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

The latest Q1 2026 benchmarking report for UK car leasing companies has just been published. It covers the largest 12 UK car leasing companies, including Leasing.com, Select Car Leasing, All Car Leasing, Nationwide Vehicle Contracts, Leasing Options, First Vehicle Leasing, Hippo Leasing, Pink Car Leasing, Vanarama, LeaseCar, Synergy Car Leasing, and Intelligent Car Leasing.

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 car leasing companies to win brand exposure, drive online views, and ultimately generate new leases. 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 takeaways, 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 car leasing companies 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 car leasing companies 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 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 Q1 2026, the average monthly budget wastage across these UK car leasing companies was £32,087 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 £8. 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, First Vehicle Leasing reported the lowest monthly cost-per-click (CPC) at £2, and Fleet Alliance has the highest at £65. 

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,  Fleet Alliance has the lowest estimate monthly ad spend at £8,920, and Leasing.com has the highest at £1,140,000. 

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 car leasing companies, having an easy-to-navigate site is essential for drivers needing to enquire about leasing options and particular care should be taken of the pathways to key pages, such as contact forms or request-a-call options. 

In our previous audit, Leasing.com received the most 404 errors (133). This quarter, Leasing.com remains at the bottom of the leaderboard, though they’ve since reduced their total number of 404 errors to 112. Mobile users are especially sensitive to 404 errors because navigation on small screens is more effortful. Encountering a dead end on mobile often leads to quick exits, as switching pages or re-searching feels inconvenient. 

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. As with ensuring their site is technically compliant, car leasing companies will want to ensure they are delivering a quick, easy-to-use site which encourages users to choose their company over competitors.

In our previous report, Leasing Options flagged the slowest mobile site speed (5). This quarter, Leasing Options has increased their mobile site speed to 32, moving them up the leaderboard. Currently, the mobile site speed ranges between 65 and 28, with both Synergy Car Leasing and All Car Leasing flagged the slowest score. Websites can improve mobile site speed by compressing images and serving appropriately sized versions for smaller screens. Faster-loading visuals reduce waiting time, helping users access content quickly even on slower mobile connections.

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, i.e. ‘free’ traffic that isn’t gained through sponsored ads. Car leasing companies can work with a digital PR specialist to develop campaigns that tie into the wider automotive sector, pick up traction with publications, and build their backlink profile.

In our last report, Pink Car Leasing reported the lowest DA score (25). This quarter, Pink Car Leasing has slightly decreased their DA score to 21, keeping them at the bottom of the leaderboard. User trust plays an indirect role in authority growth, and frequent 404 errors damage that trust. When visitors experience broken pages, they are less likely to return, recommend the site, or link to it organically. This reduces natural link acquisition, which is one of the most important drivers of domain authority growth.

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. Car leasing companies might expect to see less organic traffic due to the cost of living crisis, as motorists opt to buy older models as opposed to leasing newer cars that will be more expensive long-term.

LeaseCar reported a drop in organic traffic on desktop (-28%). On mobile, LeaseCar also reported a drop in organic traffic (-34%). Mobile and desktop organic traffic often differ because users search in different contexts on each device. Mobile searches are frequently quick, immediate, and location-driven, while desktop searches tend to be longer and more research-focused, so websites should tailor content and calls to action accordingly.

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 retailer can appear for Universal Search results without being strong in standard rankings. Universal search results refer to rankings on a SERP that are not the traditional ‘blue line’ Google link, and a retailer can appear for universal search results without being strong in standard rankings. For car leasing companies, 'reviews' and 'image’ results are a useful way of grabbing attention from potential customers directly from the SERP, and standing out from competitors.

Select Car Leasing continues to secure the most Universal Search appearances (27,902) — an increase from 18,945 previously. The majority of their appearances came from ‘images’ (22,900).

The Longtail Keyword Opportunity

Longtail keywords are often considered high intent and potentially more likely to convert as a searcher is being more specific. This builds on what we've discussed within our Organic Performance section, as car leasing companies will want to ensure they have key, transactional phrases within their approach. Optimising for longtail keywords also puts your content strategy in a strong position to rank for retailer new search terms as they enter Google’s index. Car leasing companies will want to pay particular attention to high conversion-intent phrases, such as particular models or payment durations.

Select Car Leasing continues to secure the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (5,201) — an increase from 4,634 previously. Nationwide Vehicle Contracts has since secured the most appearances for positions 4–10 (4,809) — overtaking Select Car Leasing from our last audit. Longtail keywords help websites create more focused, valuable content rather than overly general pages. This encourages deeper topic coverage, which not only benefits readers seeking specific answers but also signals topical authority to search engines.

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.

We’ve included screenshots of Leasing Options’ sponsored Facebook posts. This UK car leasing company included vertical imagery, optimising the content for social media users on their phone.

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 retailer 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 any salary sacrifice schemes car leasing companies may offer, both to employers and employees.

Leasing.com secured the most Facebook Likes (123,300), and Select Car Leasing secured the most Instagram followers (22,800). Both Twitter and Facebook were the most popular social media platforms of all brands. Leasing Options received the highest total engagement rate (1,670) and the highest average engagement (89).

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, retailers lose customer interest as they turn elsewhere. Despite brands in the automotive space not typically needing to accommodate vision deficiency in their products, they should still ensure their site is accessible.

In our previous report, Hippo Leasing flagged the most accessibility alerts (222). This quarter, Hippo Leasing remains the company with the most accessibility alerts, though they’ve slightly reduced their total to 200. Ensuring consistent navigation and layout across pages helps prevent cognitive accessibility issues. Predictable structures reduce mental effort for users with cognitive impairments, making websites easier to learn and use over time. 

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.