How The Royal Mint Hit 50% Conversion with Optimizely One

See how Royal Mint uses Optimizely One to process a sale every 10 seconds, achieve 50% conversion increases, and deliver hyper-personalized experiences.

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Industry
Consumer goods
Products used
Content Management SystemContent Marketing PlatformOptimizely OneOpalPersonalizationWeb ExperimentationFeature ExperimentationData PlatformCommerce ConnectRecommendations

The Royal Mint has been minting coins for over 1,100 years, but its digital transformation is far more recent. When Rich Hobbs joined as Chief Information Officer six and a half years ago, he identified a significant opportunity to better support the organization's growing e-commerce ambitions. Coming from a financial services background building digital products, Rich knew The Royal Mint needed a complete platform overhaul.

What started as a stability project evolved into a strategic digital transformation powered by Optimizely One. Rich and his lean team progressively built out their platform, starting with CMS, then adding experimentation, ODP for data unification, and DAM integration to create hyper-personalized customer experiences. The flagship initiative is Digital Collections, which delivers unique journeys for each coin collector based on their personal collection.

The results speak for themselves. The website processed a sale every 10 seconds for three weeks during the change of Monarchy with zero downtime, while AI-powered experimentation helps the small team continuously optimize customer journeys. On their journey, they have doubled web traffic, increased conversions, and increased subscriptions — all with the support of a great team at Optimizely, as Rich likes to point out.

When there is "no noise", when stability is a given, his team can focus entirely on customer experience and innovation, rather than firefighting. They can continue their mission of delivering the best possible digital experience for one of the longest-lasting institutions in the world.

1,100 Years of Heritage Meets Modern E-Commerce

The Journey to Hyper-Personalization

The aim of the modern digital journey and experience for Royal Mint customers is personalization. I talked this morning about our digital collections project, which is hyper-personalization, really segmenting our customer base down to one. Everybody gets a unique journey based on their coin collection.

Rich Hobbs — The Royal Mint

Why Optimizely: Product Innovation and Partnership

What I really found with Optimizely is every year, something new comes out... The Customer Advisory Board, which I sit on, they talk to you about the roadmap. Optimizely bring customers in, talk about the roadmap, ask for advice. I'm not sure you would get that from other providers.

Rich Hobbs — The Royal Mint

Metrics That Matter — Digital Collections Success

How a CIO Knows They Made the Right Investment

I've spent five years building a team of experts and I've got a great relationship with the Optimizely team. What I do see is the customer outcomes and what I do see is the speed at which we can put change through the system. I don't need to be in the system to be able to tell you that Optimizely's doing a job for us.

Rich Hobbs — The Royal Mint

Why an Integrated Platform Matters for a Growing Team

AI as a Force Multiplier for Small Teams

Building for the Next 1,100 Years

For Rich Hobbs and his team at The Royal Mint, the transformation wasn't just about technology. It was about building confidence that their digital infrastructure could support a business diversifying beyond its 1,100-year legacy of minting coins.

By progressively expanding their Optimizely One platform, starting with CMS stability, then layering on experimentation, ODP, and DAM, The Royal Mint created an integrated foundation that is always online. The numbers tell the story: doubled web traffic, 50% increases in both conversions and subscriptions, and a Digital Collections initiative driving 20,000 sign-ups with 1,500 new users daily.

But for Rich, the real win isn't just the metrics. It's the operational simplicity of a single integrated platform that lets his small team focus on strategic innovation instead of firefighting technical issues. It's the ability to present executives with one clear roadmap instead of fragmented vendor relationships. And it's the confidence that when the next major moment arrives, like the change of monarchy that drove one sale every 10 seconds for three weeks, the platform will deliver.

Now, as Rich looks ahead to AI-powered experimentation that can turn his single CRO specialist and analyst into a force multiplier, The Royal Mint isn't just maintaining its digital presence. They're building the capability to scale hyper-personalized experiences across their growing e-commerce business without scaling headcount. For an institution that's been innovating since the 9th century, that's exactly the kind of transformation that matters.