The rise of the high-intent internet – why UK consumers are clicking less but buying more
By Suzanna Chaplin, CEO and founder, esbconnect
The headlines look a little like a Covid flashback:
Consumers in 2026 are investing in their home life, nailing down their bills and securing their future. Amid economic uncertainty, frivolous spending is out, but home improvement and domestic financial products are booming. We’re staying in and cocooning, planning for the long term, and shopping with intent.
These insights have a feeling of 2020 about them, but they come straight from our collective fingertips, based on analysis of 67 million email marketing messages from recent campaigns we have run. Across a mix of verticals, these generated over 215,000 consumer clicks and 18,000 qualified leads – not to mention sales or other actions.
This is pure first-party data that captures people in action: requesting a quote for a kitchen, car finance or a new boiler; intentionally subscribing to a mailing list or database while considering new windows, life insurance or a private health policy.
The picture shows how UK purchasing behaviour is reverting to patterns familiar from the lockdown years, as we batten down the hatches and shift our discretionary spend towards sorting our lives out, rather than high-street shopping or nights out. As we invest in our homes and focus on reducing our bills, sectors such as home improvement, finance and insurance have become a new goldmine of high-value leads.
The high-intent internet
But it tells us a lot more, too – about the changing nature of shopping and the way we use the internet. We can see, for instance, that the internet is moving from a discovery economy to an intent economy, in which consumers are becoming more selective about what they engage with, but far more likely to convert when they do.
Clicks are becoming rarer, but a lot more meaningful and valuable – and brands that can attract the interest of those who are actively researching a purchase hugely outperform those chasing cheap traffic.
This is the high-intent internet – though if you say that out loud, you might conclude we’re going to need a better name for it.
The data highlights three major new trends in digital marketing:
1. High-intent channels are outperforming broad-reach advertising
Brands targeting consumers when they are already researching purchases are seeing significantly higher conversion rates.
2. Lead generation is once again proving its value
Sectors focused on driving leads – such as home improvement, finance, and insurance – are generating higher-value customers than ecommerce channels that are simply trying to push a sale. Click-to-conversion rates are increasing by between 2x and 5x in many cases, showing the value in reaching customers early in their journey.
3. Quality traffic is replacing cheap traffic
The data suggests the era of high-volume, low-quality acquisition may finally be at an end, as intent increases and clicks become rarer but more valuable.
The figures also demonstrate that, in a zero-click era, other forms of engagement are clearly influencing sales, with increasing numbers of consumers responding to messages by going directly to brands’ own sites.
About 60% of leads/sales in the data cache were generated via emails that were delivered or opened, but not clicked. That shows the power of email as a brand awareness tool and reflects the fact that the click isn’t the only engagement metric that influences sales – perhaps due to the dual-screen nature of our browsing habits.
Email as an acquisition machine
In the face of these trends, brands are using email like they use paid media – to acquire new customers at scale. As cookie pools shrink and acquisition costs rise, brands can no longer rely on rented audiences alone. Email-based methods give them a way to take back control, build first-party data, and actively drive new customer growth.
Powered by hundreds of data attributes, including real-time inbox behaviour, brands can identify, target and convert high-intent audiences across email, social, programmatic and offline channels. On an entirely consensual basis, we know what consumers are engaging with in their inbox, allowing brands to reach people at the moment of intent.
Email-based retargeting even allows brands to identify anonymous website visitors, match them to opted-in email profiles (excluding existing customers), and re-engage them through a measurable email journey – all cookie-free and fully GDPR-compliant.
The sectors that are hot right now
We will inevitably see more movement as economies and geopolitical events shift, but for now, the data allows us to observe several clear themes:
- Home improvements are dominating revenue
With the housing market suppressed, consumers are boosting the long-term value of their homes and nesting in the face of difficult times. Their engagement goes well beyond browsing – they are booking design appointments and investing in major home upgrades. Consumers may be cutting back on smaller purchases, but when it comes to improving their homes, the intent is extremely strong.
- Financial services, utilities and telecoms are driving high-volume lead generation
While home improvement generated the highest value leads, financial services brands delivered some of the highest lead volumes, with conversion rates up by between 2x and 5x for products including car finance checks, life insurance/PMI, mortgage and remortgage offers, boiler and energy switches and broadband:
Click-to-conversion rates for a lead have doubled in the past 12 months. Consumers are actively trying to reduce monthly household bills by focusing on remortgaging, energy switching and broadband switching – and the ongoing global situation has only accelerated this.
- Ecommerce brands generate engagement – but lower value
Some of the highest lead volumes came from ecommerce brands, but the time to conversion has increased – indicating a hyper-competitive market for consumer spend. That means that although there is still demand here, and people are spending, brands may be better off getting consumers into their first-party database and nurturing them, rather than focusing on pushing a sale now. Consideration periods have lengthened, and brands need to work on their own brand awareness to ensure they are front of mind when they do convert.
The fact that 67 million marketing messages can deliver all these insights is a testament to the central role email now plays in our marketing ecosystem. First-party data is both the lens that allows us to see these trends and the method by which marketers are able to capitalise on them.
That might not make the world any less troubling, but for brands, at least, it makes it a little more navigable.
Also published in: Modern Retail
