The Q1 2024 benchmarking report for UK jewellery and watch brands has just been published. Learn how the top 12 UK jewellery and watch brands perform across the digital space.
The latest Q1 2024 benchmarking report for UK jewellery and watch brands has just been published. It covers the largest 12 national jewellery and watch brands, including Watches of Switzerland, Fraser Hart, T H Baker, Ernest Jones, Beaverbrooks, H Samuel, Bucherer, Berry’s, Goldsmiths, F Hinds, Boodles, and Warren James.
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 jewellery and watch brands to win brand exposure, drive online views, and generate purchases. 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. 
Q1 2024 WINNERS LEADERBOARD
For a glance into just 6 of the metrics we evaluated these top 12 jewellery and watch brands on, check out our quick-look table below; 
Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's top and poorest-performing jewellery and watch 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 site 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.
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. E-commerce websites managing large volumes of ever-changing stock are often at risk to high volumes of 4xx errors, so jewellery and watch brands will need to ensure they maintain a firm process of adding redirects and removing dead links when stock is taken down.
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. Jewellery and watch brands will want to ensure users are getting a luxury experience at every touchpoint, something a quick, well-performing site will convey.
In this quarter, the site speed ranged between 56 and 8, with only Warren James scoring above the recommended 50%. However, Fraser Hart has the slowest site speed. After assessing its site on mobile, this jewellery and watch brand must consider its photos’ format to properly optimise its website to help increase this score.
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. Jewellery and watch brands can engage with a digital PR specialist to identify link building opportunities among fashion, lifestyle, and luxury bloggers and publications.
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. The DA for this quarter ranged between 67 and 40, with all brands scoring a minimum of 40 – the recommended rating. Berry’s has the lowest DA rating of all brands and can improve this by adopting a PR strategy to increase its number of backlinks.
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. Jewellery and watch brands are likely seeing the impact of changing consumer habits, as we're finding fewer consumers are indulging in treats or expendable items.
Eight of the 12 brands encountered a loss in organic mobile traffic, with Goldsmiths noting a 33% loss. This brand can increase its organic mobile traffic by adopting a stronger longtail keyword strategy (currently in the top 4 for positions 3 on search engines). On the other hand, T H Baker reported a 32% increase in traffic, making it the most successful of all brands.
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. 'Image pack' and 'reviews' results are great options for jewellery and watch brands, who can showcase their products and generate consumer trust directly from the SERP.
T H Baker remains at the top for the highest Universal Search results and has increased its appearances for ‘reviews’ by from 26,300 in the previous quarter to 36,300 in Q1 2024.
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. Jewellery and watch brands will want to ensure they are ranking well for high-purchase intent phrases, which may include details of watch or ring size, colour, gems, or price.
H Samuel has the most longtail keyword appearances (8,290) in the top 3 positions and the most for positions 4–10 (13,151), implying that it will still at the top spot for the next quarter, too. Beaverbrooks has in the top 2 for the number of longtail keywords in positions 4–10, which means that it has the opportunity to grow in the next quarters.
Facebook Adverts
With the number of Facebook users in the United Kingdom (UK) forecast to hit over 42 million users by 2022, 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.
Below are screenshots of Watches of Switzerland’s sponsored Facebook posts. This brand uses vertical videos and imagery to cater to mobile users. It also used the same video across two posts, implying that it’s testing the influence of different text.
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. Jewellery brands can turn to beautiful product images as an easy way to create shareable content, but can also consider infographics or information about ring sizes, types of gem settings, or watch features, among any other piece of information users might want to know about jewellery and watches!
All brands favour Facebook, which is an excellent platform for brands to engage with new audiences and provide engaging content to their current audience. Warren James has the largest Facebook group (639,400 followers), while Bucherer has the largest Instagram account (157,000 followers).
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, brands lose customer interest as they turn elsewhere. Jewellery and watch brands will want to ensure all visitors get a luxury experience with their brand, regardless of ability.
In this audit, Ernest Jones flagged 643 accessibility alerts. This jewellery and watch brand must address these errors to enhance accessibility for those using a screen reader. Common errors include redundant title text and missing meta description. Beaverbrooks reported 73 contrast errors, which it must address to improve visibility for those with colour deficiences.
GET THE FULL 70-PAGE Q1 2024 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 Mike Movassaghi.
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