Golfbreaks x Made With èƵ
Golfbreaks is one of the UK's leading golf travel companies, helping customers book everything from UK weekend breaks to tournament experiences at the Ryder Cup and The Open.
Behind their digital operation, Michael Spencer, Digital Analytics & Insights Manager, Jack Simkins, Digital Product Manager, and Bee Craft, Head of Performance Marketing, run the experimentation programme. Alongside Jon Richards, Head of Digital Product, they have a simple mandate: understand what visitors are doing on the website, and use that understanding to get more of them over the line.
Now, golf holidays aren't often impulse purchases. Customers browse across multiple sessions, compare packages, weigh up prices and often need a phone conversation before they commit. 90% of Golfbreaks bookings are completed via the contact centre after an online enquiry. The team knew they needed to meet visitors where they were in that journey. They just didn't have the tools to do it.
Using Made With èƵ, they gained real-time behavioural intelligence and a fundamentally different way to experiment that not only saw where visitors were in their journey, but met them there.
And after a handful of campaigns, the platform paid for itself within three months.
"Made With èƵ is changing how we approach A/B testing. It's always been about conversion, but there's a different approach available. We're fundamentally saying, how can we get new users to move from a very initial research stage into knowledgeable users, so that when they come back to the site, they're in a position to convert?"
Michael Spencer, Digital Analytics & Insights Manager, Golfbreaks
"That insight into customers' intentions when they're on the site is something we've never been able to access before. That data will become central to how we approach our customer communications and website experiences as a lead-gen business."
Jon Richards, Head of Digital Product, Golfbreaks
Golfbreaks: Without èƵ
Golfbreaks had always assumed visitors arrived at the website ready to book. The reality was different.
"When you're booking a holiday, you're back and forth multiple times before you even start to commit. We've always wanted to know what a customer is thinking, and we never had that insight before."
Jon Richards, Head of Digital Product, Golfbreaks
The team were running experiments, but every test was built around the same assumption: that visitors were ready to convert. Without insight into where someone was in their purchase journey, the team couldn't distinguish between a first-time browser exploring tournament packages and a returning customer ready to pick up the phone. Everyone saw the same experience.
"Up until now, we've not really had a way of being able to identify and correctly segment through those users confidently."
Michael Spencer, Digital Analytics & Insights Manager, Golfbreaks
Be could see the gap clearly. Golfbreaks convert well once someone enquires and gets on the phone. The question was what to do about the visitors who weren't getting that far.
"We convert very well when we get people to enquire and when they're on the phone. But we know there's a lot of people coming to the website who are not at that stage just yet. What can we do to get those people over the line, and then let our sales team do their job?"
Bee Craft, Head of Performance Marketing
Golfbreaks: With èƵ
With Made With èƵ integrated, the team gained something they'd never had: the ability to see what was happening on the site and respond to it. Real-time affinity and intent signals, layered on top of their existing setup, meant Michael and Jack could now identify what visitors were interested in, how far along they were in their journey, and act on that intelligence. Without a web release. Without needing dev support. Often within the same day.
Play 1: Reactive Ryder Cup campaign, live in a day
The first test of Made With èƵ's speed came with the team focusing on, high-value Ryder Cup packages. Instead of running a generic promotion to all visitors, they built a targeted campaign using price and tournament affinity signals. If a visitor was browsing breaks above a certain price point and/or showing interest in tournaments, they saw a tailored Ryder Cup offer. The logic: you might not realise you have the budget for the Ryder Cup until someone shows you that you do.
The campaign went live the same day.
"Without a web release, no hoops to jump through. Just grab an asset, grab some copy, and we went live the same day with a very targeted campaign. It was important for revenue, but also for our relationship with the Ryder Cup."
Michael Spencer, Digital Analytics & Insights Manager, Golfbreaks
The idea of sending a targeted message to a group of users compared to just "everyone" (which is what naturally happens when there's pre-purchased inventory to sell), appealed to Golfbreaks. It felt more appropriate for a more considered purchase.
They saw that in the numbers too. Compared to a global holdback group, sure this message was seen less (about 10% of the holdback group). But, its impact was 60% of that of the global view. Less can be more.
