The Q3 2024 benchmarking report for UK beauty and cosmetics retailers has just been published. Learn how the top 9 UK beauty and cosmetics retailers perform across the digital space.
The latest Q3 2024 benchmarking report for UK beauty and cosmetics retailers has just been published. It covers the largest 9 UK beauty and cosmetics retailers, including Cult Beauty, BEAUTY BAY, LOOKFANTASTIC.COM, Illamasqua, Charlotte Tilbury Beauty, Mallows Beauty, Barry M Cosmetics, P LOUISE MAKEUP ACADEMY LTD, and Clomaná.
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 beauty and cosmetics retailers to win brand exposure, drive online enquiries, and generate holiday bookings. The report highlights year-on-year digital performance, plus winner and loser comparisons across 20+ online performance metrics and quantifies the gaps, risks and missed opportunities for beauty and cosmetics retailers to win brand exposure, online growth and sales.
To see a preview and contents page of the Q3 report, click here. To get a copy of the full report and the key takeaways, please complete the enquiry form or schedule a call.
For a glance into just 6 of the metrics we evaluated these top 9 UK beauty and cosmetics retailers, check out our quick-look table below:
Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's best and poorest-performing UK beauty and cosmetics retailers or request a copy of the report for the full review.
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.
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.
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. Beauty and cosmetics retailers will want to ensure that key information for products is stated clearly and that its linking structure is accurate and works accordingly.
Charlotte Tilbury Beauty flagged eight 4xx errors. While this figure might not be that high, it’s still essential that all retailers assess their linking structure and include redirects to alternative products/ranges to prevent customers from becoming impatient and frustrated with the website.
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. To create a positive website experience, all brands should optimise their website so that each page takes no longer than 3 seconds to load. A fast-loading website is ideal for consumers existing in a fast-paced market where they can resort to competitors in a second.
This quarter, the mobile site speed ranged between 51 and 14, with only 2 retailers reporting at least the recommended 50%. However, the brand to watch is Mallows Beauty, and it should incorporate lazy loading for fast page loading and improve its SEO.
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 isn’t gained through sponsored ads. The key for beauty and cosmetics retailers to improve their DA rating, is to ensure they’re nailing the basics: delivering quality content that other websites will want to link to. Content should be unique, relevant, and current for other websites with a similar target audience to watch to backlink to.
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 for this quarter ranged between 77 and 6, with Clomaná flagging the lowest DA score. This retailer also reported the fewest backlinks and backlinks from the fewest domains, which can have an effect on a brand’s DA score.
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. As consumers are cutting back on treats and expendable items due to the cost of living crisis, it's to be expected that we’ll see a decline in organic traffic year on year. However, not everyone is cutting back on luxuries like beauty and cosmetic products, so brands should adhere to a keyword strategy, where they track its performance regularly.
Only Cult Beauty reported a decline in organic traffic on desktop, while 6 retailers flagged a decline in organic traffic on mobile. With this data in mind, it’s important that brands assess their website to ensure they’re mobile-friendly to avoid losing traffic from those on a mobile.
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 retailer can appear for universal search results without being strong in standard rankings. 'Reviews' and 'images' results are all ways for holiday parks to gain trust, and share eye-catching content about their locations, directly from the SERP.
LOOKFANTASTIC.COM saw the most Universal Search appearances (133,654), with the majority of these coming from ‘reviews’ and ‘images’. On the other hand, Clomaná only saw 55 appearances overall, and it should optimise images (include meta descriptions) to help improve its results.
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. Beauty and cosmetics retailers should focus on longtail keywords, such as ‘body oils and shimmers’, to help outperform competitors. Most importantly, retailers should track the performance of its keyword strategy and make adjustments accordingly.
LOOKFANTASTIC.COM reported the most longtail keyword appearances in position 3 (5,047) and positions 4–10 (26,255). In particular, its appearances for positions 4–10 was over 2.5 times more than the runner up, suggesting that this retailer will remain at the top of the leaderboard.
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. Facebook ads are a great way for blinds and shutters brands to reach people who are specifically looking to make improvements to their homes.
We’ve included examples of P LOUISE MAKEUP ACADEMY LTD’s sponsored posts. This retailer should reduce the number of lines of text and the number of word per line to help with scannability.
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 retailer engagement, but great for Google too, who will recognise content which achieves traffic over a long period of time. Beauty and cosmetics retailers should upload social media content that benefits its audience and isn’t just related to its products.
BEAUTY BAY has the largest Facebook page (1.5 million Likes), with Charlotte Tilbury Beauty close behind (1.2 million Likes). Charlotte Tilbury Beauty has surpassed all other brands on Instagram, with 7 million followers.
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, retailers lose customer interest as they turn elsewhere. Beauty and cosmetics retailers should focus on delivering a website that’s accessible for all, taking into account devices their target audience uses as well as any personal deficiencies its consumers may have.
P LOUISE MAKEUP ACADEMY LTD is the brand that raises the most concerns, with 608 accessibility alerts. Upon closer inspection, the majority of these are due to very small text, and increasing its font size will cater to those accessing its website from a smaller device. Reducing the amount of weight per page can also alleviate the pressure to include lots of information in a short amount of space.
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.