The Q2 2024 benchmarking report for UK ceramic brands has just been published. Learn how the top 11 UK ceramic brands perform across the digital space.

The latest Q2 2024 benchmarking report for UK ceramic brands has just been published. It covers the largest 11 UK ceramic brands, including Emma Bridgewater, Royal Doulton, Denby Pottery Company Ltd, Portmeirion Group Limited, Burleigh (Burgess & Leigh Ltd), Spode, Dunoon Ceramics, Wedgwood, Mason Cash, Moorcroft, and Poole Pottery.

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 pottery brands to win brand exposure, drive online views, and generate bookings. The report highlights quick wins that will improve enquiries from your online strategy and identifies the barriers that may be reducing your site’s ability to optimise digital performance.

To see a preview and contents page of the Q2 report, click here. To get a copy of the full report and the key takeaways, please complete the enquiry form or schedule a call.

Q2 2024 WINNERS LEADERBOARD

For a glance into just 6 of the metrics we evaluated these top 11 ceramic brands providers on, check out our quick-look table below;

Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's best and poorest-performing UK ceramics brands 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 retailer 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. Having a technically sound website will ensure prospective customers are able to find products they like, obtain the information and specifications about these products, and navigate through pages quickly and efficiently.

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. Given the cost-of-living crisis, consumers are looking for ways to reduce their outgoings, which means cutting down on costs that are considered a ‘luxury’, such as ceramic products. UK ceramic brands should focus on a mobile-friendly design for their mobile website to prevent frustrating consumers.

For Q2 2024, the mobile site speed ranged between 48 and 4, with none of the brands reporting at least 50% — the recommended speed for mobile site speed. However, the brand to keep a watchful eye on is Denby Pottery Company Ltd, which flagged the lowest mobile site speed. Upon closer inspection, this ceramic brand should optimise images by choosing the right format and resizing and compressing images.

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 isn’t gained through sponsored ads. UK ceramic brands can help to increase their DA score by not just focusing on selling products to consumers but also offering informative, insightful content through blog posts to help increase backlinks.

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 80 and 29, with Poole Pottery reporting the lowest DA score. This UK ceramic brand flagged the fewest backlinks, which it should look to increase to help increase 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. We can expect an fluctuation in organic traffic for both mobile and desktop, given the cost-of-living crisis. All UK ceramic brands can increase their organic traffic by making both their desktop and mobile website formats suitable to the chosen device and adopting a keyword strategy to help increase results in search engines.

All brands saw in increase in both organic mobile and desktop traffic, with Wedgwood reporting the biggest increase for mobile (+161%) and Mason Cash reporting the biggest increase for desktop (+115%).

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 retailer can appear for universal search results without being strong in standard rankings. Customer reviews and images are a great way for UK ceramic brands to increase their Universal Search appearances.

Emma Bridgewater saw the most Universal Search results (12,287), with the majority of these coming from ‘images’. On the other hand, Cath Kidston (Next) flagged the fewest appearances (147), and it can increase this result by ensuring all images are optimised (including a relevant meta description and alt text).

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 retailer new search terms as they enter Google’s index. UK ceramic brands have a wide range of longtail keywords to work with, and should also take the opportunity to look at keywords.

Emma Bridgewater saw the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (1,152) and positions 4–10 (1,747). Reporting lots of appearances for positions 4–10 is a quick and effective way for brands to increase their appearance in 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. Facebook ads are an effective way for UK ceramic brands to share their latest releases and deals.

We’ve included 3 examples of Royal Doulton’s sponsored Facebook posts. All posts included minimal text to help attract the attention of scrollers, and all images were customised to reflect its branding and promote its summer sale.

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 retailer engagement, but great for Google too, who will recognise content which achieves traffic over a long period of time. UK ceramic brands should post content regularly so that followers are constantly in the loop of their products and to also forget people from forgetting about them.

Cath Kidston (Next) has the largest Facebook page (3.4 million Likes) and Instagram account (2.9 million followers). All brands favoured Facebook, apart from Mason Cash, which favoured Pinterest — a wise choice for a luxury brand to increase its traffic.

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, retailers lose customer interest as they turn elsewhere. UK ceramic brands will have universal appeal, so suppliers need to ensure their site is accessible for all. They need to ensure everyone can access and use their website with ease, to stop customers from leaving for a more accessible website.

Spode reported the highest accessibility alerts (305), which it should look to assess by reducing redundant links. This UK ceramic brand also flagged the most contrast errors (292). It’s important that brands limit accessibility alerts and contrast errors to improve readability for those using a screen reader and consumers with a colour vision deficiency.

GET THE FULL 70-PAGE Q2 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.

Photo by Manki Kim on Unsplash