The Q4 2025 benchmarking report for English football clubs (group1) has just been published. Learn how 12 of England's top teams perform on the digital pitch.
The latest Q4 2025 benchmarking report for English football clubs has just been published. It covers 12 English football teams including Liverpool Football Club, Manchester City Football Club, Manchester United, Chelsea Football Club, Arsenal F.C., Aston Villa Football Club, Newcastle United Football Club, West Ham United F.C., Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, Everton Football Club, Sheffield United Football Club, and Leeds United.
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 each team to drive traffic to their site. Though, with built-in brand loyalty, these teams aren't strictly competing with one another on a digital level, the report highlights quick wins that will improve enquiries from their online strategies and identifies the barriers that may be reducing a site’s ability to optimise digital performance and drive sales to tickets and merchandise.
To see a preview and contents page of the Q4 report, click here. To get a copy of the full report and the key takeaways, please complete the enquiry form or schedule a call.
For a glance into just six of the metrics we evaluated these 12 English football teams on, check out our quick-look table below;
Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's best and poorest-performing English football clubs or request a copy of the report for the full review.
The 70+ pages of research benchmarks each site based on 50+ metrics and indicators of a 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 and 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.
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 Q4 2025, the average monthly budget wastage across these English football clubs was £3,118, 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 monthly cost per cost-per-click (CPC) amongst advertisers, with the average of this metric being £49 . This highlights how competitive the market is and how important it is to control your budgets effectively.
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, West Ham United F.C., reported the lowest monthly cost-per-click (CPC) at £3, and Leeds United has the highest at £380.
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, Leeds United has the lowest estimate monthly ad spend at £1,900, and Liverpool Football Club has the highest at £63,900.
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.
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. For the football teams in our report, they'll want to ensure key, profit-driving pages such as ticket sales and merchandise stores are easily accessible, and that fans aren't struggling to find what they need by being directed through old or broken links.
In our previous audit, Sheffield United Football Club received the most 404 errors (160). This quarter, Sheffield United Football Club has slightly increased their 404 errors to 162. However, the football club to watch this quarter is Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, flagging 176 404 errors. 404 errors are harmful because they interrupt user journeys and increase bounce rates. Every time someone encounters one, they’re more likely to leave and visit a competitor instead.
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 will see a significant improvement on your overall conversion rates. English football clubs will want to ensure every touchpoint for their fans is high-performing and provides an excellent user experience - especially if there is frustration elsewhere!
In our last audit, Sheffield United Football Club received the slowest mobile site speed (15). This quarter, Sheffield United Football Club has slightly decreased their mobile site speed to 13. Currently, the mobile site speed ranges between 36 and 12, with Tottenham Hotspur Football Club scoring the slowest mobile site speed. A fast mobile site creates a smoother and more satisfying experience for visitors, helping them access content quickly without delays. When pages load instantly, users feel more comfortable exploring the site and are more likely to continue browsing rather than giving up in frustration.
Domain authority (DA) 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. Football clubs are likely to have high DAs, due to them being long-standing institutions which will naturally gain significant press coverage from highly-reputable sites.
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. In our last report, Sheffield United Football Club received the lowest DA score (67). This quarter, Sheffield United Football Club remains the football club with the lowest DA, and they’ve since decreased their score to 64. Higher domain authority supports long-term SEO growth. As a site becomes recognised as an authoritative resource, search engines are more likely to crawl it frequently, index new pages efficiently, and trust the information it provides. This ongoing trust contributes to consistent organic traffic.
A strong organic performance is strategically important as it ensures your site ranks above competitors for core, 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 English football teams, they'll need to ensure their targeted keywords meet their business goals for their site and are optimised in line with any commercial targets that are in place.
One football club reported a drop in organic traffic on desktop, with West Ham United F.C., receiving the biggest loss (-18%). On mobile, 3 brands saw a drop in organic traffic, with Aston Villa Football Club receiving the biggest loss (-22%). Brands can increase traffic by targeting long-tail keywords that reflect specific user intent. These phrases often have lower competition but high relevance, making them easier to rank for on all devices. Longtail keywords also attract users who are closer to making a decision.
Google Universal Search Results are 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. Football teams can use the 'image pack' search result to highlight their merchandise to fans looking for their store, or 'people also ask' results to quickly answer questions about their stadium or facilities.
Arsenal F.C., secured the most Universal Search appearances (22,493) — overtaking Manchester United (22,180). The majority of their appearances came from ‘images’ (13,500).
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 new search terms as they enter Google’s index. Longtail keyword opportunities for English football teams can tie nicely into merchandise and ticket sales, including terms such as "Aston Villa season ticket price" or "new Manchester United kit full range".
Manchester United continues to secure the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (14,647) — an increase from 14,448 previously. Manchester United also continues to secure the most appearances for positions 4–10 (15,923) — a decrease from 16,353 previously. Longtail keywords tend to attract higher-quality traffic. Because these searches are more precise, the visitors they bring are more likely to engage, convert, or explore further. Instead of attracting general browsers, longtail searchers often arrive with a clear goal in mind, providing more meaningful traffic.
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. Football teams can use paid social advertising to drive awareness of new kits, special fixtures, or featured deals on either merchandise or tickets.
We’ve included screenshots of Aston Villa Football Club’s sponsored Facebook posts. This football club should include text with each post to provide context to the accompanying visuals.
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 a long period of time. It's great for your engagement, but great for Google too, who will recognise content which achieves traffic over a long period of time. Social media could be especially useful for sharing information about team news, post-match analysis, new kits, and upcoming fixtures.
Manchester United secured the most Facebook Likes (85.7m) and the most Instagram followers (65.4m). Facebook was the most popular social media platforms of all brands. Liverpool Football Club received the highest total engagement rate (8,454,708) and the highest average engagement (2,022).
Around 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. Football teams will want to ensure they are welcoming to all fans at any point in their customer journey, so should take care to consider accessibility when planning their digital strategy and image.
In our previous audit, Arsenal F.C., received the most accessibility alerts (195). This quarter, Arsenal F.C., continues to report 195 accessibility. However, the football club to watch this quarter is West Ham United F.C., flagging 217 accessibility alerts. Many accessibility alerts arise when elements cannot be accessed without a mouse or lack visible focus indicators. Fixing these gaps ensures all users, including those with mobility limitations, can navigate smoothly.
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 Rory Tarplee.