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How The Royal Mint Hit 50% Conversion with Optimizely One

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 inherited an unstable website that couldn't 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 over 200 payments per minute during peak traffic 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 Optimiz

ely, 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

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  • The Royal Mint has been minting coins for over 1,100 years, starting in 886 AD, when the Vikings left Britain
  • Originally based in London (including the Tower of London), the organization moved to Llantrisant, Wales, in the 1960s as operations grew
  • Over the past 15 years, the Royal Mint has diversified from its core mission of making UK currency into a modern e-commerce business serving collectors and investors worldwide
  • Rich Hobbs joined as CIO six and a half years ago during this transformation period

The Journey to Hyper-Personalization

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  • Rich inherited Optimizely CMS (Episerver) and immediately took the website in-house, consolidating two separate business lines into a single stable platform after years of "shaky" websites
  • After establishing CMS stability, the team progressively added experimentation, ODP for unified customer data, and DAM for high-definition coin imagery
  • The ultimate goal is hyper-personalization through Digital Collections, segmenting customers down to one and delivering unique journeys based on each collector's coins
  • Customers can view verified coins purchased from the Royal Mint and upload other coins they own, with plans for gamification and loyalty points

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

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  • Rich chose Optimizely over competitors because of visible product growth and innovation rather than a staid "build it and go away" approach
  • The Customer Advisory Board involvement allows Rich to see the roadmap, provide input, and influence product direction in ways other providers don't offer
  • Long-term relationship stability with the same Customer Success Manager (Laura) since the beginning provides consistency and trust
  • The CMS 12 upgrade (.NET to .NET Core) was completed seamlessly with Optimizely developers from Vietnam, allowing Rich's team to continue their development roadmap without disruption

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

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  • Rich and his team won the Marketing Magic Award at Opticon 2025 for their transformation work
  • Digital Collections launched mid-month with a simple email campaign asking customers to sign in and view their collections, resulting in 20,000 sign-ups with 1,500 new users daily
  • During the change of monarchy, the website processed one sale every 10 seconds for three weeks with 50% conversion, a tenfold increase in volumes, and zero downtime
  • Platform stability during this critical moment earned executive buy-in to invest in DAM and ODP on top of existing products
  • Executive leadership values "no noise" and underlying stability metrics more than flashy features

How a CIO Knows They Made the Right Investment

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  • Rich doesn't log into Optimizely products daily because he's built a team of experts over five years who handle the platform operations
  • As CIO, Rich measures success through customer outcomes, speed of launching changes, and strong e-commerce numbers rather than platform access
  • The website is the most customer-facing element of the entire technology stack, making it the most important for customer-focused executives
  • Platform stability has shifted from a concern to an expectation, allowing Rich to showcase digital wins that strengthen his influence across the entire technology portfolio

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

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  • The integrated nature of Optimizely One enables hyper-personalized customer journeys through unified data that connects across all platform elements
  • Managing a single integrated platform means Rich can go to one vendor for questions about experimentation, data, marketing, or merchandising instead of coordinating multiple relationships
  • With only eight to 10 hours in the office daily and a small team, consolidation is essential for efficiency
  • Rich can present a single roadmap to executives instead of fragmenting the story across multiple platforms, making it easier to secure buy-in

AI as a Force Multiplier for Small Teams

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  • Rich sees AI as a force multiplier for his small team, particularly in experimentation, where they currently don't do nearly enough and can go on to provide the best possible customer experience
  • With just one CRO specialist and one analyst, AI-powered experimentation with Optimizely enables them to build multiple experiments, get to wins quicker, and better understand the metrics
  • True personalization requires understanding real-time customer behavior data, testing it, and quickly iterating based on results — AI can accelerate this cycle
  • AI will change the game for Royal Mint's experimentation program by allowing the team to scale outcomes without adding resources, strengthening their relationship with Optimizely by integrating Opal

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 processes over 200 payments per minute with zero downtime. 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 16th century, that's exactly the kind of transformation that matters.

Bransch

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