The Q1 2024 benchmarking report for UK online banking companies has just been published. Learn how the top 7 UK online banking companies perform across the digital space.

The latest Q1 2024 benchmarking report for UK online banking companies has just been published. It covers the largest 7 national online banking companies, including Starling Bank, Tandem, Monzo, Chase, Atom bank, Revolut, and Monese. 

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 online banking companies to win brand exposure, generate online views, and drive sign-ups for new accounts. 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 Q1 report, click here. To get a copy of the full report and the key takeaways, please complete the enquiry form or schedule a call.

Q1 2024 WINNERS LEADERBOARD

For a glance into just 6 of the metrics we evaluated these top 7 online banking companies on, check out our quick-look table below;

Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's best and poorest-performing online banking companies, 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. For online banking companies, their website is one of the most important components of their business. It is therefore vital for their site to be running smoothly to ensure their customers can easily navigate to key conversion points.

In our last audits, Monzo raised some concerns. In this quarter, this bank reported 646 4xx errors. However, Monese reported the most errors (3,789). This online banking company should assess its internal links, as broken links can negatively impact a site’s SEO.

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. For online banking companies, their customers need to have full and absolute trust in their brand. A slow, lagging mobile site will not ensure the customer has trust and may lead them to try other businesses instead.

For Q1 2024, the mobile site speed ranged between 68 and 35, with only 2 brands scoring above the recommended 50%. Revolut reported the lowest site speed, and it can increase this by optimising images and reducing their size.

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. Online banking companies should be continually pushing to improve their DA and can look to creating interesting content and studies around money management and finances that will gain press attention and links back to their sites.

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 83 and 57, with all banks scoring above the recommended 40. Revolut saw the highest DA rating and also reported the highest number of backlinks — a strategy that can help a brand to increase their DA.

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 online banks increasing in popularity, especially post-pandemic, we would expect all the companies to be seeing increases in their mobile and desktop traffic.

Two Online banks saw a loss in organic traffic on desktop, whereas 4 reported a loss in organic traffic on mobile. The digital footfall also shows that most banks receive more traffic from those using a desktop.

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. Online banking companies should be utilising all Universal Search opportunities, as prospective customers will be interested to see how previous and existing account holders have found their experience. This can particularly be achieved with 'reviews', 'FAQs' and 'people also ask' results.

Revolut remained the bank with the most Universal Search results (a total of 145,483 — over 14 times as many as the runner-up). ‘Reviews’ received the highest number of appearance — though this was mainly due to Revolut scoring 85,000 for this category.

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. There are many longtail keyword options that online banking companies could be using, and they should look to prioritise keywords which include high purchase intent phrases such as 'switch now', or 'reward for switching'.

Revolut continues to report the most longtail keyword appearances for positions 3 (17,858 — nearly 6 times as many as the runner up). This online bank also has the most total appearances for positions 4–10 (39,750), suggesting that it’ll stay in the top position for the next quarter, too.

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. Social media is a great way to advertise for online banking companies as their potential customers are already online. Online banks should consider mobile-first ad formats, that will provide a seamless experience for mobile users, especially where an app is essential for signing up.

We’ve included three examples of Chase’s sponsored Facebook posts. This online bank used the same text across all posts and two identical videos and one image. Mixing up media with the same text allows brands to say if a different video or image affects a post’s engagement/conversion rate.

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. As with building content for digital PR strategies, online banks can look to create highly engaging, shareable content that details interesting facts about spending, or money management advice.

Six of the 7 brands prefer Facebook, while 1 favours X/Twitter. Chase continues to have the largest Facebook group (3.9 million Likes), while Revolut has the largest Instagram account (286,200 followers). The remaining brands can increase their online followers by including content that benefits their audience and isn’t just brand awareness.

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. With online banking companies gaining momentum, and their services being relevant to all demographics, they need to ensure that their websites are accessible to everyone.

In our last audit, Chase raised some concerns with 128 accessibility alerts. In this quarter, it’s reduced this figure to 3. However, Monese is the one to watch, as it reported 128 accessibility alerts. The majority of these alerts came from redundant alternative text, which it must reduce to prevent negatively impacting those using a screen reader.

GET THE FULL 70-PAGE Q1 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.

Photo by JJ Ying on Unsplash