The Q3 2026 benchmarking report for UK chocolate suppliers has just been published. Learn how the top 12 UK chocolate suppliers perform across the digital space.
The latest Q3 2026 benchmarking report for UK chocolate suppliers has just been published. It covers the largest 12 UK chocolate suppliers, including Hotel Chocolat, Montezuma's Chocolates, Love Cocoa, GNAW Chocolate, Chococo, Prestat, Thorntons, Divine Chocolate UK, charbonnel et Walker, Cocoa Loco, PUMP STREET LIMITED, and Willie's Cacao.
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 UK chocolate suppliers to win brand exposure, drive traffic online, and increase both orders and the acquisition of new stock. 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 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 6 of the metrics we evaluated these top 12 UK chocolate suppliers brands 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 chocolate suppliers 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 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 Q3 2026, the average monthly budget wastage across these UK chocolate suppliers was £6,851 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 £4. 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, Cocoa Loco reported the lowest monthly cost-per-click (CPC) at £1, and Chococo reported the highest at £15.
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, Cocoa Loco has the lowest estimate monthly ad spend at £1,190, and Hotel Chocolat has the highest at £277,000.
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. UK chocolate suppliers will want to ensure customers can find information on products, including details about flavours and packages available, plus details needed for postage and order tracking.
In our previous audit, Love Cocoa reported the most 404 errors (203). This quarter, Love Cocoa remains the supplier to watch, though they’ve made some progress to decrease their total to 192, demonstrating progress. Websites should carefully test links after redesigns or migrations. Large changes can accidentally create broken URLs, so thorough testing helps prevent users from encountering errors.
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. Chocolate suppliers should aim to deliver a smooth and easy web experience for their users, which means increasing mobile site speed and keeping page downloads to a maximum of 3 seconds to prevent them from leaving the website.
In our previous audit, Thorntons reported the slowest mobile site speed (0). This quarter, Thorntons remains at the bottom of the leaderboard, continuing to score 0 — which suggests they’re not optimising their website for mobile site speed. Quicker loading times can encourage users to visit more pages during a session. When navigation feels seamless, visitors may be more inclined to explore additional content.
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 is not gained through sponsored ads. UK chocolate suppliers should focus on creating shareable content that other websites will want to direct their audience to, which means focusing on topics that aren’t just specific to its brand.
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 audit, the brand with the lowest DA score was GNAW Chocolate (25). This quarter, GNAW Chocolate remains at the bottom of the leaderboard, deceasing their score to 22. Websites with higher domain authority may experience more consistent organic traffic. Strong authority can support rankings across a wide range of pages rather than relying on just a handful of successful keywords.
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. Non-essential items and treats are likely to see falls in consumer interest due to the cost of living crisis. Therefore, consumers are less likely to engage in luxury items, such as specialised chocolate, and may resort to supermarket options instead, which could affect these suppliers’ organic traffic.
Two brands reported a decrease in organic traffic on desktop, with Thorntons seeing the biggest loss (-71%). On mobile, six brands reported a decrease in organic traffic, with Thorntons seeing the biggest loss (-56%) — a decrease from 29% previously. Search intent frequently varies between devices. Mobile users often look for quick answers or local information, while desktop users may conduct more detailed research before making decisions.
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 site can appear for universal search results without being strong in standard rankings. UK chocolate suppliers will want to ensure they have a strong performance for 'reviews' and ‘images’ so that potential customers feel they can trust the brand and are confident in what they’re purchasing.
Hotel Chocolat continues to secure the most Universal Search appearances (9,107) — a decrease from 12,877 previously. The majority of their appearances came from ‘images’ (6,500).
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. Chocolate suppliers should develop a keyword strategy that includes phrases its target audience type into search engines, such as ‘organic dark chocolate’ or ‘artisan white chocolate’.
Hotel Chocolat continues to secure the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (2,496) — an increase from 2,472 previously. Hotel Chocolat also continues to secure the most appearances for positions 4–10 (4,474) — a decrease from 4,861 previously. Longtail keywords provide valuable insights into customer intent because they often reveal exactly what people want to know or buy. Websites can use this information to create more relevant content that better serves their target audience.
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 opportunity to for chocolate suppliers to showcase their new product launches to previous customers and potentially reach new customers, too.
We’ve included screenshots of Hotel Chocolat’s sponsored Facebook posts. Videos are often more engaging than static images because they combine movement, sound and storytelling in one piece of content. This makes it easier for businesses to capture attention as users scroll through their Facebook feeds.
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. UK chocolate suppliers can create shareable social content that isn’t just focused on the brand to build a relationship with its online community.
Hotel Chocolat secured the most Facebook Likes (289,700) and the most Instagram followers (366,400).
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. Sites which have large volumes of products, with different models that may only differ slightly in their specifications, must ensure that information is presented as clearly as possible, to improve accessibility. Chocolate suppliers will want to think about the impression they are conveying to customers needing additional accessibility, and ensure that key product details are made clear for everyone browsing the site.
In our last audit, Montezuma's Chocolates reported the most accessibility alerts (301). This quarter, Montezuma's Chocolates remains the brand with the most accessibility alerts, increasing their total to 348. Addressing accessibility alerts and contrast errors helps create a smoother, more inclusive experience. When these issues remain unresolved, they can become significant distractions that negatively impact both user satisfaction and business performance.
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