Quarterly Commerce Marketing Benchmarks for Personal Care Brands
Overview and KPIs
Personal Care brands operate in a routine-driven, replenishment-focused category where shoppers move between research, discovery, and purchase across digital touchpoints. Understanding when, where, and how shoppers express purchase intent is critical to capturing demand, optimizing media spend, and driving repeat purchases.
MikMak’s quarterly Personal Care commerce marketing benchmarks provide a data-backed view of brand media trends, retailers displayed, and shopper intent across key global markets, helping brands contextualize performance and refine 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 Personal Care Commerce Marketing Highlights
- Accelerated Q1 re-engagement: Shopper engagement in the US and UK was more heavily concentrated in January than in the previous year, signaling a faster post-holiday recovery.
- The search dominance pivot: While paid social drove discovery in Q4, Q1 saw a strategic shift toward search-driven shopper traffic. In Canada, search accounted for nearly 90% of Purchase Intent Clicks, while Google surged to a 42.1% share in the US.
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Pharmacy and specialty strength: Marketplace dominance moderated as shoppers returned to specialized Health retailers. Boots took the #1 spot in the UK, while the combined share of pharmacy chains in Canada reached nearly 40%.
United States
Shopper engagement was more evenly distributed throughout Q1 2026 in the US, even as March continued to lead in total shopper traffic volume, with a 45.5% share of Purchase Intent Clicks of the quarter.
Conversion rates normalize as shoppers settle into new year routines
While owned sites remain the primary destination for lower-funnel shoppers, brand websites saw a Purchase Intent Rate of 24.2% in Q1, a decrease from the 30.9% recorded in Q4. Media intent followed a similar trend, adjusting from 6.3% to 3.6%. This shift suggests a potential reduction in advertising investment following the holiday peak.
However, commerce-enabling every path to purchase remains critical during this "routine-setting" phase. Capturing shoppers as they establish new year habits is essential for influencing long-term loyalty and repeat purchase behavior at scale.
Search and video gain share as media strategy pivots
While paid social remained the top shopper traffic source at 26.6% in Q1, its share decreased significantly from 41.6% in Q4. This enabled paid search (23.4%) and organic search (21.3%) to capture a larger portion of shoppers actively researching. Paid video remained a stable and vital pillar of the media mix, maintaining a 26.1% share.
At the platform level, Google surged to 42.1% of Purchase Intent Clicks of the quarter (up from 29.1%), while Meta fell to 19.4% (from 37.2%). This shift reflects a strategic reallocation of brand spend from social-led discovery toward search.
Mass and pharmacy retailers lead Personal Care purchase paths
In Q1 2026, Walmart moved into the top spot with 35% of Purchase Intent Clicks, followed closely by Amazon at 34.8%. This near-equal split between the leaders highlights the category’s heavy reliance on mass-market convenience and value.
Target maintained its position as a strong third at 15.2%, while health-adjacent pharmacy retailers CVS (4.8%) and Walgreens (4.4%) continued to provide essential reach for immediate, routine needs.
Ensuring seamless deep-linking to both pure-play eCommerce and omnichannel giants is critical to capturing demand across all major purchasing missions.
Canada
In Q1 2026, shopper activity in Canada followed nearly the exact trajectory seen in 2025. January accounted for 21.5% of the quarter's shopper traffic, while February and March grew to 35.4% and 43.1%, respectively.
Conversion likelihood stabilizes following the year-end peak
Brand websites saw a Purchase Intent Rate of 21.2%, a decrease from the 32.3% reached in Q4. This suggests that while owned sites remain a vital destination for lower-funnel shoppers, the early months of the year involve more "top-of-funnel" browsing and routine assessment than the high-intent buying period of late 2025.
Media intent followed a similar trajectory, declining from 5.3% to 3.2% in Q1. Despite this adjustment, media remains a critical engine for discovery in the Canadian market. Because many shoppers bypass brand sites to move directly from media to their preferred retailer, commerce-enabling these touchpoints is essential for capturing demand at the moment of inspiration and building a foundation for repeat-purchase behavior throughout the year.
