The Q3 2026 benchmarking report for UK mortgage brokers has just been published. Learn how the top 12 UK mortgage brokers perform across the digital space.
The latest Q3 2026 benchmarking report for UK mortgage brokers has just been published. It covers the largest 12 national mortgage brokers, including Meridian Mortgages, Molo, Just Mortgages, Mojo Mortgages, Mortgage Advice Bureau, London & Country Mortgages, John Charcol - Independent Mortgage Expertise, Habito, and Better.co.uk.
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 mortgage brokers to win brand exposure, drive site visits, and generate online enquiries. 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 Q3 report, click here. To get a copy of the full report and the key takeaways, please complete the enquiry form or schedule a call. 
Q3 2026 WINNERS LEADERBOARD
For a glance into just 6 of the metrics we evaluated these top 12 mortgage brokers 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 mortgage brokers, 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.
Pay-Per-Click Marketing
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 Q3 2026, the average monthly budget wastage across these UK mortgage brokers was £57,466 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 £6. 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, Mojo Mortgages reported the lowest monthly cost-per-click (CPC) at £2, and Just Mortgages reported the highest at £2.
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, Mojo Mortgages reported the lowest monthly cost-per-click (CPC) at £2, and Just Mortgages reported the highest at £2.
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.
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. Mortgage brokers have the benefit of not needing to maintain large sites with a high volume of product pages, so should find staying on top of their technical compliance easier than our clients in e-commerce sectors.
In our last audit, Coreco reported the most 404 errors (40). This quarter, Coreco has made improvements to decrease their total to 36, no longer putting them at the bottom of the leaderboard. Currently, the company with the most 404 errors is Molo (37). Regular content reviews can identify outdated pages that may need updating or redirecting. This proactive approach helps keep the website organised and reduces the risk of dead 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 makes a significant improvement on your overall conversion rates. As with ensuring key pages are not blocked by error codes, mortgage brokers will want to ensure their site is quick, and that customers have a great experience from every touchpoint, to instil trust in their service.
In our last audit, Coreco reported the slowest mobile site speed (18). This quarter, Coreco has increased their score 27 — no longer making them the brand to watch. Currently, the mobile site speed ranged between 35 and 22, with John Charcol - Independent Mortgage Expertise at the bottom of the list. A fast mobile website creates an excellent first impression for customers. When pages load almost instantly, visitors are more likely to stay, explore the site and develop confidence in the brand from the very beginning.
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. Mortgage brokers can look to creating digital PR campaigns across the full spectrum of home ownership, to generate engaging press coverage that links back to their site and improves referral traffic, as well as domain authority.
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, In our last audit, Meridian Mortgages reported the lowest DA (18). This quarter, Meridian Mortgages remains the brand at the bottom of the leaderboard, continuing to score 18. Visitors are more likely to engage with websites that consistently rank well in search results. Strong rankings can create a positive first impression, encouraging users to explore additional pages and spend longer browsing.
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. With high house prices and worrying mortgage rates, mortgage brokers will need to ensure their organic strategy is considerate of changing consumer habits, in order to maintain traffic.
Four brands reported a decrease in organic traffic on desktop, with Meridian Mortgages seeing the biggest loss (-30%). On mobile, five brands reported a decrease in organic traffic, with Mojo Mortgages seeing the biggest decrease (-54%). Using a responsive website design allows pages to automatically adapt to different screen sizes. This ensures that content remains readable and functional whether viewed on a smartphone, tablet or desktop computer.
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. 'Reviews' are a great Universal Search result to optimise for, as it will help mortgage brokers build trust with potential customers directly from the SERP.
London & Country Mortgages continues to secure the most Universal Search appearances (2,189) — a decrease from 3,138 previously. The majority of their appearances came from ‘AI overview’ (1,100).
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. For mortgage brokers, they'll want to identify not only high-traffic longtail keywords, but phrases showing high intent to enquire (potentially including specific details such as ages, occupations, salaries, and locations).
London & Country Mortgages secured the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (792) — a decrease from 835 previously. London & Country Mortgages also secured the most longtail keyword appearances for positions 4–10 (2,314) — an increase from 2,686 previously. Brands should avoid forcing longtail keywords into every sentence. Using them naturally within valuable, informative content creates a better experience for readers while supporting long-term SEO performance.
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 screenshots of Habito’s sponsored Facebook posts. Vertical videos can increase engagement because they stand out more prominently within the Facebook feed. Posts that immediately catch a user's eye are more likely to receive reactions, comments and shares..
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. Mortgage brokers can expand on their work with 'people also ask' and longtail keyword optimisation by identifying common questions users ask, and developing shareable content that will be widely engaged with.
London & Country Mortgages secured the most Facebook Likes (12,900), and Habito secured the most Instagram followers (13,200).
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. As housing is a universal need, mortgage brokers must ensure their websites are fully accessible for all potential customers
In our last report, Trinity Financial flagged the most accessibility alerts (118). This quarter, Trinity Financial remains the brand to watch, though they’ve made progress to reduce their total to 109. Mobile users may experience contrast problems more acutely due to smaller screen sizes and varying lighting conditions. Bright sunlight or dim environments can make low-contrast text even harder to see. This can discourage users from continuing to browse on their devices.
GET THE FULL 70-PAGE Q3 2026 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 Rory Tarplee.