The Q1 2026 benchmarking report for UK flooring suppliers has just been published. Learn how the top 12 UK flooring suppliers perform across the digital space.
The latest Q1 2026 benchmarking report for UK flooring suppliers has just been published. It covers the largest 12 national flooring suppliers, including Tile Giant, Total Tiles, Flooring Superstore, Tapi Carpets, United Carpets, Walls and Floors, Tile Choice, UK Flooring Direct, Topps Tiles, TradeChoice Carpet & Flooring, Tile Mountain, and Stone & Tile Company.
The research gives an inside track on who is winning the biggest marketing share online, and quantifies the gaps, risks and missed opportunities for flooring suppliers to win brand exposure, drive online orders, and even secure in-store footfall. The report highlights quick wins that will improve the performance of 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.
For a glance into just 6 of the metrics we evaluated these top 12 flooring suppliers 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 top and poorest-performing flooring suppliers, or request a copy of the report for the full review.
The 70+ pages of research benchmarks each brand 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.
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 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 flooring suppliers was £29,247 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 £6. 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, Tile Giant reported the lowest monthly cost-per-click (CPC) at £3, and Stone & Tile Company reported has the highest at £14.
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, United Carpets has the lowest estimate monthly ad spend at £4,960, and Topps Tiles has the highest at £659,000.
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.
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 sites in e-commerce sectors, such as flooring, they'll need to keep on top of large numbers of changing stock pages, which could lead to customers being driven down dead ends if pages are removed without effective redirects put in place.
In our previous audit, Tile Choice received the most 404 errors (43). This quarter, Tile Choice has increased their 404 errors to 58. However, the supplier to watch this quarter is Flooring Superstore (67). When a user clicks a link and lands on a 404 error page instead of the content they expected, it can cause immediate frustration. Many visitors will choose to leave the website rather than attempt to find the information again. This quick exit contributes directly to a higher bounce rate, as users abandon the site after viewing only one page.
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. We often see brands within the home improvement space struggle with this, as the temptation generally lies in showing products at their best through high-definition images, over reducing quality in favour of page speed.
In our last audit, Total Tiles reported the slowest mobile site speed (18). This quarter, Total Tiles has made improvements to increase their mobile site speed to 25. Currently, the mobile site speed ranges between 95 and 22, with Stone & Tile Company flagging the lowest score. Page speed can affect how users interact with content such as videos, images, and interactive elements. Faster load times ensure that these features function smoothly, enhancing the overall quality of the experience and encouraging deeper engagement.
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. Flooring suppliers can look to collaborating with online publications and bloggers within their niche to build out their backlink profile and gain visibility in areas they can gain relevant referral traffic.
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, Tile Choice received the lowest DA score (24). This quarter, Tile Choice continues to report the lowest DA, and they’ve since reduced their score to 12. The age of a domain can influence its authority. Older domains tend to have had more time to accumulate backlinks and establish trust. While age alone does not guarantee a high score, it can contribute indirectly through historical performance and link growth.
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. At a time when fewer people are taking on home improvement projects, in order to save money in the cost-of-living crisis, flooring suppliers are competing for a smaller pool of organic users.
Four brands reported a drop in organic traffic on desktop, with Tile Giant, flagging the biggest loss (-46%). On mobile, four brands reported a decrease in organic traffic, with Flooring Superstore seeing the biggest drop (-52%). Screen size plays a significant role in shaping how users interact with search results. On desktop, larger screens allow more content to be displayed at once, including multiple listings and detailed snippets. On mobile, limited screen space means users typically see fewer results without scrolling, which can affect click-through rates for lower-ranked pages.
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. 'Image pack' results could be of particular use to flooring suppliers, who can use the opportunity to show their products directly from the SERP.
Topps Tiles continues to secure the most Universal Search appearances (32,062) — an increase from 13,442 previously. The majority of their appearances came from ‘images’ (28,300).
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 flooring suppliers, they may want to look at long tail phrases that indicate a customer ready to order, such as 'white kitchen floor tiles next day delivery' or 'laminate floor samples delivered tomorrow'.
Topps Tiles continues to secure the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (5,781) — a decrease from 6,125 previously. Topps Tiles also continues to secure the most longtail keyword appearances for position 4–10 (6,254) — an increase from 5,604 previously. Internal linking strategies can support the natural use of longtail keywords. When linking to related content within a website, descriptive anchor text can include longer keyword phrases that accurately reflect the content being referenced. This approach improves site navigation while reinforcing the relevance of specific topics for search engines.
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 provide an opportunity for UK flooring suppliers to quickly reach audiences with offers, new lines, and key products they’re looking to push.
We’ve included screenshots of Tapi Carpets’ sponsored Facebook posts. This UK flooring supplier included emojis, helping to make their posts visually enticing and to help create an informal tone.
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. Flooring suppliers can look to sites such as Pinterest and Instagram as a great place to share content, due to their highly visible approach and comparatively more affluent audiences.
Tapi Carpets secured the most Facebook Likes (50,600), and Topps Tiles secured the most Instagram followers (95,500). Pinterest was the most popular social media platforms of all brands. Walls and Floors received the highest total engagement rate (4,669) and the highest average engagement (55).
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. When handling big sites with large volumes of content and products, flooring suppliers will want to ensure their sites are easy to navigate for any visitor, of any ability.
In our last audit, Stone & Tile Company reported the most accessibility alerts (613). This quarter, Stone & Tile Company remains the flooring supplier to watch, though they’ve since taken positive steps by reducing their total to 507. Accessibility alerts on websites can disrupt the user experience by interrupting the natural flow of browsing. When users encounter repeated alerts, pop-ups, or warnings related to accessibility issues, it can create frustration and make the site feel difficult to navigate. This is especially problematic for users who rely on assistive technologies, as they may already be dealing with additional layers of interaction.
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..