Google and Digitas Reflect On A Mobile Mother’s Day

Google is giving mobile advertisers access to new mobile marketing insights and usage research, as the result of a partnership with brand agency Digitas. The two companies are combining search and marketing data to "forecast trends, inform investment strategies, and drive the creation of mobile optimized websites."

Torrence Boone, Managing Director, Google Agency Business Development wrote a post about this on Google’s Mobile Ads blog, sharing some interesting Mother’s Day findings: 

- On Mother’s Day 2011 (May 9th), 33% of Google search queries on the term “flowers” came from mobile devices.

- Mobile search queries for "flowers" both on Mother’s Day 2011 and in the week leading up to the holiday increased by over 100% compared with the same periods last year.

- In the week prior to Mother’s Day desktop searches for “flowers” increased from Monday to Friday, then declined on the weekend, while mobile queries steadily increased all week and maxed out on the weekend.  While this is in line with general mobile/desktop usage trends, on the weekend of Mother’s Day, the increase in mobile searches on “flowers” was much higher that usual, as last minute shoppers scrambled to find a bouquet for mom.

- Google searches on “mother’s day gifts” were relatively consistent across mobile and desktop suggesting that perhaps flowers were the last minute purchase of choice for many Mother’s Day shoppers.

Mobile is becoming a more important part of any marketing strategy. No doubt about it. There are so many new opportunities coming along as the space expands into more smaretphones and tablets, as well as platforms that run on them. 

QR codes are one area that sees adoption continue to grow, particularly among the ages 35-44 demographic, according to Mike Wehrs of ScanBuy (former Chief of the Mobile Marketing Association). 

Don’t discount the significance of mobile to your recruiting strategy either. Recent research shows that 20% of job searchers are using smartphones to look for jobs.