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 Wing Yee Tang shares her journey. She is Senior CRO specialist at DPG Media.
I often try to reflect on different situations, to assess whether I could have done things differently.
Wing Yee Tang
Please introduce yourself to our readers.
Hi there! My name is Wing Yee. Born and raised in The Netherlands. I have a Master’s degree in Psychology (Brain and Cognition).
I have been working in the experimentation industry for almost 9 years. I started at an agency and switched to in-house. For me, that was the best order to gain diverse experience. Up until recently, I always had a double role as CRO Specialist and Web Analyst. In October 2024, I joined DPG Media and I am fully focusing on CRO now.
What is your current experimentation role and what do you do?
I work as a Senior CRO Specialist at DPG Media. The company is a publisher in The Netherlands and Belgium – with newspapers, magazines, radio stations, a TV channel and online services.
My role is to optimize the digital (reading) experience of newspapers and magazines. As I am in the Marketing department, an important part of my job is to align and work together with the Product department.
In addition, I help and guide the CRO team in our department to get experimentation to the next level.
How did you enter the experimentation space? What was your first experimentation related role? Share your origin story here.
After my studies, I did not want to enter the academic world and went looking for a job in e-commerce/marketing. My job hunting journey was quite tough, as Psychology was underrated back then and I got rejected many times.
Luckily, my first employer was interested in my educational background and offered me a CRO internship at his agency for a few months. I was thrown in at the deep end, but I learned so much from it. I ended up presenting my own psychological model and data-driven test ideas to one of our biggest clients.
The internship was successful. I was hired at the agency and became a CRO, UX & Measurement Specialist. Yes…I also became a Web Analyst. To be honest, I am happy with the broad experience that I gained, which makes various aspects of work easier.
To this day, I am still thankful to my first employer, who gave me a chance (to work on different things) and believed in me.
How did you start to learn experimentation?
In my first month during the CRO internship, I joined two training sessions that a colleague was giving to one of our clients. However, it was mostly learning on the job. I also read tons of blog posts back then.
How do you apply experimentation in your personal life? (what are you tinkering with or always optimizing?)
Self-reflection is one thing. I often try to reflect on different situations, to assess whether I could have done things differently.
Another thing is my travel planning. I want to explore every corner of a city and end up doing too much. For my last holiday, I did not plan anything in advance. That was the other extreme, so I need to find the optimum travel plan. I will be tweaking my next holiday.
What are you currently doing to keep up with the ever-changing industry?
I follow people from the industry on LinkedIn and the feed is like a goldmine. In addition, I read articles/posts that I find on different platforms.
Besides the online activities, I read books about different topics. I have hoarded a lot of books recently, so I will soak up more knowledge.
Last but not least, I go to different events to see what is happening in the industry. For example, Emerce Conversion & Analytics, Conversion Hotel, and MeasureCamp. Knowing what others are doing will keep me on my toes and I strive to optimize the things that I am doing.
What recommendations would you give to someone who is looking to join the experimentation industry and get their first full-time position?
Working in the experimentation industry is more than just following a process. Read books or blog posts about different topics: cro, ux, design, statistics, psychology, etc.
Develop the mindset and always optimize everything you do.
Connect with/Follow people on LinkedIn. The experimentation community is very helpful, so dare to ask questions.
Which developments in experimentation excite you? How do you see the field changing in the next 5 to 10 years? What will stay the same? What’s not going to change in the next ten years?
It is a very positive development that companies see the value of validation more and more. With that in mind, I think that CRO/Experimentation will move closer to Product/IT.
AI will probably have a bigger role in the experimentation industry. I think it will play a smarter role in different aspects of the digital experience (personalisation, audio, video, text summaries, etc). Validation will probably focus on those aspects, like testing the optimal logic for personalisation.
What is certainly not going to change, is that our work is being taken over by AI. I do not believe that everything can be automated. AI misses emotional intelligence and contextual intelligence.
Is there anything people reading this can help you with? Or any parting words?
Be curious, keep learning, and have fun!
Which other experimenters would you love to read an interview by?
Jonny Longden, Desiree van der Horst, Theo van der Zee, Marianne Stjernvall
Thank you Wing Yee for sharing your journey and insights.
