Austin, Texas The Conversion Capital
of the World 18 CRO Experts You Need to Follow

Every now and then a
city becomes a magnet to a particular industry or profession. Like Silicon Valley for techies, Paris for fashion and art, or New York for finance. In fact, there’s a word for it: Experts call these areas “clusters.”

What’s the big deal about
Austin? Is it the big-name corporations that have made Austin their hub? Companies like…

Why Austin? “Website optimization is
a fundamentally entrepreneurial endeavor. Austin has that entrepreneurial vibe, which provides rich soil to grow an agency. The people here are bottom-line oriented, curious, and rigorously creative. It is a place we can live outside the box. A conference like SXSW combining music, moves, and tech could only arise in Austin. Austin's music scene had the Armadillo World Headquarters as ground zero for great artists in the 70s. The online scene has The Wizard Academy and Roy H. Williams to educate and inspire great business people.” Brian Massey Conversion Sciences @bmassey

Why Austin? Joel Harvey Conversion
Sciences @joelharvey “Where else do creativity and execution blend so seamlessly? The city is teeming with brilliant people who use data to achieve extraordinary results. Oh, and there's the taco factor. Everybody knows that tacos are conversion optimization fuel and nobody does Tacos better than Austin.”

Why Austin? “Over the last
12 years or so of visiting, Austin has always been a great center of technology and innovation, the marriage of arts and hard sciences. Bryan Eisenberg Author, CRO Pioneer, Consultant, Speaker @TheGrok Aside from the fact that Austin has one of the most thriving tech startup scenes, it's considered one of the best cities to raise a family (I have 3 kids) and, of course, a great value for the quality of life available.”

Why Austin? “I really like
Austin and I don't miss the winters, hassles or expenses of New York City. But to be honest, I moved here for love.” Jeffrey Eisenberg Author, CRO Pioneer, Consultant, Speaker @JeffreyGroks

Why Austin? Peep Laja Conversion
XL @peeplaja “Because of the women! No joke. I didn't move to Austin because of great beer (512 Pecan Porter FTW), Rudy's BBQ or cool people like Brian Massey (I discovered all of that later). I did it for love. My wife is from Austin, and she brought me here.”

Why Austin? “Austin is not
new to the cutting edge. Companies such as Human Code were instrumental in marrying art and science in the Wild West days of multimedia and edutainment in the '90s. Another Austin Ventures company, Garden.com, helped write the book on ecommerce. Austin continues to attract "big city" talent, while maintaining a "small-town" feel for its digital community. There's a rich tradition of storytelling here, and whether it's through music or analytics doesn't seem to matter much. That facility with using data in making business decisions carries on in companies like RetailMeNot. And we're cradled by a fertile crescent of the world's best BBQ.” John Stansbury RetailMeNot @jstansbury

Why Austin? “Is there any
doubt that Austin is in a prime position for CRO? Austin has a young and highly educated population, low cost of living, a hip and progressive culture and—with so many successful online start-ups in the metro area such as RetailMeNot, uShip and HomeAway— top talents are flowing into the city every day from all over the world. In the past few years, this field has gained so much importance that the local companies have been sponsoring Conversion conferences such as the DAA Symposium and The Live Event from WhichTestWon.com. On top of that, there are weekly Web Analytics Wednesdays for the local analytic geeks and optimization fanatics to gather and social. Charles Hua RetailMeNot @charleschenhua I am walking proof of all this. I graduated from UT Austin and never wanted to leave the city. When I joined OfficeDepot.com, one of the criteria was not to move away from Austin. The combination of all these factors will make Austin the Conversion Capital of the World, if it isn‟t already. One more thing, the food here is awesome!”

Why Austin? “The motto of
Austin, Texas is “Keep Austin Weird,” and weird is exactly what you'll need to be if you want to succeed at digital marketing. Conversion optimization is rarely intuitive. Stuff that should work often DOESN'T, and stuff that shouldn't work sometimes does. We keep it weird down here in Austin... because that's where the big breakthroughs come from.” Ryan Deiss Digital Marketer @ryandeiss

Why Austin? “I came to
Austin to work for Dell in 2004 and have been here ever since. Increasingly I found it is difficult to leave here for other places, even with higher compensation. Cost and quality of living here is a big factor for sure. But I also believe in the future of Austin will be even brighter. Ed Wu Dell @ed_wu There are a number of companies such as Dell, HP, OfficeDepot, RetailMeNot.com, etc., that already have sophisticated analytics/testing programs here in town and I believe, sooner or later, other companies will find Austin an ideal place to build their digital marketing hub. As that happens, professionals like us will have many more opportunities. There is no reason that Austin can't crown itself as "The Capital of Optimization" as long as we dream big and work hard.”

