Quarterly Commerce Marketing Benchmarks for Toys and Games Brands
Overview and KPIs
Toys and Games brands operate in a highly seasonal, gift-driven category where shoppers move quickly between discovery, research, and purchase. Understanding when, where, and how shoppers express purchase intent is essential to capturing demand, optimizing media spend, and maximizing conversions.
MikMak’s quarterly Toys and Games 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 Toys and Games Commerce Marketing Highlights
- Social pull-back shifts journeys toward search: Q1 data revealed a search-dominant path to purchase, likely driven by reduced investment in social shoppable media following Q4. This shift was most pronounced in Canada and France, where Google effectively became the primary discovery layer for shopper journeys.
- Organic search becomes the default discovery engine: As paid “push” advertising declined, shoppers increasingly relied on search to navigate purchase decisions. Brands maintaining strong visibility in Google captured disproportionate intent across markets.
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US remains the conversion outlier: Unlike other markets, the US continues to see media outperform owned channels, with media Purchase Intent Rates exceeding those on brand websites. This reinforces the faster path-to-purchase driven by social-led discovery in the market.
United States
Media continues to outperform owned channels in the US, reinforcing the Toys and Games category’s highly responsive, impulse-driven nature.
Media Purchase Intent Rates reached 34.1%, up from 30.4% in Q4, significantly higher than brand websites at 27.1%. This confirms that shoppers often convert directly from commerce-enabled media without visiting brand sites.
Search gains ground as social normalizes
While paid social remains the dominant traffic driver at 55.1%, its share moderated from 66.7% in Q4 as brands rebalanced their spend. This shift allowed organic search to double its share of traffic, rising to 29.9% (up from 15.8%).
On the platform side, Google saw a significant jump to 27.2% share. As the impulse-driven browsing on Meta cooled, brand focus likely pivoted toward intent-based search to capture shoppers looking for specific toys, games, or collectibles.
Amazon strengthens its lead as mass retailers dominate
Amazon increased its dominance in Q1, capturing 39.9% of Purchase Intent Clicks (up from 35.5%). This growth highlights the shift toward marketplace convenience for specific post-holiday searches.
Meanwhile, Walmart (22.8%) and Target (22.0%) remain in a dead heat for the second spot, reinforcing the "Big Three" as the essential destinations among Toy shoppers engaging with MikMak Commerce-enabled brand content.
Canada
In Q1 2026, brand website Purchase Intent Rates rose to 22.0% (up from 18.2%), showing higher decisiveness among owned-channel visitors.
Conversely, media Purchase Intent Rates moderated to 3.3% from a Q4 peak of 21.2%, likely reflecting a post-festive shift in brand investment as paid “push” advertising normalized.
Search dominates as paid activations retreat
Organic search became the primary driver of shopper traffic in Canada, rising to an 89.1% share of Purchase Intent Clicks (up from 56.7% in Q4). This surge, alongside a sharp decline in paid social from 42.4% to 8.9%, suggests a pull-back in “push” marketing following Q4.
While Meta (59.9%) and Google (32.9%) remain the leading platforms, the concentration of traffic in organic search indicates Canadian Toy brands may be missing incremental sales opportunities by not maintaining a consistent baseline of commerce-enabled media throughout the quarter.
Mass retailers capture the bulk of shopper traffic
Amazon and Walmart together account for 92.1% of all retailer clicks this quarter from MikMak Commerce-enabled brand content.
Following the holiday season, Canadian shoppers increasingly defaulted to these two retailers for convenience and breadth of inventory. This reinforces their role as the primary destinations for capturing post-holiday demand.
It is important to note that retailer performance also reflects factors such as product availability and brand-led promotions.
United Kingdom
Following the Q4 peak, UK Toys and Games purchase intent returned to baseline levels. Brand website Purchase Intent Rates moderated to 16.5% (from 20.8%), while media rates stabilized at 5.3% (from 8.4%). This contraction reflects a strategic pull-back in paid activations as the market transitioned out of the seasonal gifting window.
Pull-back in paid promotion drives organic reliance
Organic search became the dominant shopper traffic source at 63.3% (up from 29.4%), likely driven by a reduction in conversion-led marketing. Paid social declined to 13.5% (from 26.7%), while paid search fell to 22.3% (from 36.7%). While this shift may lower immediate cost-per-click, it also signals missed opportunities to capture incremental shoppers who are not yet actively searching for the brand.
At the platform level, Google consolidated its dominance at 79.8%. Meta declined to 13.1% (from 23.6%), while TikTok (3.7%) entered the top three. Overall, reduced social intent suggests brands are increasingly relying on in-market demand rather than sparking earlier-stage discovery.
Amazon and Smyths Toys lead shopper traffic
Amazon remains the primary destination for UK toy shoppers, though its share moderated to 36.2% (down from 40.9% in Q4). In contrast, Smyths Toys saw a notable lift, rising to 19.9% and overtaking Argos (15.4%) for second place.
Retailer performance also reflects factors such as product availability and brand-led promotions.
France
Owned channels maintain stability while media intent rises
In Q1 2026, brand websites stabilized at a 27.7% Purchase Intent Rate, slightly down from 29.0%. This remains the strongest closing channel for qualified shoppers.
Conversely, media intent rose to 8.9% (from 3.7%), indicating strong efficiency in media-driven campaigns. However, the overall pull-back in social investment represents a missed opportunity to capture discovery-led audiences.
Strategic pull-back in paid promotion drives organic reliance
France saw a sharp shift toward search-driven behavior, with organic search reaching a 74.6% share of shopper traffic and Google dominating. As conversion-led marketing likely declined, shoppers increasingly defaulted to independent navigation.
With Meta and TikTok shares of traffic declining, this suggests brands may be missing opportunities to engage shoppers through shoppable media.
Marketplaces and mass retailers lead
The retail mix moved toward generalist giants, with the top three capturing nearly 70% of shopper intent. Carrefour led at a 28.1% share of Purchase Intent Clicks, followed by Amazon at 24.2% and CDiscount at 16.2%.
This concentration shows that without active media steering traffic to specialty stores, shoppers gravitate toward the convenience and inventory depth of marketplaces and mass retailers.
Key Takeaways
- Rebuild social as a shoppable discovery layer: Reduced social investment created a visibility gap across multiple markets. Always-on, shoppable social is key to driving early-stage discovery and reducing over-reliance on search.
- Prioritize search visibility at scale: With organic search dominating in Canada and France, SEO and retail search optimization (titles, content, imagery) are critical to capturing independent shopper intent.
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Balance retail concentration with diversification: Heavy reliance on Amazon and Walmart reflects demand concentration in low-media environments. A broader retailer mix helps mitigate concentration risk and improve category reach.
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.