Play 2: Responding to trade in real time
èƵ fluctuates. Someone browsing today might be ready to book tomorrow, or they might go cold for a week. For a trading team, that matters. Golfbreaks now had a different option to help build those pipelines.
With real-time intent signals, Michael and Jack could identify visitors already showing buying behaviour and respond to commercial pressure with precision. If a package needed support to reach interested customers, they didn't have to shout louder at everyone. They could find the visitors who were closest to converting and give them a reason to act now. A targeted nudge to a high-intent segment, live within hours.
The flexibility went both ways. When partners required last-minute contractual disclaimers or addendums on specific packages, the team could surface them to the right visitors without a release. When a niche package like a British Masters experience at The Belfry needed a very specific audience, they layered tournament affinity, venue affinity and geographic signals to reach exactly the right people.
"Having the flexibility of different campaign setups certainly helps with the different use cases we have when we need to be reactive."
Jack Simkins, Digital Product Manager, Golfbreaks
The common thread: the team stopped waiting for the next release cycle and started responding to what was happening in the business and on the site, as it happened.
Play 3: Rethinking experimentation for new users
The biggest shift wasn't a single campaign., but a new philosophy.
Previously, every experience and experiment was measured on conversion. That made sense for returning visitors close to booking. But for new users arriving at Golfbreaks for the first time, conversion was never realistic in a single session. You don't book a golf holiday the first time you visit a website. You need to learn about the breaks, understand the packages, and then have a conversation with someone.
Michael and Jack started building campaigns specifically for low-intent visitors. Instead of measuring success on conversion, they focused on whether visitors moved from a research stage into a more knowledgeable state. Did they engage with more content? Did they come back?
"You don't come and book in the same session if you're a new user. You fundamentally don't. So we're targeting the lower funnel a lot more aggressively because we now have the capabilities to do that, with IGV and in-session elements, which we didn't have before."
Michael Spencer, Digital Analytics & Insights Manager, Golfbreaks
"You could have a new customer that's really high intent, and they might want to see something different to a returning customer who's low intent. Why is a returning customer low intent? It helps you ask different questions."
Jack Simkins, Digital Product Manager, Golfbreaks
Across all three plays, the theme is the same: response and flexibility. Whether it's reacting to a commercial opportunity, adapting to partner demands, or rethinking how new visitors are nurtured, the team can now move at the speed of the business. And they did it without adding headcount. Michael and Jack run the programme between them.
The Impact
"It ultimately changes the way in which we approach tests and the way in which we think. We're able to focus more on what does a customer actually want at a low-intent stage. Let's not worry about conversion, because the likelihood of someone seeing a message and converting straight away is quite a challenge. Let's focus on increasing the chances of someone ultimately converting. That's different."Jack Simkins, Digital Product Manager, Golfbreaks
Since implementing Made With èƵ, Golfbreaks have built an experimentation programme driven by real-time intent and affinity data. Across 23 campaigns, the numbers tell the story:
- Driving contributions of almost £1m in attributed revenue uplift
- A 10% shift in gross profit percentage
- Targeted intent experiences delivering, on average, 18% more than their generic counterpart
And here's the thing. Those figures only capture online conversions. With 90% of Golfbreaks bookings completing via the contact centre, the true commercial impact is significantly higher.
The platform paid for itself within just two months. But the shift goes beyond numbers. The team have fundamentally changed how they think about experiences. Conversion is still the endgame, but they now have the confidence and the tooling to nurture visitors through their purchase journey, stage by stage.
For Bee, the key value driver isn't any single campaign. It's the unique insights from intent data that don't exist anywhere else in their tech stack. Insights that are redefining how the team measures and understands performance. His ambition is for intent data to become embedded across the business. What started with experimentation is becoming central to how Golfbreaks understands and communicates with its customers.
"èƵ data will become central to how we approach, as a lead-gen business, our customer communications and our website experiences going forward."
Bee Craft, Head of Performance Marketing
Golfbreaks' journey shows how intent unlocks growth for lead-gen businesses where the purchase journey happens across sessions, not within one. Ready to see what it can do for your business? **Book a demo of Made With èƵ today.**
