The Q2 2026 benchmarking report for UK craft brewers has just been published. Learn how the top 12 UK craft brewers perform across the digital space.
The latest Q2 2026 benchmarking report for UK craft brewers has just been published. It covers the largest 12 UK craft brewers, including BrewDog, Beavertown Brewery, Siren Craft Brew, Magic Rock Brewing Co., The Wild Beer Co, Cloudwater Brew Co., Ltd, Verdant Brewing Co., Pressure Drop Brewing, Duration Brewing, Burnt Mill Brewery, Unity Brewing Co., and Mondo Brewing Company.
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 beer sellers to win brand exposure, drive traffic online, and even increase in-store footfall, where relevant. 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 Q2 report, click here. To get a copy of the full report and the key takeaways, please complete the enquiry form or schedule a call.
Q2 2026 WINNERS LEADERBOARD
For a glance into just 6 of the metrics, we evaluated these top 12 UK craft brewers, 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 live-in care providers 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 Q2 2026, the average monthly budget wastage across these UK craft brewers was £788 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 £25. 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, BrewDog reported the lowest monthly cost-per-click (CPC) at £35, and Siren Craft Brew reported the highest at £160.
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, Beavertown Brewery reported the lowest estimate monthly ad spend at £107, and BrewDog reported the highest at £54,300.
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. Brands within the brewing space will be juggling huge volumes of products for a wide range of flavours and alcohol variations. They’ll want to ensure potential customers can easily find what they need and aren’t met with dead ends if looking for specialist products. They'll particularly want to take care over key pages such as offers, new product launches, stock updates, and ensure that prospective customers can easily find key information.
In our previous audit, Siren Craft Brew reported the most 404 errors (388). This quarter, Siren Craft Brew has slightly reduced their total to 359, though they still remain the craft brewer to watch. Users may abandon their search entirely if they encounter a 404 page at a critical moment. Rather than spending time looking for alternatives, they may leave the website and not return.
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. Brewing brands will want to ensure they have a fast-performing site that gives off an exceptional first impression to potential customers looking to buy from them or research more about their offerings.
In our previous audit, Verdant Brewing Co., reported the slowest mobile site speed (25). This quarter, Verdant Brewing Co., continues to score 25. Currently, the mobile site speed ranged between 62 and 10, with Duration Brewing sitting at the bottom of the leaderboard. Fast-loading pages make it easier for visitors to find information quickly. This is especially valuable for users searching for answers, products, or services while on the go.
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. For brands operating in the food and drink industry, they should be working with digital PR specialists to identify opportunities and ideas for out-of-the-box, surprising PR campaigns.
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. Previously, Unity Brewing Co., reported the lowest DA score (26). This quarter, Unity Brewing Co., continues to score 26, keeping them at the bottom of the leaderboard. Higher authority can support long-term SEO growth. Rather than relying on short-term tactics, websites with strong authority often benefit from more sustainable search visibility. .
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. The cost of living crisis and a drop in consumer confidence is having a wide impact across all non-essential sectors, as customers are cutting back on treats and expendable items. In the case of the food and drink industry, this could mean that customers are sticking to basics, rather than investing in alcohol, too.
Eleven brands reported a decrease in organic traffic on desktop, with The Wild Beer Co., reporting the biggest loss (-49%). On mobile, 10 brands reported a decrease in organic traffic, with The Wild Beer Co., reporting the biggest loss (-88%) — a decrease from -74% previously. Screen size plays a major role in how users interact with a website. Content that looks clear and organised on a desktop may appear cluttered or difficult to navigate on a mobile phone, reducing engagement.
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 brand can appear for universal search results without being strong in standard rankings. Beer sellers could look to ‘images’ and ‘reviews’ results, in order to build trust with potential customers and help educate them directly from the SERP.
BrewDog continues to secure the most Universal Search appearances (2,968) — a decrease from 7,983 previously. The majority of their appearances came from ‘images’ (1,900).
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. Beer sellers can look to their range of products for inspiration and guidance on longtail keyword strategy, including key terms such as ‘alcohol-free beer’ and ‘multipack IPA beer’ to make their website findable to prospective customers.
BrewDog continues to secure the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (753) — a decrease from 1,184 previously. BrewDog also continues to secure the most appearances for positions 4–10 (1,032) — a decrease from 1,962 previously. Longtail keywords often align closely with the questions users ask online. Creating content around these queries can help websites provide direct answers and improve user satisfaction.
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. Beer sellers can use Facebook ads to drive awareness of low-traffic bricks and mortar locations, along with generate visibility on key product lines.
We’ve included screenshots of Beavertown Brewery’s sponsored Facebook posts. Facebook's algorithm often rewards content that keeps users on the platform for longer. Since videos can encourage viewers to watch for several seconds or even minutes, they can help businesses achieve greater reach and visibility.
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. Generating informational content will help with longtail keyword performance (and ‘people also ask’ results), and beer sellers can look to include shareable content such as infographics to make on-site content engaging on social media.
BrewDog secured the most Facebook Likes (507,900) and the most Instagram followers (796,500).
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, brands lose customer interest as they turn elsewhere due to inaccessibility and frustration. Beer sellers should ensure their site is accessible for all.
In our previous report, Beavertown Brewery received the most accessibility alerts (528). This quarter, Beavertown Brewery has made progress to reduce their total to 512, though they’re still the brand to watch. Frequent accessibility issues can give the impression that a website hasn't been properly maintained. This can reduce trust and make consumers question the professionalism of the business behind it.
GET THE FULL 70-PAGE Q2 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..