Build a Better Valentine’s Day? It Takes Time

If real life mirrored sitcom clichés, spouses and sweethearts would knock out their Valentine’s Day shopping with a wilted rose and some chalky chocolates bought at the local convenience store late in the evening of Feb. 14.

But according to a study just released by search marketing firm OneUpWeb, love is in the air surprisingly early for online Valentine’s Day shoppers. Online Valentine’s shopping does seem to happen in a single wave rather than a series of ripples. But it’s far from a last-minute effort, and online merchants who plan ahead will probably fare best.

OneUpWeb examined the traffic, sales and conversion rates of some 250,000 unique visitors to Web sites across a range of Valentine-related shopping categories, including flowers, gifts, jewelry and apparel. The visits took place between Feb. 1 and Feb. 12 and all came through referrals from search—either pay-per-click ads or organic results.

According to findings made public today, the Lake Leelanau MI-based agency found that online sales growth related to the Valentine’s Day holiday peaked this year on Tuesday, Feb 6, with Monday Feb. 5 the day of the second biggest sales increase. Conversion rate growth also peaked on Feb. 5. But traffic from search reached its highest volume a week later, on Monday Feb. 12.

All three metrics—growth in traffic, sales and conversions—then slid back into negative growth until just before the holiday, when traffic climbed back to moderately positive growth of more than 10% on Monday Feb. 12. But sales growth remained negative, and conversion rate growth just barely crept into positive territory before falling back.

The micro-look at buyer behavior over this specific holiday shows a few key trends, according to Lisa Wehr, OneUpWeb founder and CEO. For one thing, Internet shoppers are still tending to do their online browsing and buying on Mondays, just as an earlier OneUpWeb study of holiday shopping indicated.

This early-week pattern might be due to a combination of factors, Wehr says. Shoppers might have been out browsing the stores over the weekend, or might be shopping over a high-speed connection at the office. Then again, they might be choosing to make their Valentine’s Day purchases from work to get out from under the watchful eyes of significant others at home.

Perhaps the most interesting finding was that over the two-week duration of the study, organic search results brought in 34% more traffic and 21% more sales than pay-per-click ads. “I was totally surprised to find that natural search was just as important as paid search, and I’ve been preaching the benefits of search engine optimization for years now” says Wehr. “I didn’t go into this study expecting that natural search was going to be so influential, but it clearly was just as important as paid search at producing sales and traffic.”

The significant role search optimization plays in generating Valentine’s Day visits and sales should influence retailers’ strategic approach to marketing for this holiday. Online retailers aiming for sales around Valentine’s Day have a very short window to reach shoppers—particularly since prospects seem to give up on online buying eight days before the holiday– and that makes timing an effective keyword buy all the more difficult. In effect, the shopping cycle for this holiday is a sprint, not a Christmas-style marathon.

In light of that compression, the amount of time that have to go into building and managing a Valentine’s Day PPC campaign and the budget that will almost certainly go into bidding on holiday-related keywords may not be the most cost-effective use of resources. Instead, merchants might want to invest the time to elevate their natural rankings for the keywords that matter most to their business.

“The nature of paid search is that you’ve got to get a campaign up and running specific to that holiday,” Wehr says. “If you’ve got a presence in natural search which is just steadily there year-round, then when the next holiday comes around there’s no mad scramble, no guessing at keyword budgets, and so on.”

And if a recent survey by e-mail provider Constant contact proves out, small businesses went into this year’s Valentine holiday less optimistic about sales than they were last time around, with only 37% expecting strong results compared to 55% in 2005. That might make SEO an even better bargain for Valentine’s Day, since an improved presence in organic results for important keywords can produce traffic and sales benefits after the brief holiday is over.

Why did traffic and conversion growth move briefly back into positive territory three days before Feb. 14? Wehr suggests a burst of last-minute desperation browsing. “Maybe people are making one last effort to find that perfect gift, or maybe they did their research earlier but put off the actual purchase,” she says. “Chances are the conversions we’re seeing are mostly in flowers or other gifts with a short delivery time.” Some merchants included in the study might also classify non-sales transactions such as catalog requests or newsletter sign-ups as conversion results.

As for those visitors who kept the traffic numbers growing on Feb. 12, when conversions slipped back to the same negative growth as sales—well, those are most likely the true procrastinators. They’ll be the people you’ll find at your local Gas ‘n’ Go this evening, sporting a worried look and some beat-down carnations.