Quarterly Commerce Marketing Benchmarks for Food and Beverage Brands
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Overview and KPIs
Food and Beverage brands operate in a highly competitive, always-on category where shoppers frequently move between inspiration, research, and purchase across digital touchpoints. Understanding when, where, and how shoppers express purchase intent is critical to driving conversion and maximizing return on media investment.
MikMak’s quarterly Food and Beverage commerce marketing benchmarks provide a data-backed view of paid and organic brand media trends, retailers displayed, and shopper intent across key global markets, helping brands contextualize performance and optimize commerce-enabled activations across owned and paid channels.
This Q1 benchmark analysis is based on MikMak Shopping Index* data from January 1 to March 31, 2026.
The following proprietary MikMak Commerce KPIs were used:
- Purchase Intent Clicks
Measures high-intent shopper traffic by counting the number of times a shopper clicks through to at least one retailer during a single session within MikMak Commerce-enabled brand content. - Purchase Intent Rate
Measures the percentage of shoppers who click through to at least one retailer within MikMak Commerce-enabled brand content, signaling a strong conversion likelihood.
Q1 Food and Beverage Commerce Marketing Highlights
- Q1 momentum starts early: 2026 data shows a front-loaded start in North America and a mid-quarter surge in the UK, signaling faster post-holiday recovery in shopper engagement.
- Shift from social to search and video: Search and YouTube became dominant traffic drivers, reinforcing the role of “pull” marketing and visual discovery post-Q4.
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Unlocking the shoppable media gap: Significant opportunities remain, especially in Europe, to connect high-intent discovery with direct multi-retailer checkout options through shoppable media.
United States
Food and Beverage shoppers engaged earlier in Q1 2026, with January and February gaining share versus last year. Seasonal moments like the Super Bowl and Valentine’s Day continue to anchor Q1 demand, but in 2026, shopper engagement built earlier in the quarter, signaling a faster post-holiday reactivation compared to 2025.
Strong conversion potential on brand websites
Purchase Intent Rates reached 28.6% on brand websites in Q1 2026, up from 25.8% in Q4, reinforcing the high-conversion potential on owned channels.
Media continues to drive scale earlier in the journey. Media Purchase Intent Rates rose to 3.3% (from 2.9%), showing that brands are capturing intent during discovery and building more valuable first-party audiences for downstream conversion.
Search and organic discovery lead post-holiday shopper traffic
Organic search (33.4%) and YouTube (33.1%) led shopper traffic in Q1 2026. This marks a strategic evolution from Q4 2025, when holiday advertising spend pushed paid social (34.0%) and Meta (32.1%) to the top.
Shopper traffic shifted toward “pull” channels, making a strong commerce-enabled search and video strategy essential to sustain engagement beyond peak advertising spend periods.
Walmart holds steady while Amazon closes the gap with Target
Walmart maintained the largest share of retailer clicks at 27.2%. Amazon grew from 8.1% to 10.7%, narrowing the gap with Target (11.6%). Kroger moved into the #4 position, overtaking Instacart.
Canada
Shopper behavior shifted meaningfully in Q1 2026, with engagement peaking mid-quarter instead of late. February alone drove 54.2% of total quarterly Purchase Intent Clicks to retailers, signaling a concentrated surge in shopper demand.
Media drives traffic, brand websites lead conversion likelihood
Purchase Intent Rates reached 16.3% on brand websites in Q1 2026, slightly down from 16.8% in Q4, but still reflecting the strong conversion potential of high-intent audiences.
Media Purchase Intent Rates averaged 0.9% (vs. 1.1% in Q4), reflecting post-holiday budget normalization. This suggests brands are driving more traffic to their own websites rather than retailer shopping options, reinforcing the opportunity to scale shoppable media to more effectively capture intent and unlock incremental sales earlier in the shopper journey.
Video and search lead discovery
Paid video (35.0%) and organic search (29.6%) led shopper traffic in Q1 2026, overtaking paid social as the top driver during the Q4 period.
As investment in paid social declined, traffic shifted toward video and search, underscoring the importance of a strong commerce-enabled content and search strategy to sustain engagement outside peak periods.
