REBEL has been shortlisted four times at the UK Search Awards 2026, across three client campaigns. For an independent agency up against the biggest names in UK search, we'll take that. Winners are announced on 25 November.
The UK Search Awards are the benchmark for search marketing in this country, judged by an independent panel of industry experts. This year's 2026 shortlist reads like a who's who of UK search, and REBEL is on it four times.
What makes us proudest is the spread. The four nominations cover a non-profit PPC account, a B2B creative experiment and an AI search programme for a specialist retailer. Three completely different briefs, three completely different clients, one way of working.
Every one of these campaigns is already written up on this site, numbers and all. Here's what the judges saw.
Our Google Ads work for the Royal Society of Chemistry is shortlisted in two categories: Best Use of Search, Third Sector / Not for Profit and Best Low Budget Campaign (PPC).
The brief was the one every marketer dreads. The budget was cut by 60%, and the conversions still needed to come. Instead of shrinking everything evenly and hoping, we rebuilt the account around what actually drove publishing conversions, and kept 70% of them on 40% of the spend.
Non-profit budgets are hard-won, and this campaign is proof that a smaller budget forces better decisions rather than smaller ambitions. The full story is in the case study.
Our creative testing work for Informa is a finalist for Most Innovative Campaign (PPC).
This is the campaign where changing a single word in a display ad lifted click-through rate by 83%. Not a new platform, not a new budget, not a new audience. One word, chosen deliberately, tested properly.
It's also the work that became a product. The thinking behind it now runs as our Semiotics Engine, a structured way of testing what your ads mean rather than just how they look. The judges called the category “most innovative”, and we'd argue the innovation here is treating language as a performance lever instead of an afterthought.
Our Loco Skates programme is a finalist in the Best AI Search Optimisation Campaign category, brand new for 2026.
That newness matters. The industry has spent two years debating whether AI search is real. The UK Search Awards creating a category for it, and an independent specialist retailer making the shortlist alongside national brands, suggests the debate is over.
The campaign took authority Loco Skates had already earned on YouTube and made it legible to the systems behind ChatGPT, Gemini and Google's AI Overviews. The result was a 774% year-on-year increase in LLM-driven revenue. If you're wondering what AI search work actually looks like in practice, the case study is the place to start.
Winners are announced at the awards ceremony on Wednesday 25 November 2026. Between now and then, we'll be doing what we always do: running the accounts that got us here.
A shortlist is a team achievement. Thank you to the Royal Society of Chemistry, Informa and Loco Skates for trusting us with work bold enough to enter, and to every REBEL who built it.
And if you'd like the kind of work that ends up on shortlists, you know where we are.
Defying a 60% budget cut: 70% of conversions kept on 40% of the spend.
Read the case study →
The power of words in B2B ads: +83% CTR from changing one word.
Read the case study →
Turning YouTube authority into AI search visibility: +774% LLM-driven revenue.
Read the case study →This is what giving a damn looks like in practice. Tell us what's not working.
