The Q4 2024 benchmarking report for UK car dealers has just been published. Learn how these leading 12 UK dealerships perform across the digital space.

The latest Q4 2024 benchmarking report for UK car dealers has just been published. It covers 12 of the largest UK car dealers, including The RRG Group, Porsche Retail Group, John Clark Motor Group, Drive Motor Retail, Steven Eagell Group, Perrys Motor Sales, Hendy Group, Citygate Automotive, Cambria Automobiles, Sinclair Group, Barretts Kent, and Hartwell Automotive Group.

The research gives an inside track on who is winning the biggest share of voice online, and quantifies the gaps, risks and missed opportunities for other dealerships to increase market share, generate leads and sales, and increase brand exposure. The report highlights year-on-year digital performance, plus winner and loser comparisons across 20+ online performance metrics for the dealerships included.

To see a preview and contents page of the Q4 report, click here. To get a copy of the full report and the key takeaways, please complete the enquiry form or schedule a call.

Q4 2024 WINNERS LEADERBOARD

For a glance into just 6 of the metrics, we evaluated these 12 leading dealerships on, check out our quick-look table below;

Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's top and poorest-performing automotive dealerships, or request a copy of the report for the full review.

Request the report

What The Industry Research Report Covers

The 70+ pages of research benchmarks each site based on 50+ metrics and indicators of successful digital strategy, including organic visibility, domain authority, paid media ads, conversion performance, technical performance, site speed, universal search, content, social ads, accessibility, and mobile performance.  

Driving Optimal ROAS from Paid Media Channels

Some of the leading players in the space are high spenders on paid media channels such as Google, Bing & Facebook - but have a poor or sub-optimal conversion improvement strategy. Without an optimised, sophisticated conversion strategy that maximises the conversion rate, the return on investment is unsustainable or will underperform. Scaling spend on paid media is not achievable unless the conversion rate delivers optimal performance in the sector. Some in the space have paid media spend levels from 30k+ per month but dedicate minimal resources and budgets to conversion testing.  Given the cost per clicks on ad networks will continue to rise, we recommend spending at least 10% of your paid media budget on ongoing conversion optimisation testing schedules to ensure your paid media ROI maintains long-term viability, competitive advantage, and sustainability.

Technical Website Compliance

Savvy digital marketers know that having a technically sound website is an essential component of a successful fully integrated digital strategy - plus a site capable of maximising conversion performance. For UK car dealers, their website is one of the most important components of their business. It is therefore vital for their site to be running smoothly to ensure their customers can easily navigate across key pages.

Drive Motor Retail reported 356 4xx errors, and it should aim to reduce these errors to prevent harming the brand’s SEO and creating a negative web experience for users. Regular checks for broken links are important for keeping on track of 4xx errors and reducing them.

Site Speed & Conversion Rate Performance

When  62% of consumers are less likely to convert if they have a negative mobile site experience, ensuring that your site is quick and easy to load makes a significant improvement on your overall conversion rates. For UK car dealers, their customers need to have full and absolute trust in their brand. A slow, lagging mobile site will not ensure the customer has trust and may lead them to try other businesses instead.

In our last audit, Drive Motor Retail reported the lowest mobile site speed (10). This quarter, Drive Motor Retail has increased its mobile site speed to 48. Currently, the car dealer to watch is Hendy Group, which scored 20 for mobile speed. This brand should reduce page weight and include lazy loading to improve its mobile site speed.

Building Competitive Advantage with Domain Authority

Domain  authority is an essential metric for measuring the effectiveness of SEO performance, and helps create a reliable overall gauge of how effective your site is at achieving organic traffic, i.e. ‘free’ traffic that is not gained through sponsored ads. UK car dealers should be continually pushing to improve their DA and should focus on creating shareable content that high-authoritative websites will want to share with their audience. A ‘good’ DA really comes down to how your competitors are performing, however it is generally considered average between 40 and 50, good between 50 and 60, and excellent above 60.

The DA rating for this quarter ranged between 57 and 12, with Cambria Automobiles reporting the lowest DA. This UK car dealer received the fewest backlinks and backlinks from the fewest domains. Adopting a PR strategy and reaching out to authority websites with a similar target audience is an effective way to improve its DA score.

