The Q3 2024 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 Q3 2024 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 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.

Q2 2024 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.

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 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.

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.

Tog 24 flagged 31 4xx errors. It’s important that brands assess and aim to reduce broken internal links by either removing the links or providing replacement links. Otherwise, consumers can become frustrated and leave the website.

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.

In our previous audit, Mammut was the only brand to score above the recommended 50%. This quarter, all brands reported over 50%, with a mobile site speed range between 93 and 57. To help increase download speeds, brands can adopt lazy loading and ensure they’re using a mobile-friendly theme that’s easy to navigate and takes less time to load.

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 for this quarter ranged between 86 and 43, with Tog 24 reporting the lowest DA score. This brand can boost its DA rating by focusing on creating high-quality content that other websites will want to provide backlinks to. Additionally, not neglecting the basics will help — such as ensuring the website is mobile-friendly, internal links work properly, and more.

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.

In our previous audit, Go Outdoors saw the biggest loss in organic traffic (-25% on desktop and -22% on mobile). This quarter, this brand saw bigger losses (-26% on desktop and -26% on mobile). However, Millets is the one to watch for mobile, as it reported a 51% decline in organic traffic.

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 remains at the top of the leaderboard with the highest Universal Search appearances (144,194). The majority of these came from ‘reviews’ followed by ‘images’.

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 continues to secure the most longtail keyword appearances (6,885 for position 3 and 16,310 for positions 4–10). Though, this brand saw a decline in results for position 3 (previously 7,513 appearances).

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 Mountain Warehouse’s sponsored posts. Whilst it’s great that this brand includes discount codes in its posts to entice customers, it should focus on creating more eye-catching visuals.

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.

Patagonia has the largest Facebook page (1.8 million Likes — a slight decrease from our previous report), and Mammut has the largest Instagram account (557,500 followers). It’s important that brands post content regularly to build a rapport with its followers.

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.

In our previous audit, Ellis Brigham was the brand to watch, as it reported 581 accessibility alerts. This quarter, has greatly decreased its alerts to 1 — an impressive decline in a short period of time. This goes to show that if brands are aware of the areas that are causing accessibility alerts, they can make improvements quickly. Now, Blacks is the one to watch, as it received 296 accessibility alerts — the highest of all brands.

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.