The Q2 2026 benchmarking report for UK home improvement brands has just been published. Learn how the top 12 UK home improvement brands perform across the digital space.
The latest Q2 2026 benchmarking report for UK Home improvement brands has just been published. It covers the largest 12 national home improvement brands, including Plumbworld, Screwfix, Tool Station, Wickes, Selco Builders, B&Q, Homebase, Bradfords, Jewson, City Plumbing, Wolseley, and Huws Gray.
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 home improvement brands to win brand exposure, and drive both online traffic & in-store 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 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 home improvement 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 home improvement brands or request a copy of the report for the full review.
What The Industry Research Report Covers
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.
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 home improvement brands was £158,370 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 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, Homebase reported the lowest monthly cost-per-click (CPC) at £2, and City Plumbing reported has the highest at £34.
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, Jewson has the lowest estimate monthly ad spend at £14,700, and B&Q has the highest at £6,660,000.
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.
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. For brands within the home improvement and DIY space, they'll often be supporting large websites hosting a huge range of products that regularly changes. Retailers will need to ensure that product and stock updates are well-considered within their internal linking strategy and that any changes do not impact the customer experience.
In our previous audit, Wolseley received the most 404 errors (106). This quarter, Wolseley has made improvements to reduce their total to 21, demonstrating they’ve optimed their site to not direct consumers to dead ends. Currently, the brand with the most 404 errors is Tool Station (72). 404 errors create unnecessary barriers in the user experience. By failing to direct consumers to the content they need, they can reduce satisfaction, damage brand perception, and increase the likelihood that users will leave 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. DIY and home improvement sites should be well-equipped to handle last-minute, or on-the-go mobile searches from any customers searching for supplies mid-project.
In our last audit, Jewson reported the slowest mobile site speed (12). This quarter, Jewson has increased their mobile site speed to 33, moving them up the leaderboard. Currently, the mobile site speed ranges between 65 and 15, with B&Q reporting the slowest score. Implementing lazy loading ensures that images and videos only load when they are about to appear on the user’s screen. This reduces initial page load time and improves perceived performance on mobile devices.
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 isn’t gained through sponsored ads. Home improvement brands can look to collaborate with online trade publications or interior design bloggers in order to improve their DA, and ensure they're being linked to from high-authority sites.
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 report, Bradfords received the lowest DA score (52). This quarter, Bradfords continues to sit at the bottom of the leaderboard, though they’ve made an improvement to slightly increase their score to 53. Domain authority is important for building brand credibility online. Users often associate higher-ranking websites with higher quality. As a result, a strong authority score can indirectly enhance brand perception and encourage repeat visits.
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. With our DIY and home improvement brands selling similar stock (with brand loyalty only going so far), strategic keyword optimisation is key to ensuring visibility is strong on high-conversion products and leading items.
In our last audit, Homebase received the biggest loss on both devices (-38% on mobile, and -41% on desktop). Five companies reported a drop in organic traffic on desktop, with Homebase still seeing the biggest drop (-56% — a loss from the last quarter). On mobile, four companies reported a decrease in organic traffic, with Homebase seeing the biggest loss (-62% — a loss from the last quarter). Differences in conversion behaviour also impact organic traffic value. Mobile users may browse more but convert less frequently compared to desktop users. Websites should simplify conversion paths and make actions like form filling or purchasing easier on mobile.
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 retailer can appear for universal search results without being strong in standard rankings. For any e-commerce brand, 'reviews' are a useful way of building trust with prospective customers, and boosting visibility on products. For home improvement brands, 'people also ask' provides an opportunity to rank for any DIY or construction queries, too.
B&Q continues to secure the most Universal Search appearances (412,230) — an increase from 313,581 previously. The majority of their appearances came from ‘images’ (331,400).
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 retailer new search terms as they enter Google’s index. As we've mentioned, longtail keyword rankings put brands in good stead for appearing in 'people also ask' search results, so have the added benefit of boosting Universal Search visibility too.
B&Q continues to secure the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (134,303) — a decrease from 149,806 previously. B&Q also continues to secure the most longtail keyword appearances for position 4–10 (237,713) — an increase from 237,553 previously. Longtail keywords provide a strategic way for websites to grow their organic presence. By targeting more precise search terms, they can reach the right audience, improve engagement, and compete more effectively in search engine results.
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. For UK home improvement brands, Facebook ads are an opportunity to ensure customers see product releases and deals.
We’ve included screenshots of City Plumbing’s sponsored Facebook posts. This UK home improvement brand included carousel images. Carousels can significantly improve engagement rates. Users are naturally inclined to swipe through content on mobile devices, and carousel formats tap into this behaviour, encouraging interaction and longer time spent on the ad.
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 retailer engagement, but great for Google too, who will recognise content which achieves traffic over a long period of time. For DIY and home improvement stores, they'll have two audiences - at-home DIYers and trade professionals. This presents the opportunity to create two distinct content plans, that can appeal to a wide range of potential customers.
B&Q secured the most Facebook Likes (469,000) and the most Instagram followers (308,000). Facebook was the most popular social media platforms of all brands. Screwfix received the highest total engagement rate (12,148), and Jewson secured the highest average engagement (102).
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. As with ensuring their sites are technically compliant, large e-commerce brands, such as those in the home improvement sector, should ensure that their site is simple to read and digest, as well as navigate.
In our previous report, Jewson received the most accessibility alerts (463). This quarter, Jewson remains the brand with the most accessibility alerts, slightly increasing their total to 496. Accessibility alerts can negatively impact mobile users even more than desktop users. On smaller screens, alerts can take up valuable space, obscure content, or be harder to dismiss. This can make mobile browsing particularly challenging and discourage users from continuing their session.
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.