The Q2 2026 benchmarking report for UK lighting brands has just been published. Learn how these top 11 brands perform across the digital space.
The latest Q2 2026 benchmarking report for UK lighting brands has just been published. It covers the largest 11 UK decorative lighting brands, including LampShopOnline, Lighting Direct, Lights4fun, Litecraft.co.uk, Pagazzi Lighting, där Lighting Limited, Pooky Lights, John Cullen Lighting, Original BTC, lights&lamps, and KES Lighting.
The research illuminates who is winning the biggest share of voice online, and quantifies the gaps, risks and missed opportunities for other lighting brands to win brand exposure, drive traffic online, and increase both orders and the acquisition of new stock. 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 lighting 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 top and poorest-performing lighting providers, 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 under-perform. 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 lighting brands was £11,794 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 £3. 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, Litecraft.co.uk reported the lowest monthly cost-per-click (CPC) at £1, and LampShopOnline reported the highest at £7.
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, Original BTC has the lowest estimate monthly ad spend at £70, and Lighting Direct has the highest at £284,000.
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. UK decorative lighting brands should see the fewest number of errors on their website to prevent consumers from becoming frustrated. One area brands should look out for is 4xx errors, and they should assess for any broken links and update them as soon as possible to prevent sending consumers down a dead end.
In our previous audit, Pagazzi Lighting reported the most 404 errors (372). This quarter, Pagazzi Lighting has made progress to reduce their total to 2, moving them up the leaderboard. Currently, the brand with the most 404 errors is där Lighting Limited (25). Frequent 404 errors can damage trust in a website and the brand behind it. Visitors often expect modern websites to function smoothly, so broken links can create the impression that the business is careless or outdated. This loss of confidence may discourage people from returning in the future.
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. All brands should aim for the fastest site speed to prevent consumers growing impatient and then leaving their website. One of the best ways to do this is by utilising a mobile-friendly theme.
In our previous audit, LampShopOnline reported the slowest mobile site speed (9). This quarter, LampShopOnline continues to report 9 — keeping them at the bottom of the leaderboard. Slow mobile websites can create the impression that a business is outdated or poorly maintained. Users often associate website performance with professionalism, so sluggish pages may reduce trust in the brand. A slow experience can make even high-quality businesses appear less credible.
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 lighting brands should focus on creating shareable content that websites will want to direct their audience to.
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 report, Litecaft.co.uk received the lowest DA score (29). This quarter, Litecraft.co.uk continues to report 29 — keeping them at the bottom of the scoreboard, along with LampShopOnline. Being conscious of domain authority allows websites to take advantage of its many benefits. By actively working to improve it, brands can build a stronger, more visible, and more competitive online presence.
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 decorative lighting brands have an opportunity to gain organic traffic by using an effective keyword strategy — and longtail keywords are a great way to stand out from competitors. This requires researching keywords its target audience uses as well as undergoing competitor research.
Three brands reported a decrease in organic traffic on desktop, with LampShopOnline seeing the biggest loss (-57%). On mobile, four brands reported a decrease in organic traffic, with LampShopOnline seeing the biggest loss (-45%). Mobile users are more likely to browse casually through social media, messaging apps, or quick searches, which can lead to shorter website visits. Desktop users often browse with more focused intent, particularly during work or study sessions. This creates different traffic and engagement trends across devices.
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, and a site can appear for Universal Search results without being strong in standard rankings. UK decorative lighting brands will want to ensure they have a strong performance for 'reviews' and ‘images’ to help increase their online rankings.
Lights4fun continues to secure the most Universal Search appearances (8,619) — a decrease from 10,453 previously. The majority of their appearances came from ‘images’ (7,700).
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. UK decorative lighting brands can optimise their keyword strategy by incorporating phrases of 3+ words, such as ‘autumn lighting decorations’ or ‘cosy indoor lights.’
Lights4fun continues to secure the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (5,331) — a decrease from 5,536 previously. Lighting Direct also continues to secure the most appearances for positions 4–10 (4,466) — a decrease from 4,578 previously. Longtail keywords can help websites attract users with niche interests or specialised needs. Instead of competing for extremely broad audiences, businesses can focus on reaching the exact people most likely to value their content, services, or products. This creates more meaningful traffic overall.
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. Facebook ads are an opportunity for motorhome and caravan retailers to share their latest launches to entice new customers.
We’ve included screenshots of Pagazzi Lighting’s sponsored Facebook posts. Brands should think carefully about how much text they include in Facebook posts, as overly long captions can put users off and reduce engagement. Shorter, clearer posts are often easier to read quickly, especially on mobile devices, which can help improve likes, comments, shares and overall audience interaction.
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. UK decorative lighting brands should focus on building a trustworthy, close relationship with its online followers, and it’s important that they post content regularly to help with this.
Lights4fun secured the most Facebook Likes (72,200) — an increase from 71,500. Pooky Lights secured the most Instagram followers (309,200) — an increase from 299,400. Facebook was the most popular social media platforms of all brands. Pagazzi Lighting received the highest total engagement rate (4,313) and the highest average engagement (862).
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. Brands should focus on reducing accessibility alerts, errors, and contrast errors to improve readability for those using a screen reader.
In our previous report, Pagazzi Lighting received the most accessibility alerts (205). This quarter, Pagazzi Lighting has made great progress to decrease their total to 1. Currently, the brand with the most accessibility alerts is Lighting Direct (39). Websites should consider reducing accessibility alerts because too many warnings and interruptions can make pages confusing for users with disabilities. A cleaner and more accessible experience helps visitors focus on the content they actually need rather than being distracted by unnecessary notifications.
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.