With more than 14 million members, the AA has been supporting drivers in the UK since 1905 and continues to be the biggest motoring organisation in the country.

In addition to being the market leader in roadside assistance, the AA provides a broad range of driving-related products and services, including insurance, accident management, driving lessons, mobile mechanics, auto repair, and online car buying and selling.

To continue leading in a digital, data-driven market, the AA wanted to redefine how its marketing teams plan, test, and execute campaigns.

The AA had aggressive targets for new client acquisition. But while the AA team concentrated on campaigns to attract new clients, they focused on prospecting, winning back previous clients, and cross-selling to current product holders.

The challenge arose when its current marketing tools had drawbacks, such as extended campaign execution, delayed data processing times, and difficulty testing and refining multi-channel strategies.

The team needed the ability to test the omnichannel impact of campaigns on the customers being acquired, as well as a significantly faster time to market.

Merkle partnered with the AA to guide its RFP process and migration to Bloomreach Engagement. The main objective of this shift was to completely transform marketing operations with an emphasis on agility, data-driven decision-making, and customer-centric strategies—not simply to implement a new platform.

The team is now flexible and responsive to customer behaviour by making quicker and better-informed decisions thanks to next-day data latency. Lightning-fast campaign run times have reduced delays, allowing marketing messages to be delivered rapidly to capitalise on crucial opportunities.

Utilising Bloomreach, Merkle helped the AA simplify its omnichannel marketing, allowing it to test and improve campaigns effectively while maintaining consistency across touchpoints.

Thanks to automated reporting dashboards with real-time insights, the AA can ensure objectives are supported by clear and relevant data. A new contact policy framework and integrated deliverability insights are two examples of tools that have improved creative management and ensured that communications are timely, useful, and relevant. 

In addition, smart customer visualisation tools provide the AA with greater insights into clients' journeys, enabling more tailored and effective campaigns. Together with the new strategic approach, these innovations created a solid foundation for growth and financial prosperity.

The AA's transition to Bloomreach with the help of Merkle has shown substantial development across multiple key performance metrics.  

Sales from direct marketing road acquisitions have increased by 146%, with the revenue from these sales doubling. Additionally, the company's monthly email newsletters have seen significant improvements in engagement. 

Open rates across both insurance and road-related communications have risen by an average of 11 percentage points.

Faster campaign run times, real-time insights, and simpler testing and optimisation are helping The AA save considerable time and effort. 

To ensure the right foundation, the Merkle team led comprehensive discovery sessions to support vendor selection, ensuring that each decision aligned with The AA’s long-term vision. Throughout the implementation and rollout of Bloomreach, we focused on creating a solution that was not only fit for purpose but also scalable to support The AA’s evolving growth.  

The result was a fully activated Bloomreach platform that empowered The AA’s marketing team with real-time, actionable insights, dramatically reducing data latency and enabling smarter, faster decision-making.  

With plans to explore advanced personalisation, predictive modelling, and next-best-action decisioning in the immediate future, The AA’s marketing team is poised to continue achieving exceptional results.