The Q1 2025 benchmarking report for UK outdoor clothing brands has just been published. Learn how the top 11 UK outdoor clothing brands perform across the digital space.

The latest Q1 2025 benchmarking report for UK outdoor clothing brands has just been published. It covers the largest 11 national outdoor clothing brands, including Mountain Warehouse, Snow + Rock, Cotswold Outdoor, Tog 24, Trespass, Ellis Brigham, Blacks, Mammut, Go Outdoors, Patagonia, and Millets. 

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 outdoor clothing brands to win brand exposure, generate online orders, and even improve in-store footfall. 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 Q1 report, click here. To get a copy of the full report and the key takeaways, please complete the enquiry form or schedule a call.

Q1 2025 WINNERS LEADERBOARD

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

Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's best and poorest-performing UK outdoor clothing brands 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 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 under-perform. 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.

Pay-Per-Click Marketing

Pay-Per-Click marketing is constantly evolving, with more and more advertisers being forced to hand over a lot of control to Google's algorithms as the push for automation grows ever stronger. There are still key elements of control that we have though, the main one of these being budget which is ultimately something the algorithms can't take from you. That's why being smart with your budget and ad coverage is essential to achieving strong results and bettering what your competitors have to offer.

For Q1 2025, the average budget wastage across these outdoor clothing brands was £10,682 , with some of the top players in the market spending a considerable amount on areas and audiences unlikely to deliver a return. We can see this in more detail when looking at the average CPC amongst advertisers, with the average of this metric being £4.45 . This highlights how competitive the market is and how important it is to control your budgets effectively. In this quarter, Ellis Brigham has the highest monthly budget wastage at £30,600, and Trespass has the lowest budget wastage at £528.

There are varying monthly ad budgets across the competitors in the report. While this gap highlights the competitive advantage that larger budgets can provide, it's not just about spending more; it’s about spending smarter. By focusing on driving efficiency in campaign management, targeting, and budget allocation, businesses with smaller budgets can still effectively compete with larger players. Investing in data-driven strategies and refining ad performance can help close the gap and maximise the return on every pound spent, enabling growth even in a competitive landscape. Relative to their spend, Trespass has the lowest monthly cost-per-click (CPC) at £1, and Ellis Brigham has the highest at £11.

The report highlights the importance of budget efficiency by comparing monthly ad spend with estimated CPC in relation to your competitors, see who has the highest and lowest CPC. To maximise the effectiveness of your budget, it’s essential to focus on driving CPC down while maintaining or improving campaign performance. In this report, Ellis Brigham has the highest monthly ad spend at £204,000, while Trespass has the lowest at £3,520.

By optimising targeting, refining ad copy, and leveraging data to identify high-converting opportunities, you can ensure every click delivers maximum value. This approach not only stretches your budget further but also boosts your return on ad spend (ROAS), enabling you to achieve stronger results without simply increasing expenditure.

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. Large e-commerce sites, such as our outdoor clothing brands, can often fall victim to high levels of 4xx errors, due to ever-changing lines of stock.

Patagonia reported the most 4xx errors (96). This brand clothing brand can reduce these errors by redirecting any broken links to replacement links to ensure they’re not directing visitors down a dead end. These errors can impact a website’s authority, and all brands should take into consideration the web experience for visitors.

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. Customers will want to have a positive brand experience from the moment they set virtual foot on a brand's page, so outdoor clothing brands will want to convey an image of being high-performing and fast.

The mobile site speed for this quarter ranged between 96 and 57, with Trespass flagging the lowest speed. Implementing lazy loading is one way this outdoor clothing brand can increase their mobile site speed. Additionally, reducing redirects can limit visitors’ frustration and increase mobile site speed, too.

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. Outdoor clothing brands can look to collaborate with outdoor pursuits influencers, along with any publications within their niche, to gain high-authority backlinks that will improve their DA.

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 score for this quarter ranged between 87 and 44, with TOG24 reporting the lowest DA score. While this brand didn’t receive the fewest backlinks, they reported backlinks from the fewest domain, which can impact a website’s DA. Receiving a diversity in backlinks can signal that a brand’s website is trustworthy, which plays an important role in their overall 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. As with all retail sectors, we're seeing a shrinking pool of customers for outdoor clothing brands, whose usual audience may be cutting back on 'treat' purchases and relying on older, or second-hand items as opposed to buying new products.

Four of the brands received a decrease in organic traffic on desktop, with Blacks Outdoor Retail flagging the biggest drop (-31%). Meanwhile, 9 of the brands saw a decrease on mobile, with Mammut Sports Group AG receiving the biggest drop (-51%). It’s common to see an imbalance in traffic across devices, as this can depend on the user’s device preference, the time of day, website optimisation (is the website more responsive on desktop vs. mobile, for example), and more.

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. For outdoor clothing brands, universal search results are an opportunity to show images and reviews of their products, using the 'image pack' and 'reviews' search results.

GO Outdoors secured the most Universal Search appearances (139,848), with the majority of these coming from ‘reviews’. Other outdoor clothing brands can increase their appearances for ‘reviews’ by responding to online reviews; encouraging reviews on various platforms like Google, Yelp, Trustpilot, and industry-specific sites; and more.

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. Longtail keywords for outdoor clothing companies would show high-purchase intent, and key buying signals. These could be terms such as 'ladies walking shoes size 4 next day delivery' - a phrase looking for a specific size that has immediate availability.

GO Outdoors reported the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (7,190) and positions 4–10 (16,391). On the other hand, Mammut Sports Group AG received the fewest appearances (153 for position 3 and 198 for positions 4–10). This outdoor clothing brand should conduct comprehensive longtail keyword research, with tools such as Ahrefs or Semrush.

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.

We’ve included examples of Mammut Sports Group AG’s sponsored posts. This brand used vertical images, which is great for a mobile-first design.

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. In addition to 'evergreen' content, outdoor clothing brands can use content and social media to appear for any relevant seasonal events, such as holidays and festival season.

Mammut Sports Group AG has the most Facebook Likes (962,000) and the most Instagram followers (592,400). However, Millets secured the highest total engagement rate (66,030) — a metric that measures whether social media users are interacting with posts.

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, brands lose customer interest as they turn elsewhere. For any brand within the fashion and clothing space, such as outdoor clothing, they'll want to ensure they are not favouring form over function, and that their sites are as simple to use as they are impressive.

Blacks Outdoor Retail flagged 286 accessibility alerts — the highest of all brands. Additionally, Mammut Sports Group AG reported 74 contrast errors — the highest of all brands. It’s important that brands take steps to reduce these alerts and errors to ensure their website is accessibility for all diversities and for all devices.

GET THE FULL 70-PAGE Q1 2025 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 Alessio Soggetti on Unsplash