Bensons for Beds is the UK’s largest specialist bed retailer, with over 160 stores nationwide. They’ve been helping people sleep better for more than 70 years, combining online convenience with in-store expertise.

That focus on personal service matters. But while in-store experiences are tailored and thoughtful, online felt like a different story. In one of the most considered product categories, where customers can take weeks to decide, timing and relevance are everything.

Their old email capture logic was a blunt tool. Pop-ups triggered by arbitrary rules like page count or time on site. There was no understanding of context or intent, and the result was disruption, not engagement.

Calum Atkinson is the CRM Manager at Bensons for Beds. Since joining, he has helped Bensons’s lean team build a more strategic CRM function, grounded in testing and behavioural targeting. But to make the next leap, he needed visibility not just into who was visiting, but how ready they were to buy.

“Once you get real-time intent, truly get it, you start asking the right questions and thinking differently.”
Calum Atkinson, CRM Manager, Bensons for Beds

Bensons set a clear goal: grow their active email base, reduce friction in the customer journey, and lay the groundwork for more intelligent CRM segmentation. Within weeks of using intent data, they had captured 6x more emails and were already scaling to new use cases.

Bensons Without Intent

In a high-consideration category like mattresses, the timing of your message matters just as much as the message itself. But before Made With Intent, Bensons' CRM team had no way of knowing whether a visitor was browsing casually or actively considering a purchase.

They used static rules to fire their email capture prompts: two product page views, thirty seconds on site, show pop-up. It was a set-it-and-hope-for-the-best system, built on averages and assumptions.

“We were kind of just guessing. We'd show a pop-up after a few pages and hope for the best.”
Calum Atkinson, CRM Manager, Bensons for Beds

And it showed. Sometimes the prompt would interrupt a casual browser. Other times, it would miss a high-intent visitor entirely. The tactic had become something of a blunt instrument, either overused and ignored, or underused and ineffective.

Internally, the team debated frequency caps and trigger delays, trying to reduce friction. But that often meant showing fewer overlays altogether, not better ones. The problem wasn’t just how often they appeared. It was when and why.

“We could change the timer or the design, but it didn’t make much difference. The logic underneath just wasn’t right.”
Calum Atkinson, CRM Manager, Bensons for Beds

They had performance data, but no signal. They could see what was clicked, but not what was missed, or why. And that made testing frustratingly limited. Every idea felt like another round of trial and error.

What they needed wasn’t another test. It was a new logic.

Bensons With Intent

Email Capture with Intent

“We showed the intent-based email capture to more people. More people were signing up. And more of those people were converting.”
Calum Atkinson, CRM Manager, Bensons for Beds

Instead of relying on page count or time spent, Bensons used Made With Intent to trigger email capture prompts based on real-time intent data. Specifically, they focused on visitors in the Maintain Abandon segment. These were shoppers who had shown strong signs of interest but were now at risk of exiting.

This approach allowed the team to do something counterintuitive: increase the number of prompts shown, while improving the overall experience. Because each email capture now appeared only when it made contextual sense, sign-up rates soared, and disruption fell away.

“It’s made us rethink how we time things. We’re not just firing messages after 30 seconds anymore. We’re thinking about what moment actually makes sense.”
Calum Atkinson, CRM Manager, Bensons for Beds

Importantly, Bensons tested this new logic using Bloomreach’s AB functionality, comparing against their original time-based rule. The results validated their hypothesis: significantly more emails captured, without hurting conversion or bounce rates. The team continued to optimise the rules over time, adjusting segment definitions and refining how and where the overlays appeared.

“We’ve just been able to test more. Intent’s opened up loads of new ideas we’d never have thought of otherwise.”
Calum Atkinson, CRM Manager, Bensons for Beds

And yet, despite the sophistication of the logic, execution was simple. With a simple integration, the CRM team pushed new Intent Data into Bloomreach. From there, overlays and emails were triggered directly, without any need for additional tools or complex integrations.

“Getting intent data into Bloomreach is really simple, and it adds a new layer to what Bloomreach lets you do natively.”
Calum Atkinson, CRM Manager, Bensons for Beds

This ease of use helped the team move faster. They could test, validate, and scale tactics with minimal overhead, unlocking a level of agility they hadn’t had before.

Email Campaigns and Discovery Nudges

Email capture was just the beginning. With real-time affinities and buyer-stage signals now flowing into Bloomreach, the team began to rethink how CRM campaigns were triggered and personalised.

Mattress emails no longer blanketed (...sorry, couldn't resist) the full database. Instead, they were sent only to visitors demonstrating live interest in that category, improving both open rates and downstream conversion.

The same thinking shaped product discovery nudges. One example: the Mattress Finder tool. Previously shown to everyone, it’s now prioritised for early-stage visitors using segment logic. The result? A better fit between experience and mindset.

“It’s not just what people are doing. It’s why. Once you get that, everything changes.”
Calum Atkinson, CRM Manager, Bensons for Beds

The Impact

In just a few months, Bensons:

• Captured 6x more emails using real-time intent signals
• Evolved from basic triggers to a connected CRM strategy based on visitor behaviour

And the results weren’t just commercial. They changed how the team worked, what they tested, how they planned, and where they focused their time.

“Intent is something we talk about a lot now. We’ve even experimented with using it in-store, overlaying online behaviour to prioritise who gets followed up on a quote.”
Calum Atkinson, CRM Manager, Bensons for Beds

“We’re in a considered category where customers interact with us at varying times on and offline. It's key that we attempt to understand context. Made With Intent gives us that context.”
Graham Wilson, Director of Omnichannel, Bensons for Beds

The Bensons team is moving along the Intent Maturity Scale, into strategic experimentation beyond just using intent to push existing tactics. They are testing new trigger types and exploring other onsite experiences, including smarter discount logic.

“Thanks to the Made With Intent team we’ve got a proper roadmap now. Web layers, email triggers, smarter discounting. It’s all mapped out.”
Calum Atkinson, CRM Manager, Bensons for Beds

And this is just the start. The team is building new plays, refining CRM logic, and scaling what works faster than ever before. Next steps include experimenting with intent-based messaging and creative variations, tailoring wording and tone to different segments.

Want to see how intent could add impact to your CRM strategy and beyond? Get a demo of Made With Intent.