This case study from Merkle showcases the scale, ambition and collaboration behind some of the most impactful work at Compare the Market, turning AutoSergei from a beloved brand character into a personalised experience for millions of customers.
Compare the Market turned its beloved brand mascot into an intelligent customer experience, delivering award-winning growth, simplicity, and personalisation at scale.
Compare the Market is one of the UK’s most recognised and trusted consumer brands. But in a rapidly shifting market, the company faced a new reality. Customers increasingly saw price comparison as too much effort, while competitors were leaning into AI‑powered services that promise simplicity at speed.
The leadership team set a clear ambition to move from a brand‑led marketing model, powered by iconic Meerkat storytelling, to a modern, intelligent customer experience engine that delivers relevance, value, and personalised guidance in real time.
Merkle was appointed to help drive this transformation, reimagining Compare the Market’s data foundation, orchestration, automation, and multi‑channel communication strategy. Working in partnership with Braze, we set out to turn AutoSergei from an advertising character into a living, breathing service experience for over 25 million UK consumers.
The impact extended beyond pricing and CRM performance. Over 25 million individualised quote journeys were generated, while outbound communications were reduced by 25%, improving customer experience and efficiency at the same time.
Machine learning-driven optimisation delivered a 44% uplift in clicks and a 31% increase in conversions on car insurance renewals, contributing an additional £2.5m in annualised revenue. These personalised experiences also strengthened customer advocacy, generating more than 100,000 new Trustpilot reviews and maintaining an exceptional 4.9★ rating.
Price comparison was no longer a branding battle; it had become a battle for convenience. One in three consumers said comparing insurance was “too much effort,” and competitors were reframing their propositions with AI-driven simplicity. This shift created an opportunity for Compare the Market to rethink how it engaged customers across channels.
Internally, the business faced several barriers that limited its ability to respond at speed:
To address this, Compare the Market set a bold goal: transform into an experience-led organisation within nine months, increase revenue contribution from direct channels by 25%, and lay the foundation for a future-ready CXM platform.
Merkle’s challenge was clear. The business needed to evolve fast, at scale, and with measurable impact.
Merkle, Compare the Market, and Braze partnered on a multi-phase transformation across data, decisioning, content, and orchestration. The shared ambition was to bring AutoSergei to life as a real service experience that could guide customers with relevance across every channel.
To enable true personalisation at scale, the team redesigned the data foundation. A simplified CDP transformed 50 million abstract contacts into 38 million real customers. The data model was streamlined from 2,545 variables to a structured 350‑variable Actionable Customer View, and a new Customer Diary was introduced to forecast renewal needs across ten products. Together, these elements created a unified intelligence layer that revealed who needed what, when, and why.
AutoSergei became the link between Compare the Market’s emotional brand and its functional experience. Template volume was reduced from 576 to 165, code was simplified from 750 lines to 4, and two separate car‑insurance journeys were combined into one unified experience. Using Jacquard and Movable Ink, the team introduced real‑time copy, imagery, and pricing across email, app, SMS, and web push. This created adaptive, emotionally intelligent communication at national scale, a level of personalisation no comparison brand had delivered before.
AI‑powered personalisation and real‑time decisioning ensured customers received fewer but more meaningful messages. Orchestration complexity was reduced by 64 percent and SQL coding effort by 92 percent, allowing the team to focus on relevance rather than volume. These improvements strengthened trust and engagement by making each interaction more relevant and helpful.
With Phase 1 complete, Compare the Market began migrating to Braze to unlock the next stage of its CXM evolution. This included real‑time cross‑channel orchestration, behaviour‑based triggers, richer personalisation using rewards data, and faster test‑and‑learn cycles. The result is a future‑ready CXM ecosystem designed for 2026 and beyond.
The transformation exceeded Compare the Market’s ambitions, delivering measurable improvements across business performance, customer experience, operational efficiency, and industry recognition.
Saul Lopes, Head of Customer Marketing & Engagement, Compare the Market
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