The Q3 2024 benchmarking report for UK lingerie brands has just been published. Learn how the top 12 UK lingerie brands perform across the digital space.

The latest Q3 2024 benchmarking report for UK lingerie brands has just been published.  It covers the 12 largest national lingerie brands, including Curvy Kate, Bravissimo, Bra Stop, Triumph, Belle Lingerie, Victoria’s Secret, Panache, Lounge, La Senza, Bluebella, Pour Moi, and Boux Avenue.

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 lingerie brands to win brand exposure, drive online views, and secure new orders. 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 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.

Q3 2024 WINNERS LEADERBOARD

For a glance into just six of the metrics we evaluated these top 12 lingerie brands on, check out our quick-look table below;

Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's best and poorest-performing UK lingerie 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 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 and 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 lingerie brands, having an easy-to-navigate site is essential for consumers researching retailers, and particular care should be taken of the pathways to key pages, such as best sellers, offers on particular product lines, and even FAQs regarding delivery and returns.

La Senza reported 79 4xx errors — the highest of all lingerie brands — and it should consider alternative ranges or products to redirect consumers to when products are removed. When consumers encounter broken links, they can lose trust in a brand and grow frustrated, increasing their chances of leaving the site and visiting a competitor’s.

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 will see a significant improvement on your overall conversion rates. With mobile browsers accounting for 72.9% of all e-commerce sales in 2021, lingerie brands (along with other e-commerce sectors) need to be prioritising their mobile site in terms of site speed and experience. 

In our previous report, Pour Moi reported the lowest mobile site speed, but La Senza flagged the slowest site speed this quarter (a score of 7). All brands should aim for at least 50%, and La Senza can make improvements by ensuring that all images are compressed and optimised.

Building Competitive Advantage with Domain Authority

Domain authority (DA) 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. Lingerie brands should be continually pushing to improve their DA, they can do this by sharing their variety of lingerie products and offers, and by collaborating with fashion publications and bloggers that fit within their niche

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 for this quarter ranged between 40 and 73, with Victoria’s Secret reporting the lowest DA. This UK lingerie brand saw the fewest backlinks and should focus on creating shareable content — such as incorporating infographics onto blogs — to help increase the chances of other websites linking back to them.

Organic Performance – Mobile & Desktop

A strong organic performance is strategically important as it ensures your site ranks above competitors for core, 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. Luxury items and treats such as lingerie are likely to see reduced levels of interest from consumers in the cost of living crisis, so lingerie brands should be looking at which keywords have the highest conversion opportunity, in order to make the most of a limited pool of potential customers.

All UK lingerie brands reported most organic traffic to desktop than mobile. With this data in mind, brands can focus on making their websites more mobile friendly, as most people use their mobile to access websites. It’s important that they incorporate a mobile-friendly theme with an easy-to-use navigation system to make their websites more mobile-friendly.

Universal Search Opportunity

Google Universal Search Results are 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. Lingerie brands should be utilising all universal search features as potential customers will be interested to see how previous customers have found their experience via 'reviews', 'FAQs' and 'people also ask' questions. 'Image' is a particularly useful Universal Search feature for any brand within the fashion industry, providing the opportunity for customers to see products before visiting the site.

Pour Moi continues to rank the highest for Universal Search appearances (22,902) with the majority of these coming from ‘images’ and then ‘reviews.’ On the other hand, La Senza only reported 2 Universal Search appearances overall and should make it easier and known for customers to leave an online review to help increase its appearance in SERPs.

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 new search terms as they enter Google’s index. There are many longtail keyword options lingerie brands could be using such as ‘matching blue underwear set’, ‘lingerie sales UK’, or even 'buy trending swimwear 2023' or 'matching Christmas pyjamas' to capitalise on future seasonal terms.

It's important that brands regularly assess their keyword strategy if they want to increase their organic traffic. Bravissimo continues to rank the most longtail keyword appearances (3,667) in position 3 and the most for positions 4–10, too (3,942). Boux Avenue is the runner up for positions 4–10 (3,815 appearances), despite not being the runner up for position 3. Securing lots of appearances for positions 4–10 could help them to rank higher in the next quarter.

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 lingerie brands, Facebook ads are an opportunity to ensure customers see product launches, sales, and customer reviews.

We’ve included 3 examples of Curvy Kate’s sponsored Facebook posts. This UK lingerie brand should stick to a maximum of 3 lines of text to help stand out against other Facebook accounts.

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 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 sharing information about different lingerie styles and special offers, and on-site blogs provide a great opportunity to share the latest seasonal trends.

Victoria’s Secret remains the largest Facebook page (30 million Likes — an increase from 29.9 million in our previous audit). Lounge continues to have the largest Instagram following (3.6 million). This data proves that your target audience might be more active on one social media channel compared to another, so you should track where they’re most active and tailor your content to suit.

Website Readability & Accessibility

About 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 and they turn to other lingerie brands. We've noted that many brands use pink as a primary brand colour - while bright, hot pinks provide an effective contrast on a white background, paler shades may be harder to read.

In our previous report, Triumph reported 124 accessibility alerts, which it’s dropped to 112 this quarter. Though it still has to assess its noscript element, it’s still positive to see an improvement. The lingerie brand to watch is Bra Stop, which flagged 240 accessibility alerts. The majority of these are due to very small text, which are easy fixes to address but will make a big different to readability.

GET THE FULL 70-PAGE Q3 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.