The Q1 2026 benchmarking report for UK Gold bullion dealers has just been published. Learn how the top 12 UK Gold bullion dealers perform across the digital space.
The latest Q1 2026 benchmarking report for UK Gold bullion dealers has just been published. It covers the largest 12 national Gold bullion dealers, including BullionVault, BullionByPost, GOLD.co.uk, UKBullion.com, The Gold Bullion Company, Physical Gold, ATS Bullion, Atkinsons Bullion & Coins, The Royal Mint, Baird & Co., and Chards.
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 gold bullion dealers to win brand exposure locally, drive traffic online, and generate orders. 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.
For a glance into just 6 of the metrics we evaluated these top 12 gold bullion dealers on, check out our quick-look table below;
Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's best and poorest-performing UK gold bullion providers or request a copy of the report for the full review.
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.
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 click 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.
ForQ1 2026, the average monthly budget wastage across these UK gold bullion dealers was £12,613 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, ATS Bullion reported the lowest monthly cost-per-click (CPC) at £11, and Chards has the highest at £862.
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, UKBullion.com has the lowest estimate monthly ad spend at £1,550, and The Royal Mint has the highest at £355,000.
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. Gold bullion dealers will want to ensure key pages, such as investment guides, are clearly signposted and available for users to visit.
In our previous audit, Bullion Vault received the most 404 errors (305). This quarter, Bullion Vault has increased their 404 errors to 316. Currently, the gold bullion dealer with the most 404 errors is Chards, with a total of 392. Poorly managed 404errors can interfere with mobile SEO performance. On mobile devices, users are more likely to abandon sites quickly when they hit broken links, amplifying negative engagement signals. Given the importance of mobile-first indexing, this can reduce visibility in mobile search results and limit organic growth opportunities.
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 a luxury investment item, gold bullion dealers will want to ensure their sites are quick and give an excellent brand impression from every digital touchpoint.
In our last audit, ATS Bullion received the slowest mobile site speed (32). This quarter, ATS Bullion continues to report 32 for their mobile site speed. Currently, this ranges between 79 and 21, with Physical Gold reporting the slowest speed. Fast mobile performance supports accessibility and inclusivity. Users with slower networks, older devices, or limited data plans benefit from optimised, lightweight pages that load quickly. Prioritising speed ensures a wider audience can access content without barriers, supporting fairness and usability.
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. Gold bullion dealers can look to engage with a digital PR specialist to identify any potential backlink opportunities and develop attention-grabbing campaigns that boost organic visibility.
A ‘good’ DA really comes down to how your competitors are performing, however it’s generally considered average between 40 and 50, good between 50 and 60, and excellent above 60. In our previous audit, ATS Bullion reported the lowest DA score (19). This quarter, ATS Bullion remains the one to watch, reporting a slight increase to 20. This is the second quarter they’ve made progress — demonstrating they’re heading in the right direction. Domain authority is a strong indicator of how trustworthy a website appears to search engines, making it a key factor invisibility across search results. A higher domain authority often correlates with stronger rankings, meaning a site is more likely to appear on the first page where users are most active. Without sufficient authority, even high-quality content can struggle to gain visibility, limiting a website’s ability to attract consistent organic traffic.
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.
Four brands reported a drop in organic traffic on desktop, with Bullion Vault receiving the biggest loss (-54%). On mobile, 3 brands received a drop in organic traffic, with Bullion Vault reporting the biggest drop on this device, too (-67%). Tracking organic traffic by device helps brands identify performance gaps in their SEO strategy. A website may perform well on desktop but struggle on mobile due to speed, layout, or usability issues. Without separate monitoring, these problems can remain hidden, limiting growth opportunities and reducing overall search performance.
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. 'People also ask' is a useful Universal Search opportunity for gold bullion dealers, who can address common queries about investing in gold bullion, capturing attention and traffic from those exploring the investment potential.
BullionByPost has secured the most Universal Search appearances (11,606) — overtaking The Royal Mint (11,078). The majority of BullionByPost’s appearances came from ‘people also ask’ (5,800).
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. Gold bullion dealers should pay particular attention to terms indicating a high-purchase intent as, though these may be low-traffic, they are more likely to secure sales.
BullionByPost continues to secure the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (6,426) — an increase from 6,330previously. The Royal Mint continues to secure the most appearances for positions 4–10 (7,970) — a decrease from 8,292 previously. Longtail key words help websites capture users at different stages of the buyer journey. From early research to purchase-ready searches, longtail queries reflect intent more clearly than generic terms. This allows brands to guide users naturally through the funnel with more personalised content.
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. For UK gold bullion providers, Facebook ads are an opportunity to ensure customers see the potential in investments and product availability.
We’ve included screenshots of Chards’ sponsored Facebook posts. This UK gold bullion dealer included multiple lines of text, which can deter social media users from reading content as they’re scrolling their busy feed.
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. Sharing information about gold bullion investment is a great way of creating shareable content that is likely to pick up traction.
The Royal Mint secured the most Facebook Likes (469,700) and the most Instagram followers (79,400). Twitter was the most popular social media platforms of all brands. The Royal Mint received the highest total engagement rate (17,399) and the highest average engagement (104).
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. Accessibility should be at the forefront of any brands strategy, particularly when asking users to place large amounts of trust in your service, such as investment.
In our previous report, Physical Gold flagged the most accessibility alerts (119).This quarter, Physical Gold remains the brand to watch, and they’ve since increased their total of accessibility alerts to 123. Missing or incorrect form labels are a frequent source of accessibility alerts on websites. Forms hat rely solely on placeholder text instead of proper labels can be confusing for screen reader users, as placeholders are not always read consistently. When form inputs are not clearly associated with descriptive labels, users may struggle to understand what information is required.
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.