The Q4 2024 benchmarking report for UK motorhome and caravan retailers has just been published. Learn how the top 11 UK motorhome and caravan retailers perform across the digital space.

The latest Q4 2024 benchmarking report for UK motorhome and caravan retailers has just been published. It covers the largest 11 UK motorhome and caravan retailers, including Brownhills, Marquis Leisure Limited, GLOSSOP CARAVANS, Spinney Motorhomes and Caravans, Lowdham Leisureworld Limited, Wandahome South Cave Ltd, Elite Motorhomes Limited, Heart of England Motorhomes Limited, Derby Motorhomes Limited, Tilshead Caravans Ltd, and Choose Leisure Limited.

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 motorhome and caravan retailers to win brand exposure, drive online views, and ultimately win purchases. 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 11 UK motorhome and caravan retailers, check out our quick-look table below:

Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's best and poorest-performing UK motorhome and caravan retailers or request a copy of the report for the full review.

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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 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. UK motorhome and caravan retailers will need to regularly assess their linking strategy to ensure they’re not directing users to broken pages.

Heart of England Motorhomes Limited reported 70 4xx errors. Frequent 4xx errors can tell search engines that the website isn’t properly maintained, leading to lower visibility in search results. Regularly monitoring broken links across all pages, including the main page and footers will help.

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. A fast-loading website will prevent users from growing frustrated with the website, helping to provide a better user experience and potentially boosting engagement by reducing waiting times.

The mobile site speed ranged between 64 and 4, with Spinney Motorhomes and Caravans reporting the slowest speed. This motorhome and caravan retailer should reduce page weight and compress images to increase download speeds.

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. All retailers should focus on building relationships with authority websites with a similar target audience to help increase their frequency and quality of 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 rating for this quarter ranged between 39 and 11, with no brands reporting at least in the ‘average’ zone for a DA score. However, the retailer to watch is Derby Motorhomes Limited. This retailer was also in the bottom 2 for the number of backlinks, and they should focus on creating quality content to entice other websites to backlink 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. Giving the current cost of living, we can expect to see a fluctuation in organic traffic, given that most consumers are focusing on the necessities in life.

Two of the retailers reported a decrease in organic traffic on desktop (with Tilshead Caravans Ltd reporting the biggest loss of -33%). Meanwhile, 9 of the retailers saw a decrease on mobile (with Heart of England Motorhomes Limited receiving the biggest loss of -110%).

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 retailer can appear for universal search results without being strong in standard rankings. 'Reviews' and 'images' are both great options for motorhome and caravan retailers, enabling them to give users a good perception of their service and products directly from the SERP.

Wandahome South Cave Ltd reported the most Universal Search appearances (2,411), with the majority of these coming from ‘reviews’. Other retailers can follow suit by encouraging 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 new search terms as they enter Google’s index. Motorhome and caravan retailers will want to follow and monitor a longtail keyword strategy, using phrases such as ‘new and used caravans’ or motorhomes and caravans’.

Marquis Leisure Limited secured the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (231) and positions 4–10 (603). On the other hand, Heart of England Motorhomes Limited saw the fewest appearances for position 3 (2) and zero for positions 4–10. This retailer should assess their longtail keyword strategy so that they’re using phrases their target audience uses.

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 for motorhome and caravan retailers to share their latest launches to entice new customers.

We’ve included examples of Brownhills’ sponsored posts. This motorhome and caravan retailer should consider branding on their images and reduce text to a maximum of 3 lines.

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 that achieves traffic over a long period. Pinterest is a useful platform for fitted furniture brands to consider, as it boasts a comparatively more affluent audience than other platforms, who are immersed in the decision-making stage of purchasing.

GLOSSOP CARAVANS has the largest Facebook page (26,200 Likes) and the largest Instagram account (2,900 followers). However, Heart of England Motorhomes Limited received the highest total engagement rate (5,515) — an important metric that all brands should track.

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. Motorhome and caravan retailers may include accessibility as a key feature in their product lines, so this should be extended to their digital presence to make sure their brand is welcoming at any touchpoint.

Elite Motorhomes Limited received the highest accessibility alerts (240). This retailer should assess their website to check for broken links, inaccurate anchor text, images without alt information, and more. Accessibility alerts can affect a user’s web experience and understanding of a website if they’re using a screen reader or on a device with a smaller screen.

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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