Interflora squanders money while Google adds little value
March 1, 2008 //
I tried to buy flowers on Interfora’s Web site today as it’s Mother’s Day in Ireland tomorrow. Before the sarcastic comments start, Mother’s Day in China is in may; something I learned on Twitter thanks to Siok Siok. I’ve previously used interflora.co.uk so assumed it would have a .ie domain for Ireland. However, when I typed in interflora.ie I ended up on the UK site with the following message
Interflora.ie is currently under construction. At Interflora.co.uk you’ll find an amazing selection of flowers and gifts for delivery throughout Ireland and beyond. Click here to view our range and place your order.
With our international delivery service you can show your loved ones just how much they mean to you no matter how far away they are. We can even deliver your order on the same day in Ireland, the UK and many other countries! All you need to do is click here to place an order, and we’ll do the rest!
Our full Irish site with order processing in Euros will be launched later this year.
They’re obviously paying through the nose for long winded and unnecessary development like they are on SEO (more on that in a moment). I mean, it shouldn’t take almost a year to build a localised version of a Web site that doesn’t require any translation.
This alone doesn’t warrant a blog post though. I would never spend time slagging off companies for the sake of it. I do however, hope to provide some advice on search optimisation by demonstrating how Interflora isn’t just stuck in the 90’s with its Web site, but how it’s squandering money with advertising company, Google. Note that I didn’t call it a search engine. That’s because it would imply Google actually searched for the most appropriate Web sites, which it doesn’t. It provides you with the Web sites that belong to the highest bidders.
As instructed on the Web site, I clicked the hyperlink that was supposed to take me to a page where I could order flowers and have them delivered to an address in Ireland. However, the drop down menu for the address only permits you to choose a UK county. So, it’s technically impossible to send flowers to Ireland via the Web site.
So, I decide to search online for florists. Out of habit, I used Google; http://google.ie and searched for ‘florists in wexford’. The first sponsored link was ‘Ireland Florists’ with a link to www.interflora.co.uk
As I’ve said, this is a sponsored link, meaning, Interflora pays Google every time a user clicks on that hyperlink. This is a complete waste of money because it’s technically impossible for users interested in sending flowers to Wexford to use this Web site. You should only pay for sponsored links when the landing page has an obvious call to action where users do exactly what you’d like them to do, such as make a purchase.
This is a good example of a company that doesn’t understand how and when to pay for sponsored links. Could it be an unscrupulous SEO company taking advantage of Interflora?
marco goldschmied says 
jamesq says 
Sharon Crossley says 
Grant Bannister says 
Unfortunately a lot of companies are clueless about search marketing - which isn’t SEO.
SEM and SEO are two different animals. There maybe an overlap in some cases, but it’s not the same thing.
I’ve seen a lot of ads that point to 404s or simply do not load at all.
I’ve seen ads with January 2007 "specials" in December.
Interflora are obviously a bit clueless
March 2nd, 2008
I agree with Michele, that is Search Engine Marketing, not Optimisation. The fact that Google’s top organic result was a local site that looks as though it will give you the right details shows that natural search works.
Of course, if Interflora are paying for that top position then they are wasting money if they can’t deliver to the location you need. However, I’m sure they maintain that top position on searches for delivery in the UK and the conversion rate on those is worth a few false positives.
Finally, if Interflora was the first thing that came to your mind, then coming top of the results, even as a sponsored link, is what you should expect.
March 2nd, 2008
I agree with both of you guys - bad choice of wording. It’s search marketing.
@Phil I searched specifically for ‘florists in Wexford’ using google.ie - I’ve noticed Interflora is no longer on that search term. Perhaps they picked up on this post.
March 2nd, 2008
It is not just the PPC marketing that is screwed, we used Inerflora on friday to send mother some flowers for mothers day - it took 3 attempts to pay for the item, each time we needed to wait about 20 mins to process.
Now is not rocket science, but Interflora.co.uk is going to be busy on Friday before mothers day ( and i guess also on 12th and 13th Feb) so it is about time they invested in a backend system that can cope with the load.
If the head of Ecommerce at Interflora reads your post – let us hope he hires some help to sort the system out.
Interflora does not need to win the business, they need not to loose the business.
nicholas
ps - mother did like her flowers - so all ended well after all
March 2nd, 2008
In Interflora’s defence, they’re not entirely clueless. It is possible to order flowers for delivery in Ireland. But you have to select the "Don’t know the postcode?" link which then allows you to select the "Is this for another country" option, etc, etc… It’s longwinded and badly designed, but it works eventually.
It’s the usual story of Ireland being a small market opportunity for any international business - they’ll get to us eventually.
March 4th, 2008
@Barry - it definately didn’t work for me. I’m 100% certain as I tried it about 10 times. I was presented with UK counties only. I’m currently in Norway and it all works perfectly fine. I wonder if the site tried to make assumptions on my behalf. I did try browsers which I hadn’t previously used too… so it wasn’t a caching issue.
Regarding Ireland being a small market; that’s absolutely correct. It really annoys me.
March 4th, 2008
Just to take it one step further, I eventually landed on an interflora site in Ireland which turned out to be a well known florist shop in Dundalk. Arr I thought, great, now I can order in Euro’s for local delivery to Dundalk. ! NO CHANCE. After selecting some nice flowers I was sent to the Interflora international (UK ?) site and the prices changed to Sterling, AND went UP and charged a delivery fee, IN Sterling. !!
Roll on the inevitable -1GBP = 1Euro. !!
This is quitre disgracefull as I know the florist quite well and wonder if he is aware of what is actually going on with Interflora ? Back to the drawing board, but from what you Guys said above looks like I’m going to have to go and shop myself and deliver myself. !
December 22nd, 2008