The Q4 2024 benchmarking report for UK investment and isa providers has just been published. Learn how the top 9 UK investment and isa providers perform across the digital space.
The latest Q4 2024 benchmarking report for UK pensions and ISAs providers has just been published. It covers the largest 9 UK pensions and ISAs providers, including Nutmeg, Bestinvest, Hargreaves Lansdown, Interactive Investor, AJ Bell, Vanguard, Moneyfarm, Fidelity International, and PensionBee UK.
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 pensions and ISAs providers to win brand exposure locally, online views, and land new customers. The report highlights quick wins that will improve customer interest 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 pension and isa providers on, check out our quick-look table below;
Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's best and poorest-performing brands, or request a copy of the report for the full review.
What The Industry Research Report Covers
The 70+ pages of research benchmarks each brand 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 pensions and ISAs providers, having a simple website interface makes it easier for potential customers to browse the website, helping to build brand trust and increase the potential of sales.
Interactive Investor is the provider to watch, as it reported 2,235 4xx errors. Websites that have 4xx errors risk the chance of it negatively impacting their SEO as well as harming the trust that consumers have in the brand, as broken links can lead to frustration.
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. UK pensions and ISAs providers should take into consideration a website’s loading speed on mobile, as the majority of users access websites from their mobile than their desktop.
The mobile site speed for this quarter ranged between 73 and 28, with Vanguard reporting the lowest score. All companies should aim for at least a 50% score for mobile site speed to enhance a user’s attention. Improvements could include optimising images, disabling add-ons, minimising redirects, reducing page weight, and more.
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 pensions and ISAs providers should take steps to enhance their DA, as this can improve the chances of ranking in SERPs. Building connections with authority websites is a great way to increase backlinks, which can positively impact a brand’s DA score.
A ‘good’ DA really comes down to how your competitors are performing however, it’s 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 0, with Hargreaves Lansdown reporting the lowest DA score. This provider also received zero backlinks, which can impact a website’s DA score. Adopting a PR strategy and including a blog page with shareable content are effective strategies to make improvements to this area.
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. UK pensions and ISAs providers should follow a keyword strategy to increase their organic traffic on both desktop and mobile. Though, brands can also expect to see a fluctuation in traffic during this cost-of-living crisis, as people prioritise essentials over luxury services/products.
Two providers received a decline in organic traffic on desktop, while 6 providers saw a decline on mobile. With this data in mind, all providers should ensure their website is mobile friendly with a simple interface that makes it quick and easy for users to navigate around the website.
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 pensions and ISAs providers should be utilising all universal search features, especially ‘people also ask’ and ‘reviews’.
Moneyfarm reported the highest Universal Search appearances (4,367), with Hargreaves Lansdown at a close second place (3,938 appearances). On the other hand, Bestinvest flagged the fewest overall appearances (252), and it should encourage past customers 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. There are many longtail keyword options UK pensions and ISAs providers could be using, such as ‘tax-free investment returns’, ‘find a pension online, or ‘sign up to an ISA.
Hargreaves Lansdown secured the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (13,120) and positions 4–10 (21,731). These results suggest that this provider uses longtail keywords that resonate with its target audience. On the other hand, Bestinvest reported the fewest appearances for position 3 (92) and positions 4–10 (353), and it should assess its keyword strategy.
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. For UK pensions and ISAs providers, Facebook ads are an opportunity to reach a wider audience range.
We’ve included an example of Fidelity International’s sponsored posts. This provider included line spacing to improve readability.
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. It's great for your engagement, but great for Google too, who will recognise content which achieves traffic over a long period of time. Social media could be especially useful for promoting services and reaching a wider audience.
PensionBee UK has the largest Facebook page (61,100 Likes) and the most Instagram followers (10,000). PensionBee UK reported the largest total engagement (42,378) — a metric that all providers should track to see what types of content their audience prefers.
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, even subconsciously, brands lose customer interest as they turn to other online appliance brands that can better meet their accessibility requirements.
Nutmeg received the highest accessibility alerts (174) and the highest contrast errors (48). It’s important that brands aim to reduce their alerts to improve readability for those using a screen reader.
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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