The Q3 2023 benchmarking report for UK vacuum cleaner brands has just been published. Learn how the top 9 UK vacuum brands perform across the digital space.
The latest Q3 2023 benchmarking report for UK vacuum cleaner brands has just been published. It covers the largest 9 vacuum cleaner brands trading in the UK, including Dyson, Hoover, Sharkninja, Miele, iRobot, Vax, BISSELL Homecare, Tineco, 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 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.
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.
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.
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.
Just as we saw in Q2, vacuum cleaner brands have generally well-maintained sites, with low levels of errors - either 4xx or 5xx. Sharkninja, however, remains the anomaly, with 552 4xx errors now present on the site (up from 532 in Q2). As we suggested in our last report, this could be due to errors in maintaining frequently updated areas on the site, such as careers pages or blog entries, and Sharkninja must ensure that the removal of pages is not impacting the user experience by creating dead ends.
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. We have seen a universal fall in mobile page speed performance across all sectors we specialise in, so any falls in performance here are not necessarily a great cause for concern. In Q2, iRobot was the only brand to score within the 'okay' benchmark, however, iRobot's mobile page speed score has now fallen from 53 to 41. While iRobot has still achieved the highest mobile page speed score, this top position is shared with Tineco, along with Bissell Homecare, which has grown from the lowest score of 5 in Q2!
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. However, a ‘good’ DA really comes down to how your competitors are performing. DAs remain strong throughout the vacuum cleaner sector, with Dyson remaining in peak position with 74, while Hoover sits at the end of the scale with 36. To capture backlink quick-wins, Hoover can look at backlink reclamation, identifying mentions of the brand across the web and requesting a link inclusion.
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. Brands within the home appliances sector, such as vacuum cleaner brands, 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.
In Q2, we noted that Hoover was the only brand to see an increase in digital footfall year on year. In Q3, three vacuum cleaner brands have secured a growth in organic traffic. Tineco has secured the biggest increase, seeing 267% more organic traffic than in 2022, while the biggest loss of 39% was seen by iRobot.
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 remain in the top position for Universal Search appearances, securing the most 'image', 'reviews', and 'people also ask' appearances. 'People Also Ask' provides an opportunity to deliver content directly to the SERP, and brands who rank well for these results often also rank well for high-conversion potential, longtail keywords.
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.
As indicated by the strongest performance in 'people also ask' results, Sharkninja are ranking for the most longtail keywords, with 3,832 appearances within the top three results (a slight growth of 200 keywords from Q2). Tineco is ranking for the smallest volume of longtail keywords, securing only 31 appearances within the top three positions. However, with Tineco being one of only three brands securing organic traffic growth year on year, we can assume that more traffic is being picked up on shorter terms.
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. For vacuum cleaner brands, Facebook advertising is an opportunity to improve visibility around flash sales, increase awareness of new products, or potentially promote content from their organic channels.
We've included examples of Hoover's Facebook ads below. Hoover has used a range of creative formats and sizes, with the brand testing the same copy across two video creatives - one in a square format and one that is vertically aligned. This gives Hoover the opportunity to directly contrast which of these alignments is most engaging for their audience, which can be applied to future campaigns.
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 that 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 remains the platform of choice for all our eight vacuum cleaner brands, with Dyson securing the most engagements overall, with 14,928. While Dyson has secured the most Facebook likes, with a total of 2.8m, Miele is leading on Instagram, with an audience of 837,200 followers. Though building a social media audience is a challenge for brands selling one-off, large-ticket items, diversifying content to capture cleaning, lifestyle, and even interior design content will provide an additional reason for users to follow their activity and improve brand perception and awareness.
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!
Website accessibility appears to have reduced since Q2, with most vacuum cleaner brands now showing various levels of accessibility barriers. Tineco appears to have the biggest cause for concern, recording 88 errors. Looking at these in more detail, many of these alerts are down to missing alternative text, an issue that will directly impact users who rely on screen readers to access sites.
For a glance into just 6 of the metrics we evaluated these top 9 vacuum cleaner brands on, check out our quick-look table below;
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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