The Q1 2026 benchmarking report for UK animal attractions has just been published. Learn how the top 12 UK animal attractions perform across the digital space.

The brand new Q1 2026 benchmarking report for UK animal attractions has just been published. It covers the largest 12 UK animal attractions, including Chester Zoo, London Zoo, The Aspinall Foundation, Edinburgh Zoo, Whipsnade Zoo, West Midland Safari Park, Longleat, Colchester Zoo, Yorkshire Wildlife Park, Dudley Zoo, Birdworld, and Paignton Zoo Environmental Park.

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 animal attractions to win brand exposure, sell online tickets, and even improve digital footfall. 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 Q1 report, click here. To get a copy of the full report and the key take-aways, please complete the enquiry form or schedule a call.

Q1 2026 WINNERS LEADERBOARD

For a glance into just 6 of the metrics we evaluated these top 12 animal attractions 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 UK animal attractions or request a copy of the report for the full review.

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What The Industry Research Report Covers

The 70+ pages of research benchmarks each retailer 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 under-perform. 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 Q1 2026, the average monthly budget wastage across these UK animal attractions was £4,329 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 £172. 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 Midland Safari Park reported the lowest monthly cost-per-click (CPC) at £0, and Chester Zoo reported has the highest at £1,850.

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, Chester Zoo has the lowest estimate monthly ad spend at £1,850, and London Zoo has the highest at £108,000.

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 animal attractions, they’ll want to ensure their checkout process is simple and that they regularly assess their internal linking structure to ensure they’re directing consumers to links that are working.

In our previous audit, Dudley Zoo received the most 404 errors (224). This quarter, Dudley Zoo remains the animal attraction to watch, though they’ve decreased their total to 125. They’re progressively decreasing their total 404 errors each quarter, which is a positive step as frequent 404 errors can disrupt the overall user experience on a website. Even if the rest of the site contains valuable content, repeated interruptions can discourage visitors from exploring further. Over time, this pattern can lead to consistently higher bounce rates.

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. When you're competing to sell tickets to events, such as an animal attraction park, an unappealing site (or one that doesn't signpost well to tickets) can mean users turn to your competitors instead. Animal attractions should ensure that their websites load quickly — ideally, no longer than 3 seconds. Otherwise, there’s a risk that consumers should grow impatient and leave the website.

In our last audit, London Zoo and Longleat reported the slowest mobile site speed (10). This quarter, both animal attractions have increased their mobile site speed (London Zoo — 18 and Longleat — 38). Currently, the mobile site speed ranges between 71 and 2, with Whipsnade Zoo landing the slowest score. A fast mobile site enhances overall user experience by allowing seamless navigation between pages. When users can move effortlessly through menus, products, or articles without delays, they are more likely to explore further. This increased engagement often results in longer session durations and higher chances of conversion.

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 gage of how effective your site is at achieving organic traffic, i.e. ‘free’ traffic that isn’t gained through sponsored ads. Animal attractions can look to collaborate with high-authoritative websites, along with any publications within their niche, to gain high-authority backlinks that will improve their DA. Animal attractions should focus on increase backlinks, and uploading content that’s unique, informative, and selfless will encourage other websites with a similar target audience to link back to. 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, London Zoo and Longleat reported the slowest mobile site speed (10). This quarter, both animal attractions have increased their mobile site speed (London Zoo — 18 and Longleat — 38). Currently, the mobile site speed ranges between 71 and 2, with Whipsnade Zoo landing the slowest score. A fast mobile site enhances overall user experience by allowing seamless navigation between pages. When users can move effortlessly through menus, products, or articles without delays, they are more likely to explore further. This increased engagement often results in longer session durations and higher chances of conversion.

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. Due to the cost-of-living crisis, we're seeing that many potential customers across a number of sectors are either cutting back on expendable items, or opting for cheaper alternatives. Animal attractions may feel the impact of this, though they can continue to follow a keyword strategy to improve the results for this category.

Two animal attractions reported a drop in organic traffic on desktop, with Paignton Zoo Environmental Park flagging the biggest loss (-20%). On mobile, five animal attractions reported a decrease in organic traffic, with Paignton Zoo Environmental Park seeing the biggest drop here, too (-23%). The context in which people use their devices also affects organic traffic distribution. Mobile searches often occur during commuting, shopping trips, or social activities, where users may only have a few moments to browse. Desktop searches typically happen in more focused environments such as offices or homes, where users have more time to explore content thoroughly. This context shapes how frequently and how deeply users interact with websites from each device.

Universal Search Opportunity

Google Universal Search Results  is an evolving opportunity to make your pages more visible on a SERP (Search Engine Results Page). Universal results refer to rankings on a SERP that are not the traditional ‘blue line’ Google link, 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. For animal attractions, they'll want to ensure they're appearing for 'Local Pack' results, ensuring they are prominent when potential customers are looking for a nearby visit.

Chester Zoo has since secured the most Universal Search appearances (9,772) — overtaking London Zoo (currently in second place). The majority of Chester Zoo’s appearances came from ‘images’ (6,900).

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. For animal attractions, long-tail keywords could be focused on specific offerings that potential customers are looking for, such as ‘London conservation zoo’.

Chester Zoo continues to secure the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (1,627) — an increase from 1,412 previously. Chester Zoo also secured the most longtail keyword appearances for position 4–10 (2,464) — an increase from 2,136 previously. One way websites can use longtail keywords naturally is by incorporating them into informative blog content that answers specific user questions. Longtail keywords often reflect detailed search queries, so creating articles that address those queries in a helpful and conversational way allows websites to align their content with what users are actually searching for. This approach helps the keyword feel like a natural part of the text rather than something that has been forced into the content.

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. Animal attractions can adopt a social media strategy to expand reach to help increase ticket sales.

Chester Zoo secured the most Facebook Likes (1.4m) and the most Instagram followers (437,800). Facebook was the most popular social media platforms of all brands. Edinburgh Zoo received the highest total engagement rate (12,590) and the highest average engagement (139).

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. Content creation also helps with DA, appearances for longtail keywords and 'people also ask' results, so animal attractions look to creating shareable pieces that can support performance in all of these areas. 

Chester Zoo secured the most Facebook Likes (1.3m) and the most Instagram followers (426,300). Facebook was the most popular social media platforms of all brands. Edinburgh Zoo received the highest total engagement rate (12,695) and the highest average engagement (136).

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. Sites such as animal attractions often focus on their need to appear visually appealing and can therefore fall short of the accessibility requirements their users with visual challenges will need. For consumers using a screen reader, all brands should look to eradicate any accessibility alerts and contrast errors.

In our last audit, West Midland Safari Park reported the most accessibility alerts (348). This quarter, West Midland Safari Park remains the animal attraction with the most accessibility alerts, though they’ve since drastically reduced their total to 71. Clear documentation and consistent processes help teams manage accessibility alerts effectively. Recording issues, fixes and outcomes makes it easier to track progress over time. This also supports collaboration between developers, designers and content teams. A structured workflow reduces the risk of repeated or unresolved accessibility issues. 

GET THE FULL 70-PAGE Q1 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.