Search dominates media-driven intent
While paid social drove 31.6% of traffic in Q4, its share plummeted to 2.3% in Q1. In its place, search (organic and paid) captured nearly 90% of all media-driven traffic, reflecting a strategic shift in brand investment toward lower-funnel discovery.
At the platform level, Google solidified its dominance with an 84.1% share of Purchase Intent Clicks (up from 57.9%), while Meta’s influence receded from 34.7% to just 2.9%. TikTok also fell from the 3rd to 5th position this quarter.
Retailer mix reflects mass and pharmacy leadership
Walmart remained the top destination for Personal Care Purchase Intent Clicks in Canada at 27.4%, though its dominance decreased from 39.0% in Q4. Amazon held steady in the second position with a 21.4% share.
The most notable trend was the collective rise of pharmacy-led retailers: Shoppers Drug Mart increased its share to 17.6%, while Jean Coutu more than doubled its influence to 14.6%, and London Drugs rose to 7.0%.
The combined share of the top three pharmacy chains now accounts for nearly 40% of all clicks, emphasizing the need for brands to maintain a strong, commerce-enabled presence across both high-volume marketplaces and specialized Health retailers.
United Kingdom
January emerged as the quarter’s strongest month for shopper traffic, a notable shift from Q1 2025. This front-loading suggests UK shoppers re-engaged with Personal Care routines earlier than usual, likely driven by "New Year, New Me" wellness trends and seasonal health resets.
Brand websites capture conversions, media fuels early discovery
Brand websites maintained a solid Purchase Intent Rate of 20.3%, a slight adjustment from the 22.2% recorded in Q4. This consistency confirms that owned channels remain the premier destination for high-intent UK shoppers.
Media intent moved from 3.4% to 2.6% in Q1. While this represents a seasonal dip, media remains the essential engine for discovery in the UK market. Since many shoppers bypass brand sites to move directly from social or search to their preferred retailer, commerce-enabling these early-stage touchpoints is vital for capturing demand at the moment of inspiration.
Search remains dominant as social investment grows
In Q1 2026, the UK media mix became more balanced. While organic search remained the leading channel at 58.7%, its share declined from 79.8% in Q4, allowing paid search (26.0%) and paid social (14.0%) to grow, with social rising sharply from 3.5%.
At the platform level, Google remained dominant with 83.5% of Purchase Intent Clicks, while Meta increased its influence to 12.5% (up from 2.9%). This suggests UK brands are increasingly combining high-intent search with social discovery to engage shoppers as they reset routines in the new year.
Boots takes the lead for shopper traffic
In Q1 2026, Boots overtook Amazon, capturing a 31.1% share of Purchase Intent Clicks. Amazon followed in second at 29.8%, while Superdrug (9.0%), Asda (6.0%), and Tesco (5.9%) all saw increased shares.
This shift suggests that post-holiday, UK shoppers are prioritizing specialty Health and Beauty destinations and routine grocery runs. The combined 40.1% share of Boots and Superdrug underscores the importance of a strong presence in expert-led retail environments alongside marketplace convenience.
Key Takeaways
- Optimize shopping experiences on brand websites: Brand websites continue to convert at high rates. These sites must be optimized as always-on conversion centers, providing qualified shoppers with frictionless paths to their preferred retailers to capitalize on high-intent visits.
- Enable commerce across the fragmented funnel: While Google and Meta lead, the growth of TikTok and even DuckDuckGo suggests the Personal Care journey is diversifying. Enabling shoppable touchpoints across all discovery environments is critical for capturing incremental demand.
- Balance marketplace volume with specialist authority: While Amazon and Walmart remain volume giants, the rise of Boots, Shoppers Drug Mart, and Jean Coutu highlights a preference for expert-led retail. Brands should ensure deep-linking strategies balance marketplace convenience with the loyalty-driven authority of specialty pharmacy chains.
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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