The Q2 2026 benchmarking report for UK investment and isa providers has just been published. Learn how the top 12 UK investment and isa providers perform across the digital space.
The latest Q2 2026 benchmarking report for UK investment and ISAs providers has just been published. It covers the largest 12 UK investment and ISAs providers, including Nutmeg, Bestinvest, Hargreaves Lansdown, Interactive Investor, AJ Bell, Vanguard, Moneyfarm, Fidelity International, Wealthify, Moneybox, Trading 212, and PensionBee UK.
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 UK investment and ISAs providers to win brand exposure locally, online views, and land new customers. The report highlights quick wins that will improve customer interest 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 investment and isa providers 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 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 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.
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 investment and ISA providers was £133,550 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 £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, Trading 212 reported the lowest monthly cost-per-click (CPC) at £12, and Vanguard reported has the highest at £44.
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, Wealthify has the lowest estimate monthly ad spend at £54,700, and Hargreaves Lansdown has the highest at £4,380,000.
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 UK investment and ISAs providers, having a simple website interface makes it easier for potential customers to browse the website, helping to build brand trust and increase the potential of sales.
In our previous audit, Wealthify received the most 404 errors (358). This quarter, Wealthify has made improvements to decrease their total to 319. Currently, the provider with the most 404 errors is Hargreaves Lansdown (880). 404 errors can damage overall satisfaction. Even if the rest of the website is well-designed, repeated interruptions like missing pages can leave users with a negative impression that’s hard to reverse.
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. UK investment and ISAs providers should take into consideration a website’s loading speed on mobile, as the majority of users access websites from their mobile than their desktop.
In our previous audit, J.P.Morgan was the brand to watch for mobile site speed (11). This quarter, J.P.Morgan remains at the bottom of the leaderboard, though they’ve made progress to increase their score to 14. Large font files and excessive use of custom typography can impact performance. Mobile devices must download these files before displaying text correctly, which can delay page rendering.
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. UK investment and ISAs providers should take steps to enhance their DA, as this can improve the chances of ranking in SERPs. Building connections with authority websites is a great way to increase backlinks, which can positively impact a brand’s DA score.
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, Bestinvest received lowest DA score (54). This quarter, Bestinvest continues to score 54 — the lowest of all providers. Websites with higher domain authority tend to be trusted more by search engines, which can make it easier for new content to rank quickly. Instead of starting from scratch each time something’s published, the site benefits from an established level of credibility that supports ongoing visibility.
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. UK investment and ISAs providers should follow a keyword strategy to increase their organic traffic on both desktop and mobile. Though, brands can also expect to see a fluctuation in traffic during this cost-of-living crisis, as people prioritise essentials over luxury services/products.
Two brands reported a decrease in organic traffic on desktop, with Moneyfarm seeing the biggest loss (-29%) — an increase from -28% previously. On mobile, three brands reported a decrease in organic traffic, with Moneyfarm seeing the biggest loss (-62%). Screen size plays a major role in how users interact with search results. On mobile, there’s less space, so fewer results are visible without scrolling, which can concentrate clicks on the very top listings and reduce traffic to lower-ranking pages..
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 site can appear for universal search results without being strong in standard rankings. UK investment and ISAs providers should be utilising all universal search features, especially ‘people also ask’ and ‘reviews’.
Hargreaves Lansdown continues to secure the most Universal Search appearances (18,505) — an increase from 10,084 previously. The majority of their appearances came from ‘people also ask’ (8,600).
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 brand new search terms as they enter Google’s index. There are many longtail keyword options UK investment and ISAs providers could be using, such as ‘tax-free investment returns’, ‘find a pension online, or ‘sign up to an ISA.
Hargreaves Lansdown secured the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (22,212) — an increase from 20,393. Hargreaves Lansdown continues to secure the most appearances for positions 4–10 (22,675) — a decrease from 23,259. Using longtail keywords in meta descriptions can improve click-through rates. When users see a description that closely matches their search, they’re more likely to click on the result.
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 investment and ISAs providers, Facebook ads are an opportunity to reach a wider audience range.
We’ve included screenshots of PensionBee UK’s sponsored Facebook posts. Shorter Facebook posts are more likely to grab attention quickly, especially as users scroll through busy feeds and decide within seconds what to engage with. They’re also easier to read and digest, which can lead to higher engagement as people are more inclined to like, comment, or share without feeling overwhelmed.
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 brand engagement, but great for Google, too, who will recognise content which achieves traffic over a long period of time. It's great for your engagement, but great for Google too, who will recognise content which achieves traffic over a long period of time. Social media could be especially useful for promoting services and reaching a wider audience.
PensionBee UK secured the most Facebook Likes (61,400), and Moneybox secured the most Instagram followers (93,100). Twitter was the most popular social media platforms of all brands. Moneybox received the highest total engagement rate (7,087) and three providers received highest average engagement (2).
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, even subconsciously, brands lose customer interest as they turn to other online appliance brands that can better meet their accessibility requirements.
In our previous report, J.P.Morgan received the most accessibility alerts (115), and Bestinvest received the most contrast errors (10). This quarter, J.P.Morgan continues to report 115 — the highest of all providers. Bestinvest continues to report 10 contract errors — the highest of all providers. These alerts can indicate issues with keyboard accessibility. Users who cannot use a mouse may be unable to interact with menus, buttons, or forms if these elements are not properly configured.
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.