Mother’s Day 2013: Paid Search Spend in Flowers/Gifts to Exceed $11 Million

According to AdGooroo, paid search spending by advertisers in the “Flowers & Mail Order Gifts” category is set to surpass $11 million this month, thanks to Mother’s Day. In May 2012, spending hit $9.4 million.

AdGooroo notes that the top paid search advertiser in the category (on AdWords in the U.S.) last year was ProFlowers with 134 million PPC-generated impressions, followed by 1-800-Flowers with 125 million impressions, FTD with 96 million impressions, Gifts.com with 90 million impressions and BloomsToday.com with 85 million impressions.

The company also highlights the most popular search keyword terms in the last two years:

“Interestingly, the retail florist trade is responsible for some important marketing innovations that are now pervasive and almost taken for granted by retailers of all kinds,” writes Gregg Hamilton, senior vice president of research and analytics and business development at AdGooroo. For example, 1-800-Flowers was one of the first U.S. retailers to use a 24/7 toll-free phone number to take orders, while FTD was the first company to form a national network of local operators to facilitate same-day delivery.

The National Retail Federation (NRF) expects the average U.S. consumer to spend $168.94 on mothers this Mother’s Day, up 11 percent from the $152.52 they spent in 2012. A total of $20.7 billion is expected to be spent this Mother’s Day.

According to the NRF, 14.1 percent of shoppers will account for $2.3 billion in spending on electronics this Mother’s Day, up from $1.6 billion last year. Meanwhile, 34.4 percent of shoppers will purchase jewelry as gifts this Mother’s Day, which will account for $4.2 billion in spending.

Brunch or dinner will account for $3.5 billion in spending, while flowers will account for $2.3 billion, gift cards will account for $2.0 billion, clothing or clothing accessories will account for $1.7 billion, and personal service gifts (e.g., day at the spa) will account for $1.5 billion in spending.

The NRF also forecasts 28.5 percent of U.S. consumers to do their Mother’s Day shopping online, an all-time high that would reflect an increase of 25.6 percent from last year.

According to Experian, 46 percent of Mother’s Day email volume is sent the week before the holiday. The company offers these four tips for Mother’s Day email marketing messages:

Responsys’ The Retail Email Blog points to Mother’s Day email campaigns from AAA, Anthropologie and Apple as examples to learn from.