Organic Performance – Mobile & Desktop

A  strong organic performance is strategically important as it ensures your site ranks above competitors for key, transactional keywords. When 93% of your customers won’t go past the first page of Google, your absence or lack of targeting for essential keywords will cost you conversions. With a variety of UK car dealers for consumers to choose from, we would expect all the companies to be seeing increases in their mobile and desktop traffic.

In our previous audit, Barretts Kent reported the biggest decrease on mobile (-44%). This quarter, Barretts Kent saw a +66% increase on mobile, which shows that organic traffic can fluctuate quarter by quarter. Currently, the brand to watch is Hendy Group, which reported a -23% decline on mobile. On the other hand, Sinclair Group saw the biggest increase on both desktop (+1366%) and mobile (+2039%).

Universal Search Opportunity

Google  Universal Search Results is an evolving opportunity to make your pages visible on a SERP (Search Engine Results Page). Universal results often appear before traditional listings and are eye-catching for users. Universal search results refer to rankings on a SERP that are not the traditional ‘blue line’ Google link, and a site can appear for universal search results without being strong in standard rankings. UK car dealers should be utilising ‘images’ and ‘reviews’ so prospective customers can read past customers’ experiences and see visuals for cars they want to purchase. 

John Clark Motor Group remains at the top spot for the most Universal Search appearances (9,186) — almost double compared to the runner up — with the majority of these coming from ‘images’.

The Longtail Keyword Opportunity

Longtail  keywords are often considered high intent and potentially more likely to convert as a searcher is being more specific. Optimising for longtail keywords also puts your content strategy in a strong position to rank for brand-new search terms as they enter Google’s index. There are many longtail keyword options that UK car dealers could use, such as ‘cars for sale’ and ‘vehicles available to hire’.

Perrys Motor Sales continues to report the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (821) and positions 4–10 (1,751). On the other hand, Cambria Automobiles saw the fewest appearances for position 3 (4) and positions 4–10 (17). This UK car dealer should assess its keyword strategy to ensure it’s using phrases that its target audience types into search engines.

Facebook Adverts

With the number of Facebook users in the United Kingdom (UK) hitting over 44 million users in 2023, it is not surprising that companies have jumped at the opportunity to advertise on the social media platform. Facebook’s UK digital advertising revenue has been estimated to have breached 2.6b GB pounds in 2019. Social media is a great way for UK car dealers to expand their audience and provide updates about new launches to prospective consumers.

We’ve included an example of Barretts Kent’s sponsored Facebook posts. This brand should limit the number of lines of text it uses to attract social media users’ attention.

Top Social Shares & Content

When  it comes to social media and on-site content strategies, it is important to release content that has a longer shelf life. An article is considered 'Evergreen' if it has maintained its relevancy to an audience for longer. It's great for your brand engagement, but great for Google too, who will recognise content which achieves traffic over a long period of time. As with building content for digital PR strategies, UK car dealers can look to create highly engaging, shareable content to expand their audience reach.

Perrys Motor Sales has the largest Facebook page (68,000 Likes), while Steven Eagell Group has the largest Instagram account (3,800 followers). However, Barretts Kent has the highest total engagement (8,475) — an important factor that all brands should assess to check their followers are interacting with their posts.

Website Readability & Accessibility

20% of people in the UK have a disability – 2 million of which are people living with sight loss. In addition, 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women have some degree of colour vision deficiency. When websites are not designed to meet these needs, brands lose customer interest as they turn elsewhere. UK car dealers need to ensure that their websites are accessible to everyone.

In our previous audit, John Clark Motor Group reported 200 accessibility alerts, which it’s reduced to 146 this quarter. Currently, the car dealer to watch is The RRG Group, which flagged 149 accessibility alerts. Upon closer inspection, the majority of these alerts are due to redundant title text, and using more descriptive language for titles will make a positive difference.

GET THE FULL 70-PAGE Q4 2024 REPORT

To get a copy of the full report, please complete the enquiry form. If you want to talk to us about accelerating your digital performance, please call us on 01543 410014 or schedule a call with Mike Movassaghi.

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