a g a t a o s i n s k a
director oF Product,
Plent yoFFish Media inc.
age: 29
the story: Agata Osinska came to Vancou-
ver by way of Ireland and, before that, Poland,
where she was born. Her British boyfriend,
who's lived in Vancouver for 22 years, was the
initial pull—as well as the place itself: "I really
liked Ireland, but then I started visiting him
here, and once you see the mountains, the
ocean, you're like… oh." Now, she gets to enjoy
that view five days a week (from a 25th-floor
downtown office overlooking Burrard Inlet) as
she helps Plenty of Fish—which claims to be the
world's largest dating site—boost revenues with
rigorous data gathering and analysis. This is
crucial, as most
POF users now access the ser-
vice through its app, which doesn't have room
to display big ads (once the website's primary
revenue model). The solution? Get more people
to sign up for paid premium accounts—and
that's where Osinska comes in. Last year, she
put together a team (now up to roughly 20
people) to begin measuring these key metrics
and propose data-driven solutions. She's since
helped
POF improve its bottom line using data
to boost "conversion" (users who ultimately
spend money on the service). They hadn't
been measuring that before she got there, she
explains. "Everything we do now, everything
we change, we understand it. We measure it."
Markers oF success: Osinska says her
team recently finalized a test comparing ads
for
POF's premium accounts and were able to
create one that users were 34 per cent more
likely to click. More important, she says, users
who saw this ad were five per cent more likely
to actually spend money and upgrade. "If you
think about it, that's five per cent more to the
bottom line."
—T.M.
3
0
u
3
0
My Biggest regret
"Taking up my second
master's. I thought it
would help. It didn't.
It made me question
the whole education
system"
50 BCBusiness april 2015
