The Q4 2025 benchmarking report for UK online betting companies has just been published. Learn how the top 12 UK online betting companies perform across the digital space.
The latest Q4 2025 benchmarking report for UK Online betting companies has just been published. It covers the largest 12 national online betting companies, including Paddy Power, William Hill, 888 Sport, Coral, Bet365, BetVictor, Boyle Sports, Betfair, Betfred, Betway, Sky Bet, and Ladbrokes.
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 betting companies to increase brand awareness, generate online bets, and secure digital growth. The report highlights year-on-year digital performance, plus winner and loser comparisons across 20+ online performance metrics and quantifies the gaps, risks and missed opportunities for online betting companies.
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.
For a glance into just 6 of the metrics we evaluated these top 12 online betting companies on, check out our quick-look table below;
Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's top and poorest-performing online betting companies, 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 Q4 2025, the average monthly budget wastage across these UK online betting companies was £363,413, 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 £239 . 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, 888 Sport reported the lowest monthly cost-per-click (CPC) at £0, and Boyle Sports has the highest at £2,231.
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, Boyle Sports has the lowest estimate monthly ad spend at £174,000, and Bet365 has the highest at £5,660,000.
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. Trust is essential for online betting companies, so a well-performing website that doesn't lead customers down dead ends is essential for giving a positive experience with the brand at every touchpoint.
In our previous audit, Betway reported the most 404 errors (493). This quarter, Betway has reduced their 404 errors to 122, suggesting they’re regularly monitoring their site for these errors. Currently, the company with the most 404 errors is Paddy Power, with a total of 146. Setting up proper redirects is an effective way to manage 404 errors. When a page is moved or deleted, a redirect ensures visitors reach the correct destination. This prevents users from encountering dead ends.
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 users are not led to 4xx errors and prevented from reaching key pages, online betting companies will want to ensure their sites are fast and accessible, in order to minimise frustration with users.
In our previous report, Paddy Power received the slowest mobile site speed (3). This quarter, Paddy Power remains the online betting company with the slowest mobile site speed, though they’ve since made progress to increase it to a score of 9. Using a content delivery network (CDN) helps distribute website data across multiple servers. This means users access the site from a server closer to their location. As a result, mobile pages load much faster worldwide.
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 betting companies can look to collaborating with sports publications in order to build their authority and expand their backlink profile.
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. Four companies reported 72 for their DA score (the lowest score of all). Thankfully, this score is considered in the ‘excellent’ zone, but there’s always progress companies can make to consistently increase their DA score, such as improving technical SEO. Fixing site errors, improving site structure, and ensuring mobile optimisation all help search engines crawl more effectively. A technically sound website earns higher authority.
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. We've seen traffic fall across many of the sectors that we specialise in, as consumers are cutting back on treats and luxuries during the cost of living crisis. However, with betting companies potentially being a secondary source of income for lucky, or strategic, punters, online betting companies may buck this trend.
Seven companies reported a drop in organic traffic on desktop, with Betway flagging the biggest decrease (-95%). On mobile, 4 companies saw a drop in organic traffic, with Betway reporting the biggest loss on this device, too (-89%). Improving site speed across devices is essential for organic traffic growth, a fast-loading pages keep users engaged and reduce bounce rates. Search engines also reward quick and efficient sites with higher rankings.
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. As trust is key for online betting companies looking to win new punters, 'reviews' are a smart way of quickly building recognition and faith in their brand. However, results such as 'image pack', used with images of sports fixtures, may be more attention-grabbing from the SERP.
Paddy Power remains on top for the most Universal Search appearances (3,436) — a decrease from 4,581 previously. The majority of these appearances came from ‘images’ (2,100).
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. Online betting companies should look to target their most profitable longtail keywords, indicating a strong will to bet on upcoming sports fixtures or other events.
Paddy Power secured the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (5,215) and positions 4–10 (8,524). Longtail keywords can be included in meta titles, descriptions, and headers for stronger SEO signals. Search engines recognise these specific terms as relevant to user intent. This boosts click-through rates and organic traffic.
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. Online betting companies can use Facebook ads to drive brand awareness around big sporting events and other betting-opportunities, reminding users of the opportunity to place a bet, or advertise special rates and offers.
We’ve included screenshots of Betfred’s sponsored Facebook posts. This UK online betting company utilised line breaks to help make their content easy to scan.
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. Online betting companies can look to creating content around sporting events in order to increase brand exposure - even sharing non-betting related content that links to events users can place bets on will increase content shareability.
Ladbrokes secured the most Facebook Likes (206,000) and the most Instagram followers (35,300). Twitter was the most popular social media platforms of all brands. Ladbrokes received the highest total engagement rate (67,733), and Sky Bet received the highest average engagement (821).
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.
In our previous audit, Betfred received the most accessibility alerts (10). This quarter, Betfred continues to report 10 accessibility alerts — the most of all companies. Using clean and consistent heading structures improves navigation for visitors, which can help to reduce these alerts.
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.