UK Vacuum Cleaner brands - Digital Marketing Benchmark Report, Q2 2023

The Q2 2023 benchmarking report for UK vacuum cleaner brands has just been published. Learn how the top 8 UK vacuum brands perform across the digital space.

The latest Q2 2023 benchmarking report for UK vacuum cleaner brands has just been published.  It covers the largest 8 vacuum cleaner brands trading in the UK, including Dyson, Hoover, Sharkninja, Miele, iRobot, Vax, BISSELL Homecare, and Gtech - it highlights year-on-year digital performance, plus winner and loser comparisons in 20+ online performance metrics.

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 vacuum brands to win brand exposure, generate online orders, and drive in-store interest & recognition. 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 Q2 report, click here. To get a copy of the full report and the key takeaways, please complete the enquiry form or schedule a call.

What The Industry Research Report Covers

The 70+ pages of research benchmarks each brand 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. Vacuum cleaner brands will want to ensure their site is well equipped to demonstrate their brand's features over that of their competitors, so key pages such as popular products, product comparisons, and FAQs should be easy to navigate to. 

Vacuum cleaner brands appear to have generally well-maintained sites, with low levels of either 4xx or 5xx errors showing in our crawls. However, Sharkninja delivered 532 4xx errors, representing dead ends for their potential customers. This may be down to products being removed or relocated on their site, though it could also be due to frequently updated site areas such as careers or blog pages. Sharkninja should ensure that pages are not unpublished or removed without a redirect put in place to a similar, relevant page, and any internal links updated.

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. For sites hosting a large volume of products, with detailed technical specifications (such as vacuum cleaners), brands may lean towards ensuring these are shown at their very best with high-resolution images and videos. However, these are both elements we frequently see impacting site speeds.

An 'okay' score for mobile page speed sits between 50-89. Of our eight vacuum cleaner brands, iRobot is the only brand to score within this 'okay' band, coming in with 53. The two brands which should be most concerned are Gtech, who have a score of 9, and Bissell Homecare, who have scored only 5. Looking at Gtech's site, they have used large, high resolution images to show off their products. Though these look brilliant, Gtech should see if there is space to compromise on image quality in order to improve their mobile page speed score.

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, ie. ‘free’ traffic that isn’t gained through sponsored ads. Vacuum cleaner brands can boost their domain authority by collaborating with relevant online publications, and working with bloggers that sit within the homeware and cleaning niche.

Domain authority is considered average between 40 and 50, good between 50 and 60, and excellent above 60. ‘Good’ DA score depends on the competition level of the industry. However, a ‘good’ DA really comes down to how your competitors are performing. Vacuum cleaner brands generally have high DAs, coming from being well-established brands within the UK market. Unsurprisingly, Dyson have the highest DA, of 74, though Miele are a close second with 70. Hoover sit at the bottom of this scale with a DA of 36 and should be reviewing how to improve on this figure.

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. For brands within the home appliances sector, such as vacuum cleaner brands, they may find a slowed interest in their products during the cost of living crisis, as consumers may be opting to stick with their older models for longer, only replacing when it becomes essential.

All but one vacuum brand have seen a reduction in traffic year on year in Q2. Hoover are the only brand to have improved on their 2022 traffic, with an increase of 10%. Though their traffic overall is low in comparison to some competitors, achieving an increase in traffic is a great indicator of either rising interest for the brand, or an excellent digital strategy that is poaching traffic from elsewhere!

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 brand can appear for universal search results without being strong in standard rankings. 'Reviews' results would arguably be the most useful universal search result for vacuum cleaner brands to pursue, as customers will want to know they are getting value for money from their new appliance.

Sharkninja have secured the most 'Reviews' overall, with a total of 2,600 appearances. However, 'People Also Ask' is also proving popular, with Miele, Sharkninja, Vax, and Gtech showing focus on appearing for these results. 'People Also Ask' provides an opportunity to deliver content direct to the SERP, and brands who rank well for these results often also rank well for high-conversion potential, longtail keywords.

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. Vacuum cleaner brands should be optimising for longtail keywords that show high purchase intent and are likely to secure orders, especially as they are operating in a sector where repeat purchases will only be very occasional.

Sharkninja are ranking for the most longtail keywords, appearing for 3,637 within the top three results. Additionally, they are ranking for a further 2,732 longtail keywords in positions 4-20, indicating they are in good stead to optimise and improve performance here even further. Dyson are ranking for the lowest amount of longtail keywords, ranking for only 53 in the top three positions. Strong performance elsewhere should not stop Dyson from optimising for high-value keywords, particularly when traffic is falling year on year!

Facebook Adverts

With the number of Facebook users in the United Kingdom (UK) forecast to hit over 42 million users by 2022, 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.

As Miele operate in several of the sectors we specialise in, we've taken a look at how they manage Facebook ads for multiple product lines. We can see below that their ads for kitchen appliances versus floorcare and laundry are aesthetically very different, with their 'Kitchen Discovery Class' ad taking on a more gourmet feel than their cosy ads sharing an offer on floorcare and laundry. This is a great example of how a brand can target and appeal to different audiences for their different product 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 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. The cleaning and homecare niche is evergrowing on social media, and vacuum cleaner brands should keep tabs on emerging trends that they can use to show their products in a lifestyle setting.

Facebook is the platform of choice for all our eight vacuum cleaner brands, with Dyson securing the most engagements overall. Vacuum brands should consider diversifying content and embracing formats such as reels and short videos to ensure they can stay ahead of their competition with engaging, topical, content.

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 up-scale versions of essentials like vacuum cleaners, brands will want to ensure their site is accessible to absolutely everyone, as no one should be excluded from having a clean home!

A common area for brands to fall down on with accessibility is by not ensuring there's a sufficient contrast between colours used on their site. Hoover are showing the highest level of these contrast errors, with 14. Hoover should be reviewing their brand colour usage to prevent any insufficient colour contrast that could make key information difficult to read.

Q2 2023 Winners and Losers Summary

For a glance into just 6 of the metrics we evaluated these top 8 vacuum cleaner brands on, check out our quick-look table below; 

GET THE FULL 70-PAGE Q2 2023 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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