[inthewoods]

^^^ This. Making absolute statements about what works and doesn't work in marketing ignores, imho, an important point: each audience is a different audience. So what might work for some will not work for others.

Example: My company tested landing pages using all the best practice rules out there on the web - outcome: lower conversion.

What the lesson should be is that testing is incredibly important - and not prescribing something that may or may not work for a given audience.