How to Build a Mother’s Day Campaign that Works

Kelsey Clutter, Content Marketing Manager

Mother’s Day is about showing appreciation to the most important woman in your life. Not too long ago that could have involved taking mom on a special trip to the spa, or dinner in her favorite restaurant. But now that we’re in a pandemic, we expect to see more online gift-buying than ever.

Roughly 78% of consumers thought it was still important to celebrate Mother’s Day in 2020 in light of the pandemic. It was even anticipated that spending for Mother’s Day would be higher than pre-covid numbers. In 2020, consumers planned to spend $26.7 billion on Mother’s Day (up from $24.95 billion in 2019).

But what were they looking to purchase? One survey shows:

• 43% wanted a unique or different gift
• 41% wanted a gift that created a special memory
• 25% wanted a gift that was convenient for them
• 17% wanted a gift that was most cost-effective

Creating a special Mother’s Day campaign enables you to increase visibility and improve the odds of getting more traffic and sales to your online store in celebration of this special holiday.

Let’s dive into how you can prepare your marketing for Mother’s Day.

Create a Mother’s Day Ad Campaign on Google

31% of shoppers start their online purchasing journey with a specific product in mind on Google. So using Google Shopping Ads as part of your Mother’s Day marketing campaign can be highly effective. With their placement at the top of Google’s search engine results page (SERP) and addition of product images, shopping ads win over 85% of all paid search clicks.

So how do you develop a shopping ad campaign to attract Mother’s Day shoppers? Start by researching relevant keywords. Typical keywords include “Mother’s Day” combined with terms like “gifts,” “presents,” and “gift ideas”. Google’s Keyword Planner and Google Trends can be a useful source to inform your keyword targeting. For example, right now, when you type in “Mother’s Day” and “Mother’s Day gifts”, you’ll find related terms in Keyword Planner like:

• Mexican Mother’s Day
• Mother’s Day flowers
• Mother’s Day necklace
• Good gifts for mom
• First Mother’s Day gift

These terms not only enable you to optimize your ad copy – they can also be used for specific landing pages and other PPC campaigns. For example, you could publish a blog post suggesting great gifts for first-time mothers. Then create an ad driving traffic to that post and link each item to its individual product page, where shoppers can view ratings and reviews to further support the decision-making process.

As competition for ad impressions increase over a significant event like Mother’s Day, it’s important to allocate budget that will help your products to appear in a high ranking position on Google SERP without overspending. Create automated rules to control your budget, adjusting the spend for high and low-performing ads/keywords.

You can also leverage reviews and star ratings. As