How the Cleveland Cavaliers let AI pick their winning CTA and drove 2x conversion

Background

The Cleveland Cavaliers’ loyalty program, Cavs United, connects thousands of dedicated fans to the franchise. Each season, the marketing team looks for ways to remind members of their exclusive value and build anticipation for renewal.

The standard approach had always been a static email campaign with a fixed message and a single call-to-action. It worked, but it had a hard ceiling. Once sent, it was done.

The challenge

Static email campaigns limit teams in two fundamental ways. First, you lock in a single message for every recipient before you know what will actually resonate. Second, you can only test and learn after the campaign is over, which means the next version benefits from the insight, not the current one.

The Cavs wanted to do something different with Cavs United. They had three clear goals:

• Deliver a personalized experience that made each member feel seen as an individual fan, not a record in a database.
• Understand which CTA’s will stimulate positive audience behavior and automatically serve the best-performing option.
• Create content compelling enough that members would share it on their own social channels.

None of those goals were achievable with a static email.

The solution

One Live URL, five CTA variations, and an AI that optimized for maximum conversion  

Blings deployed a Single Video Template for the Cavs United campaign, distributed through a single Live URL. The key differentiator was Blings’ AI optimization field: the team loaded five different CTA variants at launch, and the system tracked viewer behavior in real time.

As fans opened and engaged with their personalized videos, the AI automatically identified which CTA was driving the highest conversion and shifted traffic toward it. No manual analysis. No campaign resend. No new link. The same URL, continuously optimized while fans were still watching.

The winner: “Share my Stats” drove a 100% higher CTA conversion rate, selected and elevated by the AI optimization field mid-campaign.Turning the lowest performing CTA of “ Share Stats” to “Share with Friends” highlighting the important need of personalized messaging and slight optimization to heavily boost conversion rates!
Personalization powered by real fan data

Each video used live member data to generate a unique experience at the Moment of Open: the fan’s name, seasons of loyalty, games attended, and in-game moments witnessed. Cavs players introduced themselves and addressed fans directly, making every video feel like a personal message from inside the locker room.

The campaign was also segmented by event attendance. Fans who had been to games received a different video journey than those who had not, surfacing relevant events and reinforcing the value of in-person attendance. This segmentation produced meaningfully stronger results for the engaged segment.

The results

•  17% Share Rate: Nearly 1 in 5 members shared their personalized video to social media, turning fans into active brand ambassadors.
• 90%+ Engagement: The interactive elements and personalized “stats” kept fans locked in, resulting in a near-perfect engagement rate.
• 45s Average Watch Time: In an era of 6-second attention spans, fans watched nearly the entire experience, captivated by the personalized content.
• 20% Increase in CTA Conversion: For members who had previously attended an event, the personalized video drove a 20% higher conversion rate compared to those who had not attended an event.
• Twice The Conversions: The “Share My Stats” CTA ranked first, outperforming the last variation of “Share With Friends” by increasing total conversion by 2x, proving that fans prioritize sharing their personal achievements over generic content.

The Cavs United campaign demonstrated what becomes possible when AI optimization and Autonomous Personalization work in parallel. The content was relevant from the first frame. The call-to-action was chosen by data, not intuition. And the experience was shareable by design.

The result: a retention campaign that fans actively passed along, extending the Cavs United brand well beyond the original send list.

Key takeaways

• Static CTAs leave results on the table. Testing five variants and letting the AI select the winner in real time produced a 2x conversion rate on the winning option.
• One Live URL eliminates the need for campaign resends. The same link updated itself as performance data came in.
• Segmentation drives relevance. Serving different journeys based on event attendance history strengthened engagement for the most invested fans.

Personalization creates content worth sharing. When a video reflects a fan’s individual season, they want others to see it.