Ben Jesson

I’m a startup investor and author of Making Websites Win, which was a bestseller in 15 categories on Amazon and recommended by industry leaders from Google, Facebook, and Microsoft.

If you’d like to contact me, feel free to email, or connect on LinkedIn—I enjoy meeting new people who share similar interests. 

Previous experience, honors, and awards

Founded Conversion Rate Experts (CRE) and bootstrapped it to acquisition

In 2006, my co-founder Karl Blanks and I created a new type of company to help businesses to grow by focusing on customer experience—using a scientific approach to designing websites called conversion rate optimization (CRO). I served as CEO between 2006 and 2022.

CRE increases the profits of businesses scientifically by analyzing their websites visitors, creating optimized pages, and then A/B-testing them to measure the increase in sales.

We have grown hundreds of businesses in over 80 different verticals—including the worlds largest web companies and many exciting startups—with great results.

As a result, our work has featured in many leading publications, including Fortune, Forbes, Psychology Today, The Telegraph, and The Financial Times.

In 2020, CRE was acquired by the publicly listed growth consultancy Next 15. In 2022, we transitioned the running of CRE to two of our long-standing team members.

Winner of the Queen’s Award for Enterprise—twice

Her Majesty The Queen awarded Conversion Rate Experts the UK’s highest award for business, twice.

We received our first Queen’s Award for innovation, for codifying the scientific methodology that companies like Google and Amazon now use to improve websites. We received our second Queen’s Award for outstanding achievement in international trade.

Google’s first international partner for its A/B-testing tool

Google also hired us to optimize its websites, train its team and to present our research at the Googleplex.

International speaker

I have presented at several leading industry events—for companies such as Google, Moz, eMetrics, SMX, Econsultancy, PerformanceIN, FinTech Circle, and the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising.

Running an international remote-first business

CRE has helped grow clients in 40 countries in 11 languages. We have worked remotely for over fifteen years, and we frequently get quoted in the media about how we have pioneered ways to build a remote, fun, collaborative, effective, and award-winning culture.

At the Googleplex in Silicon Valley with Vint Cerf (the inventor of the internet).
Speaking at Europe’s largest conference for performance marketing.
At the Queen’s reception at Buckingham Palace.