The Q2 2026 benchmarking report for UK kitchen and cookware brands has just been published. Learn how the top 11 UK cookware brands perform across the digital space.
The latest Q2 2026 benchmarking report for UK kitchen and cookware brands has just been published. It covers the largest 11 national kitchen and cookware brands, including ProCook, Portmeirion, Circulon, Denby Pottery Company, Hexclad Cookware, Salter, Our Place, Le Creuset, Tefal, Stellar Global Ltd, and Grunwerg - it highlights year-on-year digital performance, plus winner and loser comparisons in 20+ online performance metrics.
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 kitchen brands to win brand exposure, generate online orders, and drive in-store interest & recognition. 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.
For a glance into just 6 of the metrics we evaluated these top 11 kitchen and cookware 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 kitchen and cookware brands or request a copy of the report for the full review.
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.
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 Q2 2026, the average monthly budget wastage across these UK kitchen and cookware brands was £6,947 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 £148. 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, Salter reported the lowest monthly cost-per-click (CPC) at £2, and Le Creuset reported has the highest at £1,564.
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, Salter has the lowest estimate monthly ad spend at £2,680, and ProCook has the highest at £183,000.
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 kitchen and cookware brands, particularly those aiming to offer a luxury cooking experience, a high-performing, easy-to-navigate website is essential for instilling consumer confidence, and ensuring that potential customers can find the products they are looking for.
In our previous report, Denby Pottery Company received the most 404 errors (786). This quarter, Denby Pottery Company remains at the bottom of the leaderboard, though they’ve since made great progress by nearly halving their total to 430. 404 errors can be frustrating for users because they interrupt the browsing experience without warning. When someone clicks a link expecting useful information and instead lands on an error page, it breaks the flow and creates a sense of inconvenience.
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. For sites such as kitchen and cookware brands, who are juggling a wide range of products and may feel the pressure to make items stand out, high-resolution images and content can hold back performance when it comes to site speed.
In our previous audit, Grunwerg was the brand to watch for mobile site speed (13). This quarter, Grunwerg continues to report the slowest mobile site speed, decreasing their score to 5. Mobile site speed plays a crucial role in shaping first impressions. When a page loads quickly, users feel confident that the website is modern, reliable, and worth their time. A smooth, fast-loading experience encourages visitors to stay and explore rather than abandoning the site out of frustration.
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, ie. ‘free’ traffic that isn’t gained through sponsored ads. For kitchen and cookware brands, collaborations with online culinary publications, homeware suppliers, or even bloggers in their niche could be a great way to boost these figures.
A ‘good’ DA really comes down to how your competitors are performing, however it is generally considered average between 40 and 50, good between 50 and 60, and excellent above 60. In our last audit, Grunwerg received lowest DA score (30). This quarter, Grunwerg remains at the bottom of the leaderboard, and they’ve since decreased their DA score to 24. Domain authority is particularly important for new websites trying to establish themselves. Building authority early can accelerate growth and make it easier to gain traction in search engine 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. For brands within a space that may consider themselves more of a luxury or treat item, such as luxury kitchen and cookware, they may find that their organic traffic naturally starts shrinking, in line with a reduced consumer interest during the cost-of-living crisis.
All brands reported an increase in organic traffic on desktop, with Stellar seeing the biggest increase (+130%). On mobile, only Hexclad Cookware reported a decrease in organic traffic (-6%). Content formatting affects performance across devices. Long blocks of text that work well on desktops may be less engaging on mobile, leading to lower interaction and traffic.
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 brand can appear for universal search results without being strong in standard rankings. 'Image' and 'review' results would be particularly useful for kitchen and cookware brands, who would be able to show their products to users without them visiting their site and build trust in their products by encouraging customer reviews.
ProCook continues to secure the most Universal Search appearances (11,052) — an increase from 10,765 previously. The majority of their appearances came from ‘images’ (8,300).
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. Kitchen and cookware brands should be optimising for longtail keywords that show high purchase intent - though they may not score highly in terms of search volume or traffic, these keywords will pay off as being more likely to secure purchases.
ProCook secured the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (4,744) — an increase from 4,202. ProCook continues to secure the most appearances for positions 4–10 (6,736) — an increase from 4,989. Pages targeting longtail keywords often connect naturally to related content, encouraging users to click through to additional pages and reducing the likelihood of a single-page session.
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 screenshots of Our Place’s sponsored Facebook posts. This UK kitchen and cookware brand considered line length by sticking to short bullet points, helping social media users to read their posts quicker.
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. Kitchen and cookware brands can bridge across both food-focussed recipe content, along with interior design and lifestyle pieces.
Tefal secured the most Facebook Likes (4.1m), and Our Place secured the most Instagram followers (961,900). Facebook was the most popular social media platforms of all brands. Our Place received the highest total engagement rate (5,696) and the highest average engagement (949).
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. Though the temptation may be there for luxury brands to choose style over function, they must not underestimate the impact of making their site accessible for all potential customers.
In our previous report, Circulon received the most accessibility alerts (223). This quarter, Circulon remains the brand to watch, though they’ve made progress again to reduce their total alerts to 198. For many users with cognitive impairments, frequent accessibility alerts can be particularly overwhelming. Too many interruptions can make it harder to process information and navigate the site effectively.
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.