The goal of this interview series is to inspire and help people to transition their career into a new or next experimentation related role. In this edition Kirsty McLellan shares her journey. Kirsty is Strategy Director for Optimisation and UX at Dentsu International.
… nothing beats on the job learning, I have learnt something new from every project and client I’ve worked with, building my knowledge of best practice experimentation, but also learning that the world does not always allow for best practice.
Kirsty McLellan
Please introduce yourself to our readers.
Hi, I’m Kirsty and I’m an Optimisation and UX Strategist based in Manchester UK. I’m originally from the South of England but made Manchester my home coming up for 12 years ago, and the Northerners have begrudgingly adopted me.
I have worked in Digital Experience since 2014, exploring different specialisms, but found my passion in problem solving for clients which spawned my love for Optimisation Strategy. Having worked both for in-house companies and agencies, I’ve had amazing opportunities to work with household names across a multitude of industry verticals.
When I’m not optimising or experimenting, you’ll most likely find me exploring the British countryside and beaches with my partner Mark and rescue dog Odie.
What is your current experimentation role and what do you do?
My current role is for one of the largest global marketing agencies, Dentsu International. Where I work as a Strategy Director for Optimisation and UX within our Digital Experience Community.
I oversee a team of 15+ Optimisation Strategists and support wider product teams such as Insights, UX Research, Design and Development on the delivery of best-in-class A/B testing programmes, UX research projects and Digital Experience transformation developments.
I work closely with our clients to understand their long and short-term goals to design Optimisation programmes to meet their needs. Helping some clients to enhance or scale existing experimentation propositions or develop brand new ones – all with the same core focuses of user centricity, experimentation culture and performance driven outcomes.
My role really allows me to explore my passion which is problem solving. I love spending time with clients digging into the detail, working with our user researchers and data analysts to flesh our user problem statements to develop into test hypotheses. Taking these from concept to completion.
Although I remain an avid Experimenter and Strategist, this role has allowed me to explore new avenues. I am now further away from client activation, but so much closer to the development of future Strategists and Optimisers. One of my favourite parts of the role is helping to find and bring in new talent into the team. It’s been a real pleasure to work closely with the team past and present, helping them to find their passion and strengths within the field and go onto build amazing future careers.
How did you enter the experimentation space? What was your first experimentation related role? Share your origin story here.
Optimisation and UX is something I knew nothing about when I first entered the world of work.
After some questionable advice from a careers counselor who added together my business qualification with my art degree and came out with Fashion Buyer – I thought, why not? I commenced a degree in the area and ended up in several Fashion PR roles, which were never quite the right fit for me.
My first role within the digital field was as part of an e-commerce trading team. This role opened my eyes to the importance of onsite experience. At the time I was working with luxury brands listing their products and helping to create retail spaces on the site reflective of their brands. Here I got my first taste of testing, as we onboard Qubit, and an interest in experimentation was born.
My first real Experimentation role was when I joined Prettylittlething.com as a UX analyst, back in 2017. It was fantastic to work in a fast-paced environment at the cutting edge of understanding user needs from a product perspective and help develop their onsite experience to match.
I knew, being new to the field I wanted to learn as much as possible and agency would be the right next step for me. Giving me more exposure to a cross section of different types of brands and websites. I moved to Dentsu in 2019 and the agency has been a great place to feed my thirst for knowledge around testing and UX.
How did you start to learn experimentation?
I have been really lucky to work with some amazing CRO’s, Optimisers and UXers and I am really thankful for the time they have invested into helping me learn and develop. Getting a mentor and learning from the other people across the industry in different specialisms is a priceless experience.
Alongside mentoring, I started signing up for as many course courses as I could, to give myself a strong foundational understanding: including CXL, Baymard Institute certification and several Google-run courses.
But nothing beats on the job learning, I have learnt something new from every project and client I’ve worked with, building my knowledge of best practice experimentation, but also learning that the world does not always allow for best practice. On the job learning has helped me to become responsive to market and client changes to create agile approaches each unique to a client specific problem statement, resources, and time.
How do you apply experimentation in your personal life? (what are you tinkering with or always optimizing?)
I think it must be baking. I am never quite finished perfecting a recipe, tweaking, and changing measures, testing new ingredients or methods to get to a perfect cake or dessert…strangely enough, I have never struggled to recruit testers for this particular area of research.
What are you currently doing to keep up with the ever-changing industry?
Attending events, speaking with partners, clients, and tools in the wider market, reading as many posts and articles as I can.
What recommendations would you give to someone who is looking to join the experimentation industry and get their first full-time position?
Talk to people. This industry is so welcoming and full of passionate individuals who have been in the same position as you, are starting out. They will be able to give you lots of advice on finding your right career within experimentation.
My advice to all my team as they explore their next steps and progress within their roles is the same…
“What do you love doing?” “What are your strengths?” If you can find or build a role around what you’re passionate about and in line with your skill set, you’re on to a winner.
Which developments in experimentation excite you? How do you see the field changing in the next 5 to 10 years?
The complete removal of silos between marketing channels and Optimization/CRO/UX teams – it’s outdated to think of CRO or UX as working in isolation. I expect closer working relationships and joint testing programmes with PPC, SEO and Socials, as the Intent of a user becomes more important than ever in connecting those in marketing optimisation who aim to meet the requirements of Search Engines algorithms to generate more traffic with UX and CRO teams creating strong user experience that converts traffic into customers.
As well as the cliche answer of: Evolution of tool sets thanks to AI. I don’t believe AI will replace specialists in the field but fuel efficiency, speed and change which is very exciting.
Is there anything people reading this can help you with? Or any parting words?
Optimisation and Experimentation is an amazing area to work in and I hope these interviews inspire others to enter this field.
My favourite thing about working in this area is the sense of community.
I love my field of focus and job because of the people I get to work with – passionate, enthusiastic, driven specialists who love to share knowledge and upskill others. Experimentation is a journey, and all journeys are better together- as cliche as that sounds.
Which other experimenters would you love to read an interview by?
Chris Todd
Thank you Kirsty for sharing your journey and insights with the community.
