Founded in 2015, PensionBee is the UK's leading online pension provider, on a mission to make pensions simple. The brand helps consumers consolidate pensions from previous employers, contribute easily, and manage their retirement savings entirely online all in one place.

The Challenge

PensionBee had built a strong brand on the promise of pension simplicity, and for years that positioning had fuelled impressive customer growth. But by the time CMO Jasper Martens came to Automated Creative, the cracks were beginning to show. Cost-per-acquisition (CPA) on paid social was climbing, and the brand's traditional advertising model - a manual, linear production process - was delivering diminishing returns. The creative wasn't standing still either; it simply wasn't generating the insight the team needed to understand why certain ads worked and others didn't.

PensionBee had been running Meta campaigns built around a single core message: 'PensionBee combines your pensions.' It was a logical proposition, but without data to interrogate it, there was no way to know whether it was actually driving conversion. The brief to Automated Creative was clear: don't just find out which ads work. Find out why.

Key Obstacles

Diminishing returns from PensionBee's standard, manual process
No insight into how to boost dwindling ad performance
Campaigns centred around one line of messaging

The Strategy

Automated Creative began by reviewing PensionBee's full brand asset library and their existing production model, identifying opportunities for greater efficiency and creative control. From there, the team designed a structured data strategy to systematically test different creative triggers (messaging themes, visual cues, and emotional frames) across a series of focused sprints on Meta.

Multiple ad variants were produced and optimised in real time, using live consumer feedback to inform rapid in-flight adjustments. Rather than waiting for a campaign to finish before drawing conclusions, the team was learning and refining continuously.

The results were immediately revealing. PensionBee's established 'combines your pensions' message, which had been central to the brand for years, was not the conversion driver the team had assumed. When the creative shifted to address a different emotional register entirely, one rooted in consumer anxiety around losing track of old pensions, acquisition costs fell sharply. For Jasper, it was an 'aha moment': the insight wasn't new, but the data had never been applied at the ad level before.

Subsequent sprints deepened the learning. AC decoded the best-performing visual cues, refined messaging, and built a replicable blueprint that every future PensionBee campaign could be built on.

- 32%

Reduction in CPA on Meta

- £130

Reduction in CPA from campaign launch

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New platform trials shaped by AC learnings

PensionBee: The Results

After multiple consecutive in-flight optimisations across the Meta sprint campaigns, PensionBee's CPA reduced by 32%. But the value extended well beyond the numbers on the dashboard.

The insights delivered through the campaign gave PensionBee something arguably more important than a single efficient campaign: a durable creative framework. With the DNA of a top-performing ad now defined and evidenced, all subsequent campaigns can be built on the intelligence of the last, enabling the brand to stop guessing and keep growing.

The impact also extended beyond digital. While the performance campaign was running on Meta, PensionBee's team was simultaneously filming a new TV ad. The data coming out of the sprint was so compelling that the brand modified visual elements and re-recorded the voiceover to incorporate the best-performing messaging themes — a cross-channel ripple effect that demonstrated the real strategic value of creative intelligence.

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Reduction in CPA and Unlocked Creative Intelligence for PensionBee

The Challenge

Key Obstacles

The Strategy

- 32%

- £130

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PensionBee: The Results

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