The Q1 2026 benchmarking report for UK ceramic brands has just been published. Learn how the top 12 UK ceramic brands perform across the digital space.
The latest Q1 2026 benchmarking report for UK ceramic brands has just been published. It covers the largest 12 UK ceramic brands, including Emma Bridgewater, Royal Doulton, Denby Pottery Company Ltd, Portmeirion Group Limited, Burleigh (Burgess & Leigh Ltd), Spode, Dunoon Ceramics, Wedgwood, Mason Cash, Moorcroft, Poole Pottery, and Churchill.
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 pottery brands to win brand exposure, drive online views, and generate bookings. 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 ceramic brands providers 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 ceramics brands or request a copy of the report for the full review.
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 ceramic brands was £1,121 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 £5. 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, both Denby Pottery Company and Wedgwood reported the lowest monthly cost-per-click (CPC) at £4, and Burleigh (Burgess & Leigh) reported has the highest at £33.
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, Burleigh (Burgess & Leigh) has the lowest estimate monthly ad spend at £1,770, and Denby Pottery Company has the highest at £34,800.
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. Having a technically sound website will ensure prospective customers are able to find products they like, obtain the information and specifications about these products, and navigate through pages quickly and efficiently.
In our previous audit, Denby Pottery Company received the most 404 errors (522). This quarter, Denby Pottery Company remains the brand to watch, though they’re heading in the right direction by slightly decreasing their total to 504. On mobile devices, 404 errors can feel even more disruptive. Smaller screens and limited navigation options can make it harder for users to recover from an error, increasing frustration and reducing engagement.
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. Given the cost-of-living crisis, consumers are looking for ways to reduce their outgoings, which means cutting down on costs that are considered a ‘luxury’, such as ceramic products. UK ceramic brands should focus on a mobile-friendly design for their mobile website to prevent frustrating consumers.
In our last audit, Mason Cash reported the slowest mobile site speed (6). This quarter, Mason Cash remains at the bottom of the leaderboard, reducing their speed to 1 — a deduction from previously. Poor mobile design practices, such as not using responsive design, can lead to slower speeds. Websites that are not optimised for mobile may attempt to load full desktop versions, which are heavier and slower.
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. UK ceramic brands can help to increase their DA score by not just focusing on selling products to consumers but also offering informative, insightful content through blog posts to help increase backlinks.
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 previous report, Poole Pottery received the lowest DA score (25). This quarter, Poole Pottery continues to score 25 — the lowest of all brands. Domain authority provides a general indication of how well a website is likely to perform in search engine results. Although it is not a direct ranking factor used by search engines, it acts as a useful benchmark for measuring overall site strength. Websites with higher domain authority often have a stronger backlink profile, which tends to correlate with better visibility in search rankings.
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. We can expect an fluctuation in organic traffic for both mobile and desktop, given the cost-of-living crisis. All UK ceramic brands can increase their organic traffic by making both their desktop and mobile website formats suitable to the chosen device and adopting a keyword strategy to help increase results in search engines.
Two companies reported a drop in organic traffic on desktop, with Churchill seeing the biggest drop (-21%). On mobile, Churchill was the only brand to report a decrease, seeing the biggest loss (-39%). Keyword usage often varies between desktop and mobile searches. Mobile users tend to use shorter queries, voice search, or more conversational phrases. These differences in search behaviour can affect which pages rank well on each device and, consequently, how organic traffic is distributed.
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. Customer reviews and images are a great way for UK ceramic brands to increase their Universal Search appearances.
Emma Bridgewater continues to secure the most Universal Search appearances (7,792) — an increase from 5,740 previously. The majority of their appearances came from ‘images’ (7,200).
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 retailer new search terms as they enter Google’s index. UK ceramic brands have a wide range of longtail keywords to work with, and should also take the opportunity to look at keywords.
Emma Bridgewater continues to secure the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (1,271) — an increase from 1,207 previously. Emma Bridgewater also continues to secure the most longtail keyword appearances for position 4–10 (2,315) — an increase from 1,747 previously. Longtail keywords are particularly valuable for voice search optimisation. As more users rely on voice assistants, search queries are becoming longer and more conversational, making longtail phrases increasingly important for capturing this type of traffic.
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. Facebook ads are an effective way for UK ceramic brands to share their latest releases and deals.
We’ve included screenshots of Emma Bridgewater’s sponsored Facebook posts. This UK ceramic brand included CTAs to help direct social media users to their website.
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. UK ceramic brands should post content regularly so that followers are constantly in the loop of their products and to also forget people from forgetting about them.
Emma Bridgewater secured the most Facebook Likes (223,900) and the most Instagram followers (523,800). Facebook was the most popular social media platforms of all brands. Emma Bridgewater received the highest total engagement rate (18,146) and the highest average engagement (191).
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. UK ceramic brands will have universal appeal, so suppliers need to ensure their site is accessible for all. They need to ensure everyone can access and use their website with ease, to stop customers from leaving for a more accessible website.
Accessibility issues that generate alerts can slow down user interactions. For instance, if forms aren’t properly labelled or interactive elements are difficult to use, users may take[AP1] longer to complete actions. This inefficiency can lead to frustration and reduce the likelihood of conversions, such as purchases or sign-ups.
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.