The Q3 2024 benchmarking report for UK flower delivery services has just been published. Learn how the top 11 UK flower delivery services perform across the digital space.
The research in our report will give you an inside track on who is winning the biggest share of voice within the flower delivery space in the UK. We've included 11 top brands in the space; Bloom & Wild, Interflora, Freddie's Flowers, Waitrose Florist, Bunches, eFlorist, Prestige Flowers, Flower Station, Floom, Cornish Blooms, and Wild at Heart.
Our insights quantify the gaps, risks and missed opportunities for both you and other top floral brands to win digital brand exposure, secure online views, and ultimately win new orders and regular subscribers. The report highlights quick wins that will improve enquiries from your online strategy and will identify the barriers that may be reducing your ability to optimise digital performance.
To see a preview and contents page of the Q3 report, click here. To get a copy of the full report and the key takeaways, please complete the enquiry form or schedule a call.
For a glance into just 6 of the metrics we evaluated these top 11 flower delivery services on, check out our quick-look table below;
Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's top and poorest-performing flower delivery services, or request a copy of the report for the full review.
The 70+ pages of research benchmarks each flower delivery service based on 50+ metrics and indicators of successful digital strategy, including organic visibility, domain authority, paid media ads, conversion performance, technical performance, site speed, universal search, content, social ads, accessibility, and mobile performance.
Savvy digital marketers know that having a technically sound website is an essential component of a successful fully integrated digital strategy - plus a site capable of maximising conversion performance. For brands managing a seasonal rotation of stock, such as flowers, they must ensure removing unavailable items is done with care and that redirects are effectively managed.
Bloom & Wild flagged 781 4xx errors, and it should consider alternative products/ranges in replacement to any products that are no longer available. Otherwise, consumers might be sent to dead ends, which can cause them to become impatient.
When 62% of consumers are less likely to convert if they have a negative mobile site experience, ensuring that your site is quick and easy to load makes a significant improvement on your overall conversion rates. When you're competing to sell a luxury item in a saturated market, such as flower subscriptions, an unappealing site (or one that doesn't signpost well to key products) can mean users turn to your competitors instead.
In our previous audit, only 2 services scored over the recommended 50%. This quarter, 4 services scored at least 50 or more. Additionally, the mobile site speed ranged between 56 and 3, with Waitrose Florist reporting the lowest score. It’s important that brands follow protocols to improve their mobile site speed to enhance the user experience.
Domain Authority (otherwise known as Domain Rating) helps create a reliable overall gauge of how effective your site is at achieving organic traffic, i.e. ‘free’ traffic that isn’t gained through sponsored ads. A ‘good’ DA really comes down to how your competitors are performing, however it’s generally considered average between 40 and 50, good between 50 and 60, and excellent above 60. Flower delivery services can look to collaborating with high-authority bloggers, as well as outreaching to online publications in the interiors, gardens, gifting, and general press in order to gain backlinks and improve authority.
The DA for this quarter ranged between 72 and 11, with Cornish Blooms scoring the lowest DA. This flower delivery service also received the fewest backlinks and should adopt a PR strategy to increase backlinks from reputable websites.
A strong organic performance is strategically important as it ensures your site ranks above competitors for key, transactional keywords. When 93% of your customers won’t go past the first page of Google, your absence or lack of targeting for essential keywords will cost you conversions. For brands within a luxury, or 'treat' sector, such as flower delivery, they'll find they're competing for a smaller pool of traffic as customers cut back on non-essentials due to the cost of living crisis.
Flower Station reported the biggest increase in organic traffic on desktop (+128%) and mobile (+133%). On the other hand, Floom received the biggest loss in organic traffic on desktop (-33%) and mobile (-47%).
Google Universal Search Results is an evolving opportunity to make your pages more visible on a SERP (Search Engine Results Page). Universal results refer to rankings on a SERP that are not the traditional ‘blue line’ Google link, often appear before traditional listings and are eye-catching for users. You can also appear for a universal search result without being strong in other organic performance. For flower delivery services, 'image pack' is the most useful option for standing out from competitors and showing off their arrangements.
Interflora continues to report the most Universal Search appearances (23,440), with the majority of these coming from ‘images’.
Longtail keywords are often considered high intent and potentially more likely to convert as a searcher is being more specific. Optimising for longtail keywords also puts your content strategy in a strong position to rank for retailer new search terms as they enter Google’s index. For flower delivery services, these keywords could include terms such as "flower subscription plans sign up" or "order quick flower delivery".
Interflora reported the most longtail keyword appearances in position 3 (3,434) and positions 4–10 (6,420). Receiving lots of impressions for positions 4–10 is one of the most effective and quickest ways for brands to increase visibility in search engines.
With the number of Facebook users in the United Kingdom (UK) hitting over 44 million users in 2023, it is not surprising that companies have jumped at the opportunity to advertise on the social media platform. Facebook’s UK digital advertising revenue has been estimated to have breached 2.6b GB pounds in 2019. For flower delivery services, Facebook (and other paid social ads) represent the chance to show off their highly visual products and grab attention from their target market. Facebook ads are also a great way to quickly push and pull ads for products that are either already selling well, or need an additional push.
We’ve included an example of Prestige Flowers’ sponsored posts. This flower delivery service included an image carousel for each post, which is beneficial for brands to showcasing multiple products in a single post.
When it comes to social media and on-site content strategies, it is important to release evergreen content that has a longer shelf life and maintains its relevancy to an audience for long periods of time. It's great for your retailer engagement, but great for Google too, who will recognise content which achieves traffic over a long period of time. Content creation also helps with DA, appearances for longtail keywords and 'people also ask' results, so flower delivery services should look to creating shareable pieces that can support performance in all of these areas.
Waitrose Florist has the largest Facebook page (533,900 Likes) and Instagram account (613,200 followers). Additionally, Bunches secured the highest total engagement rate (1,895).
20% of people in the UK have a disability – 2 million of which are people living with sight loss. In addition, 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women have some degree of colour vision deficiency. Sites such as flower delivery services often focus on their need to appear visually appealing and can therefore fall short of the accessibility requirements their users with visual challenges will need. Even for a product which is highly visual, such as flower arrangements, brands must ensure their website is universally accessible.
Flower Station received the most accessibility alerts (271), with the majority of these due to redundant links. This flower delivery service can reduce these alerts by ensuring that all anchor text is relevant to the linked source.
To get a copy of the full report, please complete the enquiry form. If you want to talk to us about accelerating your digital performance, please call us on 01543 410014 or schedule a call with Mike Movassaghi.