Walmart leads as Amazon gains share
Walmart led with 21.8% of retailer clicks, down from its Q4 peak but still dominant. Amazon moved into the #2 position at a 8.9% share of shopper traffic, while Real Canadian Superstore and Metro maintained strong placements. This reflects the importance of traditional Grocery retailers in Canada’s omnichannel landscape.
United Kingdom
Shopper demand peaked mid-quarter in Q1 2026, with February driving 36.6% of total retailer clicks of the period, overtaking March, which led in 2025.
Brand websites lead conversion likelihood
Purchase Intent Rates surged to 31.4% on brand websites in Q1 2026, up from 22.8% in Q4, marking one of the strongest conversion performances across markets.
Media Purchase Intent Rates also increased to 1.1% (from 0.8%), indicating that commerce-enabled campaigns are capturing more demand earlier in the shopper journey. Scaling shoppable media, rather than driving traffic solely to brand websites, would enable brands to more effectively capture intent and unlock incremental sales.
Search dominates a “pull-driven” journey
Organic search led shopper traffic at 52.9%, highlighting a “pull-heavy” path to purchase.
Google remained dominant (50.5%), while YouTube and emerging platforms like Pinterest (each at 5.8%) gained traction, signaling growing reliance on visual and video-led discovery.
Tesco expands its lead as Grocery competition intensifies
Tesco expanded its lead to 34.2% of retailer clicks (up from 26.1% in Q4) from MikMak Commerce-enabled brand content. Asda moved into the #2 position at 16.8%, overtaking Sainsbury’s.
Retailer performance continues to reflect real-time factors like product availability and brand-led promotions.
France
Shopper engagement built steadily throughout Q1 2026, with March driving 39.2% of total retailer clicks of the quarter. This consistent month-over-month growth marks a shift from 2025’s more evenly distributed activity and reflects rising demand heading into the spring and pre-Easter period.
Brand websites capture high-intent conversion
Purchase Intent Rates rose to 34.7% on brand websites in Q1 2026, up from 27.8% in Q4.
Media Purchase Intent Rates declined to 0.7% (from 1.8%), reflecting post-holiday spend normalization. This gap highlights a clear opportunity: brands can capture more high-intent demand by strengthening shoppable media pathways earlier in the shopper journey.
Search dominates media-driven intent
Search drove the vast majority of media-sourced Purchase Intent Clicks, with Google accounting for a 89% share of shopper traffic. Social contributed minimally, suggesting brands prioritized driving traffic to owned sites over enabling direct, multi-retailer checkout options.
However, many shoppers bypass brand websites and go straight to retailers. Without commerce-enabled media, brands lose visibility into these journeys, limiting conversion opportunities and measurable ROI.
Grocery leaders strengthen position
Carrefour led with 19.6% of retailer clicks from MikMak Commerce-enabled brand content, followed closely by Intermarché (17.7%), with both gaining share quarter over quarter.
E.Leclerc Drive (9.4%) continued to grow, reinforcing the importance of click-and-collect and omnichannel fulfillment. Amazon entered the top five at 5.9%, signaling that French shoppers are expanding beyond traditional grocers for select categories.
Key Takeaways
- Optimize owned channels for conversion: Brand websites are seeing high Purchase Intent Rates (up to 34.7% in France). Optimize these high-converting environments with frictionless, always-on shopping experiences tailored to consumer preferences.
- Unlock more opportunities with shoppable media: Drive qualified traffic to retailers, gather insights on shopper engagement and preferences along the path to purchase, and drive incremental sales while building more robust first-party audiences.
- Leverage a multi-retailer strategy: As shoppers move between traditional Grocery leaders (like Walmart, Tesco, or Carrefour) and pure-play eCommerce (Amazon), brands must offer a diversified mix of retailer checkout options to capture intent wherever the consumer prefers to shop.
Curious to see how MikMak helps brands connect marketing with commerce and unlock first-party shopper data? Schedule a demo today.
*The MikMak Shopping Index was developed to provide a standardized set of metrics, methodology, and benchmarks to help drive brands’ business results and strategy. It is a collection of key eCommerce KPIs from hundreds of brands, over 250 channels, and more than 8,000 retailer integrations worldwide, to understand consumer online shopping behavior.
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