Dive Brief:
- For the first seven days of February, paid search ads for Valentine's Day gifts for men saw 82% more clicks than ads promoting gifts for women, according to a Kantar Media analysis shared with Marketing Dive.
- PersonalizationMail.com, which offers personalized gifts like bathrobes and plaques, experienced the highest product listing ad and text ad click share across desktop and mobile for gift ideas for both women and men. For gifts for men, PersonalizationMail.com's product listing click share was 33.3% on desktop and 29.9% on mobile and text ad click share was 36.1% on desktop and 19.5% on mobile. For women's gifts, PersonalizationMail.com's product ads had 17.5% click share on desktop and 19.2% on mobile, and 31.3% on desktop and 14.3% on mobile for text ad click share.
- My M&M's, the confectionary brands personalized candy service, ranked highly in text ad click share for both men and women. ProFlowers was ranked highest among gifts for women in search, with 14.3% on desktop and 19.5% on mobile for product listing ad click share.
Dive Insight:
Men commanding more of the search ad market for Valentine's Day this year is interesting, and suggests the demographic is potentially harder to pick a gift for since traditional presents around the holiday, like flowers, may not be as appealing to them. The research could also shed light on shifting gender dynamics or support studies that shows women do more of their shopping online than men. Marketers of male-centric brands should still take note of these metrics, as it could help inform future search campaigns around gift-giving holidays going forward.
The analysis additionally underscores the growing role of mobile in online shopping around key marketing moments. Mobile campaigns, including those centered around mobile shopping, increased their share of holiday search budgets to 50% last year from 43% in 2017, according to a recent study by Kenshoo.
Having a stronger mobile strategy could be essential for brands looking to target elusive younger consumers, including millennials, for Valentine's Day and other holidays. Last year, about one in six surveyed millennials planned to make more direct mobile purchases for the holiday season than they did in 2017, per research from Verizon's Oath media unit.
Mobile is also the fastest-growing segment of paid search, with about 75% of shopping impressions occurring on mobile phones, according to a separate Kenshoo report. The search advertising market was expected to reach $100.5 billion in 2018, representing an 11% increase year-over-year, with mobile comprising 62.4% of search, recent Warc research found.
