• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, September 15, 2015

U.S. apparel advertisers spent $289 million on the top 2,288 apparel-related keywords running on Google in the United States from January through July, compared with £41.2 million or about $63.4 million for the same number of apparel keywords running on Google.co.uk during the same time period, according to recent data.

AdGooroo, a Kantar Group company, says there are two reasons why U.S. apparel retailers spend spent more of their budget on paid search compared with the U.K. One is the number of impressions gained, which shows that U.S. advertisers reach more consumers. The top 20 U.S. apparel advertisers in the study gained an average of 114 million impressions during the time period compared with an average of 38 million impressions for the top 20 U.K. advertisers, according to the data.

Competition is the other reason. There are far more apparel advertisers competing in the U.S. market compared with the U.K., which drives up the cost. From January through July, about 17,334 advertisers bid on the U.S. apparel keyword group compared with 7,132 advertisers, bid on the U.K. keyword group during this time -- a 143% difference.

U.S. apparel advertisers paid an average of $1.28 per click in the first seven months of 2015 compared with an average cost per click of $0.49 for those in the U.K.

Amazon-owned Zappos spent in the U.S. about $10.2 million on 297.8 million impressions earning a click-through rate of 3.09% at a cost of $1.10 per click. JC Penney spent nearly $9.6 million on 288 impressions with a CTR of 2.82% at a cost of $1.19 per click. Amazon spent nearly $7.5 million on on more than 253 million impressions at a CTR of 2.80% costing $1.02 per click.

Rounding out the top five in the United States were Macy's and Nordstrom at at $7.2 million and $5.1 million. CTRs were 3.07% and 303% at a cost of $1.02 and $1.05, respectively.

Amazon took the No. 1 spot in the U.K. The only other advertiser that made it on both the U.S. and the U.K. list is Net-A-Porter, which ranked No. 16 in the U.S. and No. 13 in the U.K. 

In the U.S. during the first half of 2015, prom and wedding, and bridesmaid dresses, along with shoes topped the top 5 spots for the most spent on keywords in the United States. Nike, boden, adidas, wedding dresses, and shoes topped the top 5 in the United Kingdom.

One interesting notable difference between the U.S. and U.K., notes AdGooroo, 14 of the top 20 apparel keywords on Google.co.uk, ranked by paid search spend were branded terms. In contrast, fourteen of the Top 20 Apparel keywords on U.S. Google were non-branded terms, according to AdGooroo.