Digital agency Orchard has launched a dedicated experimentation practice, giving clients access to a 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.
“For too long, agencies have pressured clients to be brave without giving them the tools to back it up,” said Mikaela Crimmins, CSO at Orchard. “The pace of change right now is downright gnarly, but instead of freezing with ‘what should I do,’ our experimentation practice is helping clients learn fast, fail fast, and adapt faster. It’s all about taking bigger swings, without the fear of failure, because here, failure happens in a controlled environment.”
This offering is further reinforced by Orchard’s expertise in experimentation, recognised through its recent certification and Gold Solution Partner status with Optimizely, a platform 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.
