About Us

2009: Analytics Agency Dan-Croxen John leaves his job as MD of a group of mail order companies to offer analytics services to online retailers. Inspired by his first-hand experiences, Dan is aware of the value of analytics data and the scarcity of skilled analysts. He sets up office in The Phoenix Centre a hub for tech start-ups in York, takes the DAA’s challenging Certified Web Analyst exams and names the new company Applied Web Analytics.

2011: CRO agency Impressed with the insights from analytics, clients start asking for help in implementing the recommendations. It is a catalyst to relaunch the company as a fully-fledged CRO agency. Re-branded as AWA digital, the team work with leading CRO experts to develop a unique, customer-led, research-heavy process, designed to get substantial, long-term sales uplifts. Paperchase is AWA’s first CRO client and we deliver them a 35% increase in online sales.

2013: International expansion As demand grows AWA digital opens offices in London, Cape Town and Austin to cater for the needs of local and global clients. Awards come thick and fast, including the Gold award from WhichTestWon for best Home Page test won two years in a row.

2015: Blue chip client list AWA holds its 8th quarterly review meeting, a forum used by the team of optimisers to continually refine and improve the AWA Conversion System, its unique methodology. By now AWA’s client list includes some of the world’s biggest names including TK Maxx, Mothercare and Interflora, as well as a host of ambitious smaller companies.

2016: Multilingual CRO In a competitive pitch, AWA is selected to to become Canon Europe’s conversion optimisation agency. Initially the contract is to optimise the UK, German and French online stores but quickly expands to cover 13 territories in 8 languages, delivering a return on investment of 1,200%.

2017: Book Launch Business book publisher, Kogan Page, commissions founder Dan Croxen-John and COO Johann van Tonder to write a book; ‘Ecommerce Website Optimization’. Subtitled, ‘Why 95% of your visitors don’t buy – and what you can do about it’. The book shoots to the top of Amazon’s business bestseller lists and sales are double the publisher’s forecasts.

2018: 10th Anniversary AWA’s clients and staff gather to help celebrate the start of a new decade. With a vision to become the world’s most influential CRO agency, exciting innovations are planned for the next ten years.

2020: Conference We launch a free conference series called ‘Experimentation Works’ aimed at educating all those interested in growing their business using experimentation. Harvard Business professor and author, Stefan Thomke is our first speaker, followed by a panel of experts from Booking.com, Wall Street Journal and Optimizely.