Mother’s Day 2023 trends and how to plan your digital marketing

The Mother’s Day sales battle is about to begin. Is your brand ready?
This time CloudAD brings plenty of market observations and practical marketing advice to help warm up your sales.

Google search volume for terms related to Mother’s Day has grown by as much as 33% over the past three years. Whatever the wider pressures, from the pandemic to the international situation, Mother’s Day is still one of the holidays Taiwanese consumers care about most. With pandemic restrictions now lifted this year, the outlook for growth in the 2023 Mother’s Day market is even better, and we believe consumers will focus more on quality of life.

Looking at Google Trends, CloudAD found that search volume starts rising from five weeks before Mother’s Day, showing that most consumers start paying attention to the topic at that point. You can compare the share of search volume from week to week to decide how to allocate your marketing effort.

1. Mother’s Day search volume

2. New directions in Mother’s Day shopping

Every year Mother’s Day is a peak time for gift-giving. The preferred categories for Mother’s Day are still food, beauty and fashion, and consumer electronics and home appliances.

When it comes to who people buy for and how much they spend, however, recent Google research shows that one in four people buy a gift for themselves on Mother’s Day, with a budget of NT$2,000 to NT$4,000, far higher than the NT$2,000 budget for gifts for their mothers. We suggest designing campaign slogans, product selections and copy for two marketing scenarios, gifts and self-purchase, to improve consumers’ ad experience and willingness to engage. Make the most of the business opportunity the Mother’s Day season brings, and increase exposure to potential customers to lift conversions and sales.

3. Mother’s Day advertising strategy

In an age of information overload, consumers take in information across many channels. So how should you choose marketing tools at different times to win consumers over? Here is CloudAD’s strategy.

Your overall marketing plan can be roughly divided into three stages: early warm-up, the main push, and the final encore.

1. Early warm-up

[Content plan]

In the early stage, help consumers get to know the brand and the value of its products. Use social media, supported by word of mouth and forum marketing, to build momentum. You can also use live-streaming platforms to get closer to consumers and strengthen share of mind.

[Advertising plan]

• Marketing goal: reach and traffic
• Suggested budget split between new and existing customers: new 70 : existing 30
• Messaging angle: introduce the product’s strengths; this can be combined with a spokesperson to strengthen consumers’ impression of and feeling for the product
• Media:
  1. Google Display Network
  2. Facebook video, image and carousel ads
  3. LINE performance ads

[Tip]

39% of consumers say their first step when buying a gift is a Google search. We suggest including popular search terms such as rankings, practical and recommended, and linking them to your products. In addition, 27% of consumers use ads as their first stop when choosing a Mother’s Day gift. In the battle for sales, don’t forget advertising.

2. The main push

[Content plan]

Use a range of channels to promote Mother’s Day discounts and rewards widely. If you have short flash promotions, live streaming is fast and interactive, so it can drive sales growth and easily meet consumers’ need to experience the product.

[Advertising plan]

• Marketing goal: sales and traffic
• Suggested budget split between new and existing customers: new 20 : existing 80
• Messaging angle: focus fully on Mother’s Day offers; copy can stress that offers are for a limited time, to encourage clicks and speed up the purchase journey
• Media:
  1. Google Performance Max
  2. Google Search ads
  3. Facebook dynamic product ads

[Tip]

Mother’s Day search trends show that searches for vouchers and coupons have grown more than sixfold. Use member-only vouchers and offers to strengthen remarketing to existing customers and break through on sales.

3. The final encore

[Content plan]

Offer extra promotions and target consumers who have recently looked at related content but haven’t bought yet, to close the final sales.

[Advertising plan]

• Marketing goal: sales and traffic
• Suggested budget split between new and existing customers: new 40 : existing 60
• Messaging angle: offer encore deals, and remarket to people who have added items to their cart and are still considering but haven’t bought
• Media:
  1. Google Performance Max
  2. Google Display Network
  3. Facebook video, image and carousel ads

[Tip]

In your copy, we suggest phrases such as “final countdown” and “last chance” to prompt consumers to seize the chance to buy.

A final reminder: don’t rush to pause your ad budget, because the 618 shopping festival is coming soon. In our experience, letting ad machine learning run over the long term will bring you a higher return on investment.

Want to break out of your usual audience across the back-to-back Mother’s Day and 618 shopping seasons? Let CloudAD help you enrich your marketing strategy. Get in touch.