The Q1 2026 benchmarking report for UK high-street banks has just been published. Learn how the top 12 UK high-street banks perform across the digital space.
The latest Q1 2026 benchmarking report for UK high-street banks has just been published. It covers the largest 12 national high-street banks, including Lloyds, NatWest, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC, Metro, Santander, TSB, The Co-operative Bank, Virgin Money, Yorkshire Bank, and Clydesdale.
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 high-street banks to win brand exposure, drive online visits, and generate in-branch footfall. 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 high-street banks on, check out our quick-look table below;
Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's best and poorest-performing brands, 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.
ForQ1 2026, the average monthly budget wastage across these UK high street banks was £145,379 with some of the top players int he 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 £22. 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, NatWest reported the lowest monthly cost-per-click (CPC) at £4, and TSB has the highest at £97.
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, Metro has the lowest estimate monthly ad spend at £3,020, and Barclays has the highest at £3,660,000.
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. UK high street banks should regularly monitor their links to ensure they’re not directing users to broken links, which could cause them to become frustrated.
In our previous audit, HSBC received the most 404 errors (328). This quarter, HSBC has decreased their errors to just 9, demonstrating excellent progress. Currently, the bank to watch is TSB, reporting 286 404 errors. Training teams to understand the impact of 404 errors encourages a preventative mindset. When everyone involved in content, marketing, and development recognises how broken links affect customer journeys, they are more likely to follow proactive practices that keep users away from digital dead ends.
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. High street banks should aim for a maximum of 3 seconds for a page to load, as any longer can cause users to become impatient and potentially leave the website.
The mobile site speed ranges between 56and 13 with Santander reporting the slowest score. Mobile sites peed should be a top priority for websites because the majority of users now access content through smartphones. When pages load slowly on mobile devices, users are far more likely to abandon the site before engaging with any content. A fast-loading mobile experience ensures visitors can access information quickly, reducing frustration and increasing the likelihood of meaningful interaction.
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. High-street banks can build their DA by sharing information about money-saving techniques, demographic studies of spending, and guides on different financial products.
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, Yorkshire Bank reported the lowest DA score (62). This quarter, Yorkshire Bank remains at the bottom of the leader board, reducing their DA score to 49. Domain authority helps protect websites from algorithm volatility. While search algorithms change frequently, authoritative sites are often more resilient to ranking fluctuations. This stability reduces the risk of sudden traffic losses and provides a more secure foundation for long-term digital strategies.
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. High street banks may see increased traffic from account holders shopping around for better interest rates or to find better deals on credit cards and loan options during the cost of living crisis.
All brands reported a drop in organic traffic on desktop, with Clydesdale receiving the biggest loss (-34%). Interestingly, on mobile, all banks saw an increase in organic traffic. These banks should consistently monitor organic traffic across both desktop and mobile devices because user behaviour varies significantly between platforms. Desktop users often browse for longer periods and conduct deeper research, while mobile users tend to search with higher urgency and intent.
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. 'Local pack' could prove to be a beneficial Universal Search result for high-street banks to generate in-branch footfall, while 'people also ask' results provides an opportunity for banks to share information about key products.
NatWest has secured the most Universal Search appearances (41,029) — overtaking Lloyds previously. The majority of NatWest’s appearances came from ‘people also ask’ (22,300).
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. Banks will want to ensure their longtail keyword strategy includes topical terms and questions that are likely to gain visitors, such as queries surrounding mortgage renewals.
NatWest continues to secure the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (24,978)— a decrease from 25,509 previously. NatWest also secured the most appearances for positions 4–10 (44,890) — overtaking Lloyds. Longtail keywords make content strategies more scalable and sustainable. Instead of relying on a few highly competitive keywords, websites can build traffic from hundreds or thousands of smaller opportunities. Together, these smaller traffic sources create significant long-term growth.
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 high street banks, Facebook ads are an opportunity to reach new audiences and promote new branding.
We’ve included screenshots of HSBC’s sponsored Facebook posts. Keeping copy concise and easy to read improves interaction. Short sentences and clear spacing make posts more accessible and more likely to be read fully. This bank utilised a carousel to use two images in a single post to help attract people’s attention.
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. As with improving DA and generating backlinks, high-street banks can create informative, engaging content that educates social media users about different financial products. However, as seen in Virgin's Facebook ads, social media is also an opportunity to have fun with their brand, and secure engagement from non-money focussed content.
HSBC secured the most Facebook Likes (3,100,000), and Barclays secured the most Instagram followers (76,900).Twitter was the most popular social media platforms of all brands. Royal Bank of Scotland received the highest total engagement rate (2,883), and Metro the highest average engagement (67).
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. As banking is a universal need, high-street banks must ensure they're able to serve a site that is easy to navigate and trust in to anyone with a vision deficiency.
In our previous report, TSB flagged the most accessibility alerts (146). This quarter, TSB remains the one to watch, and they’ve since increased their total number of accessibility alerts to 271. Regularly reviewing colour contrast and visual design choices helps prevent accessibility problems. Proactive contrast testing ensures text and interface elements remain readable for all users, including those with visual impairments.
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.