The Q4 2023 benchmarking report for UK lingerie brands has just been published. Learn how the top 12 UK lingerie brands perform across the digital space.

The latest Q4 2023 benchmarking report for UK lingerie brands has just been published.  It covers the 12 largest national lingerie brands, including Curvy Kate, Bravissimo, Bra Stop, Triumph, Belle Lingerie, Victoria’s Secret, Panache, Lounge, La Senza, Bluebella, Pour Moi, and Boux Avenue.

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 lingerie brands to win brand exposure, drive online views, and secure new orders. 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 Q4 report, click here. To get a copy of the full report and the key takeaways, please complete the enquiry form or schedule a call.

Q4 2023 WINNERS LEADERBOARD

For a glance into just six of the metrics we evaluated these top 12 lingerie brands on, check out our quick-look table below;

Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's best and poorest-performing UK lingerie brands or request a copy of the report for the full review.

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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 and 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.  For lingerie brands, having an easy-to-navigate site is essential for consumers researching retailers, and particular care should be taken of the pathways to key pages, such as best sellers, offers on particular product lines, and even FAQs regarding delivery and returns.

In the last report, Bluebella had 4,121 4xx errors, which it’s slightly reduced to 3,639 this quarter, though this lingerie brand needs to make further improvements to reduce its 4xx errors. Triumph scored the highest 4xx errors this quarter (8,074) — a dramatic increase from 13 last quarter. This sudden spike suggests that the brand needs to address any broken links.

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 will see a significant improvement on your overall conversion rates. With mobile browsers accounting for 72.9% of all e-commerce sales in 2021, lingerie brands (along with other e-commerce sectors) need to be prioritising their mobile site in terms of site speed and experience. 

We have seen universal falls in mobile page scores across all sectors we specialise in but, while falls in performance alone are not necessarily too concerning, this remains a useful way to gauge performance against competitors. Mobile speed scores ranged from 3 to 42 this quarter, with a slight increase from our last report (3 to 41). Belle Lingerie still holds the top position, and Bluebella continues to rank the lowest. Bluebella will need to optimise its images — especially for customer reviews — to improve its score for the next quarter.

Building Competitive Advantage with Domain Authority

Domain authority (DA) 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. Lingerie brands should be continually pushing to improve their DA, they can do this by sharing their variety of lingerie products and offers, and by collaborating with fashion publications and bloggers that fit within their niche

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 last quarter, the DA rating ranged between 43 and 73 with Victoria’s Secret at the bottom of the scoreboard and Triumph holding the stop score. This quarter, the DA rating was between 41 and 73, with Belle Lingerie sitting at the lower end of the scale. Victoria’s Secret has crawled up to 46, and Triumph is still the brand to beat.

Organic Performance – Mobile & Desktop

A strong organic performance is strategically important as it ensures your site ranks above competitors for core, 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. Luxury items and treats such as lingerie are likely to see reduced levels of interest from consumers in the cost of living crisis, so lingerie brands should be looking at which keywords have the highest conversion opportunity, in order to make the most of a limited pool of potential customers.

Bluebella increased its organic mobile traffic by 156% YoY. Meanwhile, Belle Lingerie saw a drop of 43% to its mobile traffic, holding the bottom position once again.

Universal Search Opportunity

Google Universal Search Results are 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. Lingerie brands should be utilising all universal search features as potential customers will be interested to see how previous customers have found their experience via 'reviews', 'FAQs' and 'people also ask' questions. 'Image' is a particularly useful Universal Search feature for any brand within the fashion industry, providing the opportunity for customers to see products before visiting the site.

Boux Avenue continues to secure the most appearances for universal search results, with most points accumulated by ‘images’ and ‘reviews’. Bluebella is at the bottom of the scoreboard, scoring 7 for ‘people also ask’, suggesting it needs to evaluate its strategy for longtail keywords.

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 new search terms as they enter Google’s index. There are many longtail keyword options lingerie brands could be using such as ‘matching blue underwear set’, ‘lingerie sales UK’, or even 'buy trending swimwear 2023' or 'matching Christmas pyjamas' to capitalise on future seasonal terms.

Pour Moi ranks the highest for longtail keywords. However, it continues to rank for very few in the top 3 search engine results (1,062), though this is a slight improvement to the last quarter (with 808 searches in the top 3 positions). Bravissimo ranks second for longtail keywords, though it ranks the highest for the top 3 search engine results (3,409), demonstrating that it’s maximising its keyword strategy.

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 brands 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 in 2019. For UK lingerie brands, Facebook ads are an opportunity to ensure customers see product launches, sales, and customer reviews.

Curvy Kate prioritises videos over images, using a vertical format to tailor towards mobile users. Two of its sponsored ads use the same text and video. This lingerie brand should test its social media strategy by using different videos to analyse which performs best.

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 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 sharing information about different lingerie styles and special offers, and on-site blogs provide a great opportunity to share the latest seasonal trends.

Lounge continues to hold the top spot for the number of social media engagements. This lingerie brand saw an increase from 11,739 last quarter to 14,534 this quarter. Victoria’s Secret holds the number one spot for Facebook Likes with a total of 30,100,000. Lounge has the most Instagram followers with a total of 3,600,000.

Website Readability & Accessibility

About 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 and they turn to other lingerie brands. We've noted that many brands use pink as a primary brand colour - while bright, hot pinks provide an effective contrast on a white background, paler shades may be harder to read.

Curvy Kate has seen the biggest concerns with accessibility, and this quarter it had 119 alerts (with an increase from 100 in the last quarter). But Bluebella has the most alerts (157) — an increase from 61 in the last quarter. This lingerie brand will need to assess its readability and stick to consistent fonts to improve its accessibility.

GET THE FULL 70-PAGE Q4 2023 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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