www.arenaflowers.com

“What is it like to be an Arena Flower?” asks ArenaFlowers.com. By all accounts very good indeed. Since going live in September 2006, Arena Flowers’ innovative approach to the online flower business has resulted in rapid growth as well as accolades from the Times, the Guardian and the Independent who refer to Arena Flowers as “the UK’s leading ethical florist”. Being an Arena Flower means being looked after at every stage in the sourcing and production process, a policy that made Arena Flowers the first florists in the UK to be accredited by Good Shopping Guide’s Ethical Company standard. This social responsibility is complemented with robust business performance and this was recognised when Arena Flowers won the London division of the HSBC Start-Up Stars award in 2007.

Since the launch of ArenaFlowers.com, it has used Google AdWords as a key tool in growing the business. Managing Director Will Wynne says, “The UK flower industry is possibly one of the most competitive flower industries in the world.” Multinational companies and supermarket chains, which account for 60% of flower sales in the UK, were already established in the market. Because of this Arena Flowers concentrated on tailoring its advertising and focusing on conversions. “With AdWords we were able to create long-tail lists of keywords which have been very successful. We were able to target customers specifically rather than sending out a generic message.” Ads promoted “send flowers to Chelsea” rather than simply “buy flowers” and this tailored offering allowed Arena Flowers to compete with more established brands online.

“Google conversion tracking”, says Wynne “is the single most important tool we use.” He gives the example of keywords “flowers”, “florists” and “flower shop”. Each of these keywords, he says, converts significantly differently. Using the information from conversion tracking Arena Flowers was able to tailor its bids on a keyword by keyword basis. Wynne says “We’ve lowered our bidding on a lot of stuff that wasn’t converting well but we’ve also increased it on stuff that was. Over time we’ve optimised our spend to get a lot more clicks and a lot more orders.” Year-on-year Arena Flowers has gained 60% more clicks with only 15% more spend.

With AdWords driving high-quality traffic to the site, Arena Flowers concentrates on providing the service and the value that converts visitors into long-term customers. Wynne says, “Right now, 30% of our orders are coming from returning customers. We are building a loyal fan base.” Arena Flowers is also planning on branching into complementary products like chocolates, hampers and wines. While sales are a goal, the ultimate aim is to develop “Arena customers”. “We’re not building an internet marketing company”, says Wynne, “We are building a brand that is Arena. In terms of our acquisition the lion’s share has been through Google.”

As well as new products Arena Flowers is also looking at new markets and in the next year hopes to have localised their website and advertising into half a dozen European languages. Dutch and German sister sites have already been launched in the form of ArenaBloemen.nl and ArenaBlumen.de. From its London base Arena Flowers has become a leading force in the online flowers businesses. Turnover was £1.6 million in its first year of trading and it’s set to double this in its second year. That’s a lot of money? “When we say what our turnover figures are,” says Wynne, “People are quite stunned by how we managed to generate so much traffic so quickly…the reason we’ve taken all that money is because we’ve used AdWords properly.”