Whether you’re a lover or a hater of Valentine's Day, as an eCommerce business owner you simply cannot ignore this holiday. With around half the British population planning to celebrate Valentine's Day, there’s an opportunity to increase sales and engage with customers. 

Have you ever wondered what prospects seeking Valentine’s gifts are putting into search engines? 

Here we look at the most popular keywords in the industry, so you can tailor your campaign to target those who are looking for you.

You may not be surprised to learn that cards are the number one gift of choice. 

In fact, according to Microsoft: Out of the top 100 Valentines Day related queries in February 2022… 18% included terms related to cards greetings or clip art. 

The top 3 keywords searched for those requiring a card were:

• Valentine’s cards 
• Valentine Day cards 
• Free printable Valentine's cards 

Flowers are another traditional gift that sees a huge increase in the lead-up to Valentine's Day. According to a report by Finder, 55% of UK men planned on spending money for a Valentine's Day gift in 2021 compared to 45% of women. Nevertheless, UK women don't often over-indulge in Valentine's Day shopping, receiving flowers is a winning gift for 30% of UK adults.

The top 3 keywords searched for flowers were:

• Valentine's Day flowers gifts 
• Valentine’s Day flowers 
• Valentine’s Day cards gifts flowers

Top tip: You can maximise sales by upselling or cross-selling particular products. Showcasing a product with a ‘customers also bought’ section, helps to encourage another sale.

Although some categories have seen a decline on year on year growth there are several that showed YoY growth last year between January 14th and February 14th, they are:

• Cooking
• Jewellery
• Dining & Nightlife
• Parties & Supplies
• Luxury Travel
• Clothing

When to target your customers

New ParagraphData from Microsoft shows that typically people start to shop online for Valentine’s gifts somewhere between the 14th of January right up until the 14th of February, with peaks in the last week running up to the big day. That being said, Google claims “Valentine’s Day searches actually start the day after Christmas”, and the deciding factor of when consumers start to shop, depends on how much they intend to spend on gifts.

Consumers are looking to buy their Valentine’s gifts all in one place, so be sure to highlight the products you sell that are paired well. Start creating a marketing strategy after Christmas, but be prepared to see a peak in sales in the last week leading up to 14th February.