The Q3 2024 benchmarking report for shower manufacturers has just been published. Learn how the top 11 shower manufacturers perform across the digital space.
The latest Q3 2024 benchmarking report for shower manufacturers has just been published. It covers the largest 11 shower manufacturers, including Just Trays Ltd, Bathroom Brands Group, Crosswater UK, Hudson Reed, Roca UK & Ireland, Bristan Group Ltd, Mira Showers, Aqualisa Products Limited, Roman Ltd, VADO, and Roper Rhodes Group.
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 shower manufactures to win brand exposure, drive online enquiries, and generate holiday bookings. The report highlights year-on-year digital performance, plus winner and loser comparisons across various online performance metrics and quantifies the gaps, risks and missed opportunities for brands to win brand exposure, online growth and sales.
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 6 of the metrics, we evaluated these top 11 shower manufacturers, check out our quick-look table below:
Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's best and poorest-performing UK blinds and shutters 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 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 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. Shower manufacturers will need to keep in mind website design, accessibility, navigation functions, and reduced errors (such as broken links).
Mira Showers reported 474 4xx errors. This shower manufacturer should aim to reduce or update broken links to avoid harming the users’ experience and negatively impacting its SEO performance. This may include incorporating replacement links to alternative products if the original is no longer available.
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. Site speed has a huge role to play in whether a user continues accessing a website, and all manufacturers should aim for at least 50% in this category — the higher the better. There are many steps a brand can take, such as reducing page weight, removing automatic image carousels, speeding up the checkout process, and more.
This quarter, the mobile site speed ranged between 48 and 18, with no shower manufacturer scoring the minimum 50%. However, the one to watch is Crosswater UK, which reported the lowest score. After examining its mobile website, this shower manufacturer should ensure all images are compressed and even consider reducing image sizes to help with mobile site speed.
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. Acquiring backlinks from high-authoritative websites with a similar target audience is a sure way for shower manufacturers to enhance their DA score.
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 for this quarter ranged between 72 and 25, with Just Trays Ltd flagging the lowest DA score. This shower manufacturer also acquired the fewest backlinks and should consider adopting a PR strategy to build relationships with websites with the same target audience.
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. It’s apparent that we’ll see a fluctuation in organic traffic year on year, and we can expect to see more traffic coming from desktop. Thankfully, brands can take steps to increase their organic traffic, such as following a relevant keyword strategy and tracking its performance, making adaptions when necessary.
Two manufacturers reported a loss in organic traffic on desktop, while 4 encountered a loss in organic traffic on mobile. On the other hand, Just Trays Ltd reported a 114% increase on mobile, and VADO reported a 113% increase on desktop.
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 retailer can appear for universal search results without being strong in standard rankings. 'Reviews' and 'images' results are all ways for holiday parks to gain trust, and share eye-catching content about their locations, directly from the SERP.
Crosswater UK received the most Universal Search appearances overall (7,971), with the majority of these coming from ‘reviews’ and ‘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. Shower manufacturers should focus on longtail keywords, such as ‘sliding shower door’ and ‘wall-mounted basins’ to help outperform competitors. Most importantly, brands should track the performance of its keyword strategy and make adjustments accordingly.
Mira Showersreported the most longtail keyword appearances in position 3 (1,610) and positions 4–10 (1,765). VADO secured 689 appearances in positions 4–10, which is an effective and quick way for the manufacturer to increase its position in online search engines.
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 a great way for blinds and shutters brands to reach people who are specifically looking to make improvements to their homes.
We’ve included examples of Hudson Reed’s sponsored posts. This shower manufacturer included emojis and few lines of text to inject some personality and help with scannability for social media users.
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 retailer engagement, but great for Google too, who will recognise content which achieves traffic over a long period of time. Beauty and cosmetics retailers should upload social media content that benefits its audience and isn’t just related to its products.
Roca UK & Ireland has the biggest Facebook page (597,300 Likes), and Bathroom Brands Group has the biggest Instagram account (58,100 followers). However, Mira Showers secured the highest total engagement (799).
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, retailers lose customer interest as they turn elsewhere. All brands should focus on delivering a website that’s accessible for all, taking into account devices their target audience uses as well as any personal deficiencies its consumers may have.
VADO reported the most accessibility alerts (294), with the majority of these coming from redundant title text and redundant links. It’s important that all brands take steps to reduce accessibility alerts to enhance the experience for users on a screen reader.
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.
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