• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, July 24, 2014

Five of the top luxury brands that typically keep a tight rein on their image spent nearly $22 million on paid-search Google AdWords campaigns in the U.S. last year, excluding mobile search and product listing ads, MediaPost's SearchBlog hears.

Louis Vuitton led all luxury apparel brands spending more than $1.3 million in paid search last year -- more than double the amount for Chanel, the next closest competitor brand, which spent nearly $550,000, per the report from AdGooroo, a Kantar Media company.

The AdGooroo report analyzes U.S. paid-search spending on Google AdWords in 2013 across five luxury shopping categories including Apparel, Beauty & Cosmetics, Shoes, Handbags and Watches. Within each category it examines the top 10 brands and retailers, share of voice and search impressions, and retailers sponsoring branded keywords of the top 10 brands.

Although Burberry comes in at No. 3 in the ranking with nearly $323,000 spent, the combined spend of Armani’s two sites in the Top 10 totals more than $324,000. Highlighting disparity in the category, the bottom two brands in the ranking -- Stella McCartney at No. 9 and Gucci at No. 10 -- spent an average of $80,000 on paid search during the 12 months.

The top ten retailers in the luxury space outspent the top luxury brands in four out of five of the categories. Department stores account for six of the Top 10 Retailers sponsoring Luxury Apparel keywords, led by Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue and Nordstrom. The ranking also includes three online pure-plays -- Net-a-Porter, Amazon and DesignerApparel.com. LVMH-owned Beauty & Cosmetics retailer Sephora rounded out the top spenders on Luxury Apparel keywords, based on its sponsorship of a variety of general brand terms such as ‘dior’ and 'chanel.'

Last year, apparel brands spent $3.3 million vs. retailers at $3.8 million on keywords in Google AdWords in the U.S. Beauty and cosmetics brands spent $638,000 vs. retailers at $1.33 million. Shoe brands spent $208,000 vs. retailers at $1.08 million. Watch brands spent $602,000 vs. retailers at $791,000. Handbag brands spent $2.9 million vs. retailers at $2.8 million

And what woman doesn't like shoes? The shoe brands love women. Jimmy Choo spent $62,000 on paid-search ads in 2013, about 46% higher than the next closest brand, Ferragamo, which spent $28,000, and ten times higher than the No. 10-ranked brand, Jil Sander at $6,000.

Marketers can download the detailed report here.