excellence, but that just gets you off the starting gate in this industry. Attaining a deep understanding of the Value Proposition via statistically valid testing, on the other hand, is strategic excellence. This strategic excellence impacts the client’s overall business model, not just the web pages.
2) What would you say is the biggest mistake people make when it comes to optimization?
Forgetting to run statistically valid test but believing that “Best Practices” will do the job. We know, from hundreds of successfully competed tests, that the same wireframe, for example, will work wonders in one situation and bomb in another. Nobody has a crystal ball.
3) Which speaker(s) are you most excited to hear, beside yourself, at Conversion Conference East?
Steve Krug – for sure!
4) What’s your favorite restaurant to visit while in New York?
Some very insightful information and a great teaser for the kind of information Raquel and the others will be speaking about in October. We will see what we can do about that reservation Raquel.
More information about Raquel
Raquel Hirsch, President and Co-founder of,WiderFunnel, a full-service marketing company and the developer of the industry-first Kaizen Method™ for continuously improving your online conversion rates on landing pages, microsites and web sites. Raquel has an impressive online and traditional marketing background. In addition to Conversion Optimization, her domain expertise includes the development and strategic use of CRM, database marketing, e-commerce, web analytics, and direct mail. Before co-founding WiderFunnel Marketing Inc., Raquel held senior executive positions at a number of corporations in diverse industries where she developed and executed lead-generation, customer acquisition and customer retention strategies.
Armed with an MBA, Raquel is a sought after speaker. Her teaching experience includes various universities, plus numerous professional conferences and seminars across North America and Europe. Most recently, Raquel presented the keynote address at ‘Conversion Camp’, Europe’s first-ever conversion optimization conference (Frankfurt, September 2010). In her high-energy, interactive presentations, Raquel leverages multiple client case studies and shares insights gained after completing hundreds of successful conversion optimization experiments for clients such as eBay, Epson, SAP, Electronic Arts, Alfresco, BabyAge.com and so many others.
See Raquel Live!
Raquel will be part of a panel with Glenn Edelmann, from Wine Enthusiast and Joe Weller, from RealNetworks on “Optimizing the Purchase Process: Emails, Landing Pages, Product & Category Pages, and Order Paths” at Conversion Conference East 2011 in New York City. See the
full agenda and
read more about this session.
717 798 3495
Here is something cool: The Conversion Optimization testing game is launching next week — sign up for the ConversionSkills game beta here: bit.ly/crobeta #CROskills