Digital agency Orchard has launched a dedicated Experimentation Practice, giving clients access to a rigorous, data-driven approach to innovation that removes risk and replaces guesswork with statistically significant insights.
Built over five years, the Practice transforms what was once an internal capability and methodology into a core service offering, enabling businesses to test bold ideas, measure real-world impact, and make confident, evidence-based decisions.
To help lead its newly created Experimentation Practice, Orchard has appointed Anthony Del Rio, who joins from EssenceMediacom where he was its experimentation CRO director. Prior to this, he held roles as a senior strategy consultant and CRO strategist at Deloitte, and has worked at brands including Samsung, Carnival Australia, and Time Inc. Del Rio brings deep expertise in CRO, digital experimentation, and data strategy, further strengthening Orchard’s capability in this space.
He joins Dan Taylor, Orchard’s director of data, insights and analytics, who has been instrumental in developing the agency’s experimentation methodology over the past five years. In addition to Del Rio and Taylor, the Experimentation Practice is backed by a multidisciplinary team spanning business strategy, behavioural science, and statistical modelling.
Mikaela Crimmins, chief strategy officer at Orchard, told Mumbrella: “Marketing today is like trying to hit a moving target while riding a rollercoaster. Customer behaviours shift overnight, platforms evolve weekly, and what worked yesterday might flop tomorrow. That’s why at Orchard, we don’t claim to have all the answers up front and we don’t believe we need to.
“Instead, we embrace a culture of experimentation. We design smart, fast tests that help us gather real-world feedback quickly. It’s not about guesswork or over-polished plans; it’s about putting ideas into market, learning what works (and what doesn’t), and iterating rapidly. This approach helps us stay ahead of change, uncover what actually drives impact, and give our clients confidence in the path forward, even when the landscape is shifting beneath us.”
This offering is further reinforced by Orchard’s deep expertise in experimentation, recognised through its recent certification and Gold Solution Partner status with Optimizely, one of the industry’s leading platforms for digital experience and experimentation.
“This practice is about giving our clients permission to be bold, with evidence,” said Taylor. “We’re taking hunches and hypotheses and turning them into clear, testable pathways to growth. It’s innovation with guardrails and we’re seeing incredible results.”
The new Practice is already driving experimentation programs for clients including Hyundai, Tourism Tasmania and Beyond Bank, embedding a culture of continuous testing and delivering measurable improvements in performance, brand strength and customer experience.
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