Heated Competition Among Online Flower & Gift Sellers: AdWords Spend Topped $15 Million In Q1

As Mother’s Day approaches, Adgooroo is putting the cutthroat reality of paid search in the Flowers and Gifts category on display. The advertising insights firm reports that flowers and gifts advertisers spent more than $15.4 million on Google AdWords ads in the first quarter of 2014 on desktop/tablet alone.

The heavy hitters in the category were 1800Flowers.com, ProFlowers.com and FTD.com garnering a total of 50 million impressions. The competition seen on branded keywords underscores the competition in the category, with multiple advertisers bidding on “edible arrangements”, “proflowers”, “teleflora” and “flowers.com”.

In a sign that head terms live, the keyword “flowers” was the most popular keyword in the category with 100 advertisers garnering a total of more than 40 million impressions on the term.

Clearly EdibleArrangements.com’s branding efforts are paying off. Adgooroo reports the fruit basket purveyor yielded a 10.27 percent click through rate — driven by the brand term “edible arrangements” — during the first quarter, far exceeding the category average CTR of 4.2 percent.

The average cost per click (CPC) was $1.66 during the period. However, CPCs for the top generic keywords “flowers”, “flower delivery”, “flower” and “florist” topped $4.70.

In Product Listing Ads (PLAs), Proflowers.com dominated with 12.4 million impressions. Runner up was 1800Flowers.com with 9.4 million impressions. Half of the top 10 PLA advertisers were not floral companies. HarryAndDavid.com, Hammacher.com, GiftTree.com, GourmetGiftBaskets.com and VermontChristmasCo.com each cracked the top ten list.

The report is available here.