Frivolous spending is out, cocooning is back – UK consumers are clicking less but buying more

Analysis of a giant cache of nearly 70 million email marketing messages reveals how consumer behaviour has shifted dramatically from discovery to intent in 2026, as people invest in their homes and focus on reducing their bills – turning sectors such as home improvement, finance and insurance into a new goldmine of high-value leads.

The data, from digital marketing platform esbconnect, lays bare how UK purchasing behaviour is reverting to cocooning patterns familiar from the Covid years – and shows that while consumers are clicking less frequently than before, the intent behind those clicks is significantly stronger.

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.

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The data, which details 67 million marketing messages, 200k+ consumer clicks and 17,584 qualified leads, 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.

Suzanna Chaplin, CEO at esbconnect, says: “Consumers are becoming more selective about what they engage with, but far more likely to convert when they do. In other words, the internet is moving from a discovery economy to an intent economy. Clicks are becoming rarer, but far more valuable, and brands that capture consumers when they are actively researching a purchase massively outperform those chasing cheap traffic.”

Deeper data insights by sector include:

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,” says Chaplin.

Financial services, utilities and telecoms drive 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 last 12 months,” says Chaplin. “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 increased 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.

“There is still demand here, and people are spending, but you are better off getting consumers into your first-party database and nurturing, rather than focus on pushing a sale now,” says Chaplin. “Consideration periods have lengthened, and brands need to work on their own brand awareness to ensure they are front of mind for when they do convert.”

About esbconnect:

esbconnect helps brands use email like they use paid media – to acquire new customers at scale.

By turning anonymous consumers into addressable audiences, esbconnect enables brands to reach their next best customers through one of the UK’s largest opted-in email communities, spanning 17 million consumers.

As cookie pools shrink and acquisition costs rise, brands can no longer rely on rented audiences alone. esbconnect gives brands a way to take back control, build first-party data, and actively drive new customer growth.

Powered by over 440 data attributes, including real-time inbox behaviour, brands can identify, target and convert high-intent audiences across email, social, programmatic and offline channels. Its proprietary Inbox Intelligence reveals what consumers are engaging with in their inbox, allowing brands to reach people at the moment of intent.

At the centre of this is Optivo – the UK’s first privacy-first, email-based retargeting solution. Optivo identifies anonymous website visitors, matches them to opted-in email profiles (excluding existing customers), and re-engages them through a measurable email journey – all without cookies and fully GDPR compliant.

The result is simple: more customers you can identify, more data you own, and a more efficient acquisition engine.

Trusted by over 600 brands including Clarks, Tails and HelloFresh, esbconnect partners with brands to reduce reliance on paid media, unlock new scale, and build sustainable growth.