The Q4 2024 benchmarking report for UK chocolate suppliers has just been published. Learn how the top 12 UK chocolate suppliers perform across the digital space.

The latest Q4 2024 benchmarking report for UK chocolate suppliers has just been published. It covers the largest 12 UK chocolate suppliers, including Hotel Chocolat, Montezuma's Chocolates, Love Cocoa, GNAW Chocolate, Chococo, Prestat, Thorntons, Divine Chocolate UK, charbonnel et Walker, Cocoa Loco, PUMP STREET LIMITED, and Willie's Cacao.

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 UK chocolate suppliers to win brand exposure, drive traffic online, and increase both orders and the acquisition of new stock. 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 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 top 12 UK chocolate suppliers brands on, check out our quick-look table below;

Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's best and poorest-performing UK chocolate suppliers 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. UK chocolate suppliers will want to ensure customers can find information on products, including details about flavours and packages available, plus details needed for postage and order tracking.

Chococo flagged 348 4xx errors. This chocolate supplier should monitor its linking structure and remove/update any broken links so that customers aren’t directed to broken links.

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. Chocolate suppliers should aim to deliver a smooth and easy web experience for their users, which means increasing mobile site speed and keeping page downloads to a maximum of 3 seconds to prevent them from leaving the website.

The mobile site speed ranged between 65 and 25, with Prestat reporting the slowest mobile site. This chocolate supplier can make improvements by including lazy loading, as this will reduce the initial page load speed and reduce bandwidth usage.

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 chocolate suppliers should focus on creating shareable content that other websites will want to direct their audience to, which means focusing on topics that aren’t just specific to its brand.

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 72 and 31, with GNAW Chocolate reporting the lowest DA. This chocolate supplier received the fewest backlinks and backlinks from the fewest sources and should follow a PR strategy to build relationships with authority sites in its niche.

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. Non-essential items and treats are likely to see falls in consumer interest due to the cost of living crisis. Therefore, consumers are less likely to engage in luxury items, such as specialised chocolate, and may resort to supermarket options instead, which could affect these suppliers’ organic traffic.

Only Prestat reported a decline in organic traffic on desktop (-42%), while 4 suppliers received a decline on mobile (Chococo saw the biggest loss of -56%). All brands can increase their organic traffic by having a website that’s simple to navigate for users as well as following a successful keyword strategy based on research.

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 chocolate suppliers will want to ensure they have a strong performance for 'reviews' and ‘images’ so that potential customers feel they can trust the brand and are confident in what they’re purchasing.

Hotel Chocolat secured the most Universal Search appearances (30,469), with the majority of these coming from ‘reviews’, ‘images’, and ‘people also ask’. Other chocolate suppliers should contact past customers and ask them to leave an online review.

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. Chocolate suppliers should develop a keyword strategy that includes phrases its target audience type into search engines, such as ‘organic dark chocolate’ or ‘artisan white chocolate’.

Hotel Chocolat secured the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (2,594) and positions 4–10 (4,267). On the other hand, Prestat received the fewest appearances for position 3 (3), and it should assess its keyword strategy so that it’s focusing on phrases that its target audience use.

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 opportunity to for chocolate suppliers to showcase their new product launches to previous customers and potentially reach new customers, too.

We’ve included an example of GNAW Chocolate’s sponsored post. This chocolate supplier included vertical images to cater to mobile users, and it used the same text across all posts, suggesting that it’s testing which image receives the highest engagement.

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. UK chocolate suppliers can create shareable social content that isn’t just focused on the brand to build a relationship with its online community.

Hotel Chocolat has the largest Facebook page (263,000 Likes) and Instagram account (337,600 followers). However, charbonnel et Walker has the highest total engagement rate (3,619), which is a metric all chocolate suppliers should monitor.

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. Sites which have large volumes of products, with different models that may only differ slightly in their specifications, must ensure that information is presented as clearly as possible, to improve accessibility. Chocolate suppliers will want to think about the impression they are conveying to customers needing additional accessibility, and ensure that key product details are made clear for everyone browsing the site.

GNAW Chocolate received the highest accessibility alerts (134), with Hotel Chocolat at a close runner-up with 124 alerts. All brands should aim to reduce their accessibility alerts to cater to those using a screen reader. Additionally, Hotel Chocolat flagged the highest contrast errors (72) and should update background images, adjust text colour, and even consider mouseover colours.

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.