The Q1 2025 benchmarking report for UK train operators has just been published. Learn how the top 12 UK train operators perform across the digital space.

The latest Q1 2025 benchmarking report for UK train operators has just been published. It covers the largest 12 UK train operators, including Trainline, Avanti West Coast, Great Western Railway (GWR), CrossCountry Trains, Northern, Chiltern Railways, East Midlands Railway, Greater Anglia, London North Eastern Railway, ScotRail, Southern Railway, and West Midlands Trains.

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 train operators to win brand exposure locally, online views, and ticket orders. The report highlights quick wins that will improve sales 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 2025 WINNERS LEADERBOARD

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

Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's best and poorest-performing UK train operators 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 retailer 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.

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 Q1 2025, the average monthly budget wastage across these UK train operators was £4,914, 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 £48 . 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, both Trainline and London North Eastern Railway have the lowest monthly cost-per-click (CPC) at £1, and Chiltern Railways has the highest at £419.

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, CrossCountry Trains has the lowest estimate monthly ad spend at £248, and Trainline has the highest at £147,000.

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. For train operators, having an easy-to-navigate site is essential for consumers looking to purchase tickets, and particular care should be taken of the pathways to key pages, such as train times, sales, and other key feature pages that customers may need to access.

In our previous report, West Midlands Train flagged 1,546 4xx errors. This quarter, West Midlands Train has slightly reduced their 4xx errors to 1,259, though they’re still reporting the highest errors of all brands.

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. Train operators need to ensure their customers have a positive experience on their mobile site to instil high levels of trust and ensure customers are able to quickly access the information they need and make purchases while on the go.

In our last report, London North Eastern Railway reported the slowest mobile site speed (13). This quarter, London North Eastern Railway has slightly increased their mobile site speed to 17, though they’re still the train operator with the slowest site speed. All brands should aim for a minimum of 50% for their mobile site speed to ensure they’re enhancing the web experience for users and decreasing bounce rates.

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 is not gained through sponsored ads. Train operators should be continually pushing to improve their DA, they can do this by collaborating with and outreaching to high-authoritative companies within their niche to build 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. The DA score for this quarter ranged between 84 and 67, with West Midlands Trains flagging the lowest DA score of all train operators. Brands can take steps to improve their DA score by uploading original content that encourages other brands to backlink to them.

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. For train operators, they should be optimising across a full range of awareness, consideration, and conversion keywords, ensuring they have multiple touchpoints for customers as they travel further through their decision-making process.

Two of the train operators reported a decrease in organic traffic on desktop, with Chiltern Railways seeing the biggest loss (-16%). Also, 2 train operators saw a decrease in traffic on mobile, with London North Eastern Railway receiving the biggest decrease (-33%).

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. Train operators 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' results.

Trainline continues to hold the top spot for the most overall Universal Search appearances (31,248), with the majority of these coming from ‘images’ (15,500). On the other hand, Chiltern Railways reported the fewest overall Universal Search appearances (2.015).

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 train operators could be using such as ‘buy train tickets’, ‘buy train tickets online, or ‘ticket deals across country’. Though these may have lower monthly search volumes, the high purchase intent makes them high-value and an important piece of your keyword strategy.

Northern secured the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (11,449) and the most for positions 4–10 (12,076). On the other hand, Chiltern Railways reported the fewest appearances for position 3 (1,031) and positions 4–10 (1,724). While CrossCountry Trains is further down the leaderboard for position 3, they secured a healthy number of appearances for positions 4–10 (7,036).

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. For train operators, Facebook ads are an opportunity to ensure customers see the latest deals and ticket availability.

We’ve included examples of Great Western Railway (GWR)’s sponsored posts. This UK train operator included vertical images/videos, demonstrating that they’re considering mobile users.

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. 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 ticket deals and availability.

Trainline has the most Facebook Likes (332,900) and the most Instagram followers (84,700). Brands should approach social media as an opportunity to engage with their current customers and as a way to create branding to reach a wider audience.

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, even subconsciously, brands lose customer interest as they turn to other online appliance brands that can better meet their accessibility requirements.

In our previous audit, Avanti West Coast reported 169 accessibility alerts. This quarter, Avanti West Coast has reduced their alerts by 1 point to 168, and they’re still the train operator with the most alerts.

GET THE FULL 70-PAGE Q1 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.

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