The Q2 2024 benchmarking report for UK jewellery and watch brands has just been published. Learn how the top 11 UK jewellery and watch brands perform across the digital space.

The latest Q2 2024 benchmarking report for UK jewellery and watch brands has just been published. It covers the largest 11 national jewellery and watch brands, including Watches of Switzerland, Fraser Hart, T H Baker, Ernest Jones, Beaverbrooks, H Samuel, Bucherer, 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 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 2024 WINNERS LEADERBOARD

For a glance into just 6 of the metrics we evaluated these top 11 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.

Request the report

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.

For Q2 2024, the mobile site speed ranged between 54 and 6, with only 2 brands scoring above the recommended 50% for mobile site speed. However, Fraser Hart reported the lowest mobile site speed, and it should include lazy loading to help increase this speed. Lazy loading will use less bandwidth usage, helping to improve the website’s performance on mobile.

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 43, with Warren James reporting the lowest DA score. This jewellery and watch brand should ensure it’s regularly including share-worthy content to its blog page to help increase backlinks and enhance its appearance in search results.

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.

In our last audit, Goldsmiths reported the most loss for organic mobile traffic (-33%). This quarter, this UK jewellery and watch brand saw a -40% loss in organic mobile traffic (the highest of all brands). On the other hand, Ernest Jones saw a 115% increase in organic mobile traffic. It’s important that brands are taking steps to increase their organic mobile traffic, such as following a keyword strategy.

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 of the leaderboard with the most Universal Search results (62,578), with the majority of these appearances coming from ‘reviews’.

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 continues to secure the top spot for longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (9,358) and positions 4–10 (13,821). On the other hand, Boodles reported the fewest longtail keyword appearances (60 for position 3).

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.

We’ve included 3 examples of Beaverbrooks’ sponsored Facebook posts. This UK jewellery and watch brand used posts to promote its products, which is a great strategy to help increase sales.

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!

It’s important that brands regularly assess their average engagement to check that their followers are interacting with their content. This quarter, F Hinds saw the biggest average engagement rate. Warren James continues to have the most Facebook Likes (636,900), and Bucherer continues with the most Instagram followers (164,400).

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 our previous report, Ernest Jones flagged 643 accessibility alerts. In this quarter, it’s dramatically reduced this amount to just 1. The brand with the most accessibility alerts is now F Hinds, which reported 626 accessibility alerts. It’s important that brands take steps to minimise their errors to not impact the readability for those using a screen reader.

GET THE FULL 70-PAGE Q2 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.