Chillblast x Made With èƵ
Chillblast is the UK's most awarded custom PC manufacturer. They hand-build high-performance gaming PCs, workstations and sim rigs. Products that start at £1,000 and regularly exceed £5,000. Behind their ecommerce operation, Danny Cramer, CCO, and Kevin Robinson, Head of Optimisation, are responsible for turning a complex, highly technical buying journey into something that actually converts.
When your average customer is configuring a custom gaming rig, comparing graphics cards, weighing up processors, deliberating over cooling systems, you're not dealing with an impulse buy. This is a multi-session, research-heavy journey. It is closer to buying a car than an impulse buy. And that creates a challenge most ecommerce teams know well: how do you move someone from browsing to buying without resorting to blanket discounts that erode your brand? Especially when you’re up against bigger competition with deeper pockets.
Most teams try to solve that by optimising pages, counting sessions, or using generic content. Chillblast went a different way.
In the Closing the èƵ Gap report, we found that 2.95× more visitors are “ready to buy” than those who actually end up buying. That gap is where better timing and targeting make the difference.
By focusing on intent signals that show where someone is in their buying journey, in real time, they unlocked £2 in incremental revenue. They didn't discount more, they just got better at knowing when to act and who to help.
"Everyone's still counting sessions and optimising pages. We focused on intent. Understanding where someone actually is in their journey to purchase. That shift has been worth close to £2 a year."
Danny Cramer, CCO, Chillblast
"Sessions told us someone had visited five times. èƵ told us they were struggling to choose or about to drop off. One's a count; a number. The other is something you can actually act on”
Kevin Robinson, Head of Optimisation, Chillblast
Chillblast Without èƵ
Chillblast's team knew their customers took time to buy. A gaming PC isn't something you purchase in five minutes. Visitors come back three, five, sometimes ten times before committing. Especially at the higher end.
The team had tried to understand these journeys before. They would look at conversion rates by session number: third-session visitors convert at X%, fifth-session at Y%. But session count is a blunt measure. It tells you how many times someone came back, not whether they are getting closer to a purchase or drifting further away.
"We tried to look at those journeys in the past. But we weren't able to get any real actionable insight from that. We could see trends, but being able to identify which users are at that tipping point, it's something we tried to nail but couldn't."
Kevin Robinson, Head of Optimisation, Chillblast
Discounting was equally stuck. Chillblast see themselves in a similar space to Apple when it comes to brand perception. Discounting devalues the brand. But without knowing who specifically needed a nudge, they couldn't discount at all. The risk of giving money away to people who'd buy anyway, or worse, devaluing the brand to their highest-spend customers.
"We've always been precious about discounting. Our brand is built on quality, and giving money away to people who'd buy anyway erodes that. èƵ gave us the control we never had. Now we know exactly who needs a nudge and who doesn't."
Danny Cramer, CCO, Chillblast
The result was a site built around maximum choice and generic experiences. The same messaging, the same journey, regardless of whether someone was visiting for the first time or the tenth. And a product range so deep and configurable that customers were often left paralysed rather than helped.
Chillblast With èƵ
With Made With èƵ's real-time intelligence layered into their site, Chillblast moved from counting sessions to reading signals. Instead of asking “how many times has this person visited?”, they could ask “what is their intent right now, and what do they need?”
That shift unlocked two distinct plays.
Play 1: Helping struggling visitors choose
Chillblast's product range is deep and technical. Graphics cards, processors, RAM configurations, cooling systems. For many visitors, especially those buying for someone else, it's overwhelming.
Kevin identified a specific segment: visitors who'd built up a decent amount of intent on site but hadn't developed an affinity for a particular product. By this point in their journey, the data suggested they should have. But they were still jumping between products, still trying to figure out what to get.
For these visitors, Chillblast surfaces a "Help me choose" prompt. A curated set of five or six recommendations based on use case. Starter PC. Upgrade. Racing sim. Cutting edge. Not forty configurations. Not a spec sheet. Just clarity.
"We can see when someone's in the moment but stuck. They're interested, they're browsing, but they haven't locked onto a product. That's the signal. Instead of hoping they figure it out, we step in with the right guidance at the right time."
Kevin Robinson, Head of Optimisation, Chillblast
The result: a 14% uplift in conversion rate for the targeted segment. A small audience, but a meaningful signal. And a direct reflection of where ecommerce is heading.
Play 2: Targeted discounting for hesitant buyers
Chillblast's most commercially significant èƵ play tackles their most sensitive lever: discounting.
The team identified visitors who'd been to the site multiple times and had shown strong product affinity, but whose intent was trending downward. People who should be close to converting, but were drifting away.
Rather than a blanket promotion, Chillblast offers these visitors, and only these visitors, a targeted £100 off a £2,000+ spend. A 5% discount. Delivered at exactly the right moment, to exactly the right people, with messaging that feels genuinely unique: a distinct code, presented as something created specifically for them.
"What we don't want to do is give discounts to everyone. With èƵ, we can give them out in a really targeted way. And the fact that it's a unique code, that the messaging says this is specifically for you, it feels more compelling."
Danny Cramer, CCO, Chillblast
The results: a 200% uplift in conversion rate within the targeted segment, generating approximately £100k in revenue in the first month alone. A figure that's since grown by 50% after multiple iterations
"These are people spending thousands of pounds. They were slipping away and we had no way to reach them. Now we can see the moment their intent starts to drop and put the right offer in front of them before they're gone."
Danny Cramer, CCO, Chillblast
The Impact
"èƵ has been worth close to £2 a year for us. And we're only scratching the surface."
Danny Cramer, CCO, Chillblast
Since implementing Made With èƵ, Chillblast have unlocked close to £2 in annual incremental revenue. Smarter, more contextual experiences across the entire customer journey.
The shift runs deeper than tactics. Chillblast moved from a site designed around maximum choice and generic experiences to one that reads intent signals and responds with clarity. Product finders for visitors who are struggling. Targeted discounts for those who just need a nudge. Finance messaging surfaced only when someone's intent suggests they've moved past "do I want this?" and into "can I afford it?"
"There's a parallel between how we use èƵ on the site experience and how customers are looking to buy. They want simplicity. They want to be pointed in the right direction. èƵ, and that combination of product finders for people that are struggling and discounts for people that just need a nudge, it's helped us give that clarity."
Danny Cramer, CCO, Chillblast
For a brand that sells one of ecommerce's most considered products, sessions were never going to tell the full story. èƵ does.
Ready to see what intent can do for your business? Book a demo of Made With èƵ today.