Why Austin? “Austin is a
great place to find whip-smart talent. My coastal competitors don't get employees who scored over 1400 on the (old school) SATs... If you're in California, and are a top graduate, and comfortable with numbers and math, you don't go to work for a marketing consultancy, you go to work in high tech. If you're on the East Coast, and a top graduate, and good with numbers, you go into high finance, not advertising/marketing/conversion. If you're most places in the middle of the country, other than Austin, once you graduate, you LEAVE your college town and find a destination city. Austin is a destination city, and a place where I can engage, train, develop, and RETAIN top-tier talent. My coastal competitors struggle to attract anyone solid, and retention isn't even an option after 1-2 years of training.” Bill Leake Apogee Results @Marketing_Bill

Why Austin? “People often ask
me whether an analytical mind or a creative mind fares better at conversion optimization. Without fail, I answer "neither.“ To me, it's a middle-brained thinker, somebody who understands the relationship between design, experience, product and data. That combination of creativity and appreciation for consumer data is a rare one, but a trait that seems to be disproportionately concentrated in Austin. Matt Wishnow Clearhead.me @clearheadme In some ways, this makes sense when you consider the fabric of Austin in 2014—a city of big, young brains, built on the music and tech start-ups that greatly define our local culture. To me, it makes perfect sense that Austin would have a lot of "middle-brained" people, skilled at datadriven optimization.”

Why Austin? “Austin has a
thriving community of companies provide services and sell products on the Internet. As a digital advertising expert, it's a fantastic place to be able to help a large number of companies be successful. Austin is also seeing a lot of growth, especially in the realm of digital. I expect this growth to continue, which will make the future even brighter for consultancies like ours who help these companies grow.” Ryan Pitylak Unique Influence, Inc. @ryanpitylak

Why Austin? “When we decided
to move from snowy, low-tech northern Indiana, we wanted a location with warmer weather and a great tech community. Austin had both, and offered a great lifestyle, too. Roger Dooley Neuromarketing and Brainy Marketing blogs @rogerdooley I knew about companies like Dell, AMD, and others with big operations here, but I was surprised at the size and diversity of the web marketing community. Meetups on topics like SEO, social media, Internet marketing, affiliate marketing, and other specialty interests are well attended, often drawing over a hundred attendees. As a plus, when one weighs cost of living, state taxes, etc., Austin compares very favorably with the Bay Area and other hubs of tech activity.”

Why Austin? “Austin has wonderful
weather, affordable housing, a great lifestyle, and no state income tax. If you like tacos and live music as much as I do, it's the perfect place to live.” Matthew Gratt BuzzStream @MattGratt

Why Austin? “Easy. It's the
people. But that's too simple.... Specifically, there are a lot of great people in this city who really care about the work they do. They want to continually exceed their expectations and push themselves and their conversion rates higher and higher while fully enjoying the work they do. Brett Tarr The Tarr Group @Brett_Tarr Austin has the highest per capita of creatives, entrepreneurs, information marketers, persuasive copywriters, UI/UX designers, consultants and many others that make up this wide and diverse field of study we call CRO. But more importantly, it's a city filled with southern hospitality, acceptance, integrity and people who are always willing to share what they've learned in order to help you, them and our practice grow.”

Why Austin? “I chose Austin
for the tacos. After that everything else. Weather, cost of living, friendly people, central (literally) in the USA and great outdoors. The tech scene is small and doesn't feel like the echo chamber of the Bay Area.” Noah Kagan OKDork and Monthly1K.com @noahkagan

Why Austin? “An inexhaustible music
scene and reputable MA program brought Luke to Austin, and the city‟s entrepreneurial, liberal spirit kept his creativity comfortably nestled in the „512.‟ (For non-natives, 512 is Austin‟s area code.)” Ethan Luke Stenis Street Authority @elstenis

Why Austin? “For someone who
is an entrepreneur and future bestselling author of fiction, Austin provides the perfect mix of quirky, creativity, and start-up culture to call home and business hub.” Leslie Mock Idea Pioneer Media @lesliemock

Make your business “The ___________
Capital of the World” Have a conversation with a Conversion Scientist today Call 888-961-6604 or visit http://conversci.com/austin

Kathryn Aragon is editor of
The Daily Egg and publisher of the C4 Report. She is committed to helping businesses communicate, connect, convert... and capture their market. Follow her on Twitter and Google+ Excerpts from her article “Austin: The Conversion Capital of the World” (link)