The Q3 2026 benchmarking report for English football clubs (group 2) has just been published. Learn how 12 of England's top teams perform on the digital pitch.
The latest Q3 2026 benchmarking report for English football clubs has just been published. It covers 12 English football teams including Nottingham Forest, Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club, Fulham Football Club, AFC Bournemouth, Brentford Football Club, Leicester City Football Club, Crystal Palace Football Club, Ipswich Town FC, Wolves, Southampton Football Club, Burnley Football Club, and Sunderland AFC.
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 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 2026 WINNERS LEADERBOARD
For a glance into just six of the metrics we evaluated these 12 English football teams on, check out our quick-look table below;
To understand what the *CTM Digital Performance Index™ is click here.
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.
What The Industry Research Report Covers
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.
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 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
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 Q3 2026, the average monthly budget wastage across these English football clubs (group 2) was £4,578 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 £162. 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, AFC Bournemouth reported the lowest monthly cost-per-click (CPC) at £38, and Crystal Palace Football Club reported the highest at £1,333.
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, Brentford Football Club has the lowest estimate monthly ad spend at £2, and Wolves has the highest at £221,000.
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..
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. 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 last audit, Nottingham Forest reported the most 404 errors (157). This quarter, Nottingham Forest has decreased their total to 13. If a visitor reaches a 404 page during the checkout process, they may lose confidence in completing their purchase. Even a single broken page can cause potential customers to abandon their shopping journey.
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 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 report, Southampton Football Club reported the slowest mobile site speed (1). This quarter, Southampton Football Club has increased their score to 21. Currently, the mobile site speed ranges between 36 and 6, with Burnley Football Club at the bottom of the leaderboard. A speedy mobile site helps customers access important information immediately. Whether they're looking for contact details, opening hours or pricing, they can find what they need without unnecessary waiting.
Building Competitive Advantage with Domain Authority
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 audit, Ipswich Town FC reported the lowest DA (67). This quarter, Ipswich Town FC remains the brand at the bottom of the leaderboard, continuing to score 67. A high domain authority can contribute to a more seamless browsing experience. As authoritative websites usually invest in quality content and technical performance, visitors are less likely to encounter broken pages or poor usability.
Organic Performance – Mobile & Desktop
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.
Two brands reported an increase in organic traffic on desktop, with Nottingham Forest seeing the biggest loss (-16%). On mobile, seven brands reported a biggest decrease in organic traffic, with Ipswich Town FC seeing the biggest loss (-53%). Accessibility should be considered across both mobile and desktop versions of a website. Clear contrast, keyboard navigation and compatibility with screen readers help ensure every visitor can access the content.
Universal Search Opportunity
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.
Crystal Palace Football Club continues to secure the most Universal Search appearances (3,159) — a decrease from 6,587 previously. The majority of their appearances came from ‘people also ask’ (2,300).
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 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 "Southampton FC season ticket price" or "new Bournemouth kit full range".
Crystal Palace Football Club secured the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (1,855). Crystal Palace Football Club also secured the most longtail keyword appearances for positions 4–10 (2,410). Using longtail keywords in FAQ sections allows brands to answer common queries clearly and directly. This can improve the user experience while increasing the chances of appearing for question-based searches.
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. 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 Fulham Football Club’s sponsored Facebook posts. Creating content in a vertical format allows brands to maintain consistency across Facebook and other mobile-first platforms. This makes it easier to repurpose creative assets while delivering a cohesive visual identity.
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 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.
Leicester City Football Club secured the most Facebook Likes (9.8m) and the most Instagram followers (7.5m).
Website Readability & Accessibility
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.
This quarter, Southampton Football Club received the most accessibility alerts (112), and Brentford Football Club received the most contrast errors (115). Users relying on screen readers or assistive technologies may still be affected indirectly by contrast problems if visual cues are unclear. Not all accessibility tools fully compensate for poor design choices. This means some users may still struggle despite using support features.
GET THE FULL 70-PAGE Q3 2026 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 Rory Tarplee.