The Q3 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 Q3 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 Q3 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 home improvement brands on, check out our quick-look table below;
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.
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 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 Q3 2026, the average monthly budget wastage across these UK home improvement brands was £592,690, 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 £11. 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, Huws Gray reported the lowest monthly cost-per-click (CPC) at £2, and City Plumbing reported the highest at £38.
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, Huws Gray has the lowest estimate monthly ad spend at £21,300, and Homebase has the highest at £21,600,000.
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 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, Tool Station reported the most 404 errors (72). This quarter, Tool Station has made great progress to reduce their total to 25. Currently, the brand with the most 404 errors is Screwfix (2,780). A reduction in 404 errors can lower user frustration and improve engagement. Visitors are more likely to continue exploring a website if they can easily access the content they're seeking.
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 previous audit, B&Q reported the slowest mobile site speed (15). This quarter, B&Q has increased their score to 21, demonstrating progress. Currently, the mobile site speed ranged between 38 and 5, with Homebase at the bottom of the scoreboard. Slow mobile loading speeds can negatively affect online shopping experiences. Customers may become impatient while waiting for product pages or checkout screens to load, increasing the chances of abandoning their purchase.
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 audit, the brand with the lowest DA score was Bradfords (53). This quarter, Bradfords remains at the bottom of the leaderboard, reducing their score to 52. Higher domain authority can make it easier for websites to compete with established businesses within their industry. Building authority over time allows smaller websites to gradually improve their presence in search results.
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.
Five brands reported a decrease in organic traffic on desktop, with Homebase seeing the biggest loss (-70%) — a decrease from -56% previously. On mobile, five brands reported a decrease in organic traffic, with Homebase seeing the biggest loss (-70%) — a decrease from -62% previously. A website with large images, videos or unnecessary scripts may load acceptably on desktop but perform poorly on mobile networks. This difference in performance can reduce mobile organic traffic over time.
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 (253,785) — a decrease from 412,230 previously. The majority of their appearances came from ‘images’ (200,400).
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 (122,795) — a decrease from 134,303 previously. B&Q also continues to secure the most appearances for positions 4–10 (226,188) — a decrease from 237,713 previously. Longtail keywords can help reduce reliance on paid advertising by generating more organic traffic. As rankings improve for multiple niche searches, websites may receive a steady stream of visitors without increasing advertising costs.
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 Homebase’s sponsored Facebook posts. Brands that use short paragraphs can create a cleaner visual appearance in the news feed. Well-spaced content often looks more professional and inviting than dense blocks of text.
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 (473,000) and the most Instagram followers (313,800).
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 last audit, Jewson reported the most accessibility alerts (496). This quarter, Jewson remains the brand to watch, increasing their total to 502. A site that contains numerous accessibility concerns may require users to put in extra effort to achieve basic tasks. This additional effort can lead to frustration and reduced loyalty.
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.