The Q4 2025 benchmarking report for UK online opticians has just been published. Learn how the top 12 opticians perform across the digital space.

The latest Q4 2025 benchmarking report for UK online opticians has just been published. It covers the largest 12 UK online opticians, including  Black & Lizars, Bayfields Opticians and Audiologists, David Clulow, Specsavers, Eyesite, Scrivens Opticians & Hearing Care, Eye Emporium, Vision Express, Duncan and Todd Group, Leightons Opticians, ASDA Opticians and Pharmacy, and M&S Opticians.  

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 opticians to win brand exposure, drive traffic online and, for those with bricks and mortar locations, even increase in-store footfall. 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 below or schedule a call.

Q4 2025 winners leader board

For a glance into just 6 of the metrics, we evaluated these top 12 online opticians on, check out our quick-look table below;

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Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's best and poorest-performing UK online opticians 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 Q4 2025, the average monthly budget wastage across these UK opticians was £19,954, 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 £1,031 . 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, Specsavers reported the lowest monthly cost-per-click (CPC) at £6, and David Clulow has the highest at £12,000.

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, M&S Opticians has the lowest estimate monthly ad spend at £3,430, and Specsavers has the highest at £1,010,000.

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.

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. Online opticians will want to ensure that key pages are easy to navigate to and access, such as prescription information, any trial packages they offer, or store locators.

In our previous audit, ASDA Opticians and Pharmacy reported the most 404 errors (415). This quarter, ASDA Opticians and Pharmacy has increased their 404 errors to 664, suggesting they’re not regularly auditing their site for these errors. When websites track their 404 errors, they can identify which pages or links are frequently causing issues. This data helps improve site structure and user pathways. It also ensures visitors always reach the right content. 

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 opticians, they’ll want to ensure their site is fast, and well-prepared for customers to browse new frames on the go.

In our previous report, Leightons Opticians received the slowest mobile site speed (17). This quarter, Leightons Opticians has increased their mobile site speed to 32, no longer putting them at the bottom of the leaderboard. This quarter, the mobile site speed ranged between 73 and 27, with Bayfields Opticians and Audiologists flagging the lowest speed. Improving mobile site speed can lower bounce rates and increase time spent on the site. When users can navigate easily, they explore more pages, which helps improve overall performance and engagement metrics.

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. As the nine opticians in our report range from online-only, to well known, long-standing retail chains, we’d expect to see a wide range of scores in domain authority.

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 last report, both Eye Emporium and Black & Lizars received the lowest DA score (28). This quarter, Eye Emporium has increased their score to 29, while Black & Lizars has decreased their score to 25 (making them the UK optician to watch this currently). Monitoring domain authority progress helps refine the strategy over time. Tools like Moz or Ahrefs can track improvements and highlight areas to strengthen.

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. We’ve noted that the cost-of-living crisis has impacted traffic levels in many sectors, with consumers putting off purchases of treats and expendables for later dates. However, as opticians provide essential items, we’d expect brands to be able to maintain performance year on year, even if they may be seeing a reduction in traffic to high end ranges, and more traffic to lower to mid-range products.

Six UK opticians reported a drop in organic traffic on desktop, with Eye Emporium flagging the biggest decrease (-49%). On mobile, 9 UK opticians saw a reduction in organic traffic, with Black & Lizars reporting the biggest loss on this device (-77%). Different types of content perform better on different devices. Visual or short-form content suits mobile users, while detailed reports or long articles attract desktop visitors. These preferences create variations in organic traffic.

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. For opticians with high street branches, ‘Local Pack’ results are a useful way of dominating SERPs and ensuring they can capture attention from users still looking for an in-person experience.

Specsavers remains at the top spot for the most Universal Search appearances (31,197) — a decrease from 56,329 in our previous audit. The majority of these appearances came from ‘people also ask’ (15,100).

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. Online opticians may find it particularly useful to optimise for keywords showing both high-conversion intent, and information-seeking phrases that may be more often searched at the consideration phase.

Specsavers remains at the top spot for the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (19,593) and is now also the company to beat for positions 4–10 (26,600). Longtail keywords allow websites to cover a range of niche topics that broad terms might overlook, which helps attract diverse audiences and build authority within specific areas.

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. Facebook ads provide an opportunity for opticians to quickly reach audiences with offers, new lines, and key products they’re looking to push.

We’ve included screenshots of Scrivens Opticians & Hearing Care’s sponsored Facebook posts. This UK optician should keep in mind that more isn’t always better when it comes to written content, as this can be off-putting for users to read in such a fast-paced environment like social media.

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. Though Facebook advertising can be used to boost visibility for brands on the platform, having a strong portfolio of content to draw upon helps build a connection with your audience, as well as providing helpful content that guides them down the conversion funnel.

Specsavers secured the most Facebook Likes (379,200) and the most Instagram followers (74,900). Facebook was the most popular social media platforms of all brands. Vision Express received the highest total engagement rate (3,943) and the highest average engagement (179).

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. Online opticians should be particularly mindful of having an accessible site, as being poorly prepared for visually impaired users could not only lose customer confidence but look very poor for their brand!

In our previous audit, Eye Emporium received the most accessibility alerts (37). This quarter, Eye Emporium remains the UK optician with the most accessibility alerts, though they’ve since slightly reduced their amount to 35. If basic website usability is neglected, visitors may doubt the brand’s commitment to quality elsewhere, and this can harm both reputation and customer loyalty. 

GET THE FULL 70-PAGE Q4 2025 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.