Jon MacDonald founded The Good in 2009 with a specific thesis: most websites don't have a traffic problem, they have a conversion problem. Over fifteen years, he built the firm into a well-known conversion rate optimization consultancy, working with Nike, Adobe, Xerox, The Economist, and other globally recognized brands. He's written three books on digital experience optimization: "Opting In To Optimization," "Behind the Click," and co-authored "Stop Marketing, Start Selling."
His approach rejects the silver bullet mentality that dominates the CRO industry. There's no single tweak that transforms a struggling site into a conversion machine. Instead, he advocates for building a culture of research, testing, and incremental improvement where small gains compound over time. Best practices are starting points for beginners, not destinations for serious practitioners. Every site, every audience, every product category behaves differently, and treating optimization templates as universal truth is how companies waste testing cycles on changes that don't move metrics.
Across three podcast appearances, Jon returned to a consistent theme: understanding the psychology behind why people click matters more than optimizing what they click on. His book "Behind the Click" explores the cognitive principles driving online decisions, arguing that sustainable growth comes from respecting the customer journey rather than manipulating it. He's particularly focused on post-purchase experience, the phase most brands neglect entirely because the conversion already happened and attention shifts to acquiring the next customer. Getting someone to buy once is a marketing problem. Turning them into a repeat customer is an experience problem. The companies that understand this difference invest as much in what happens after checkout as they do in getting people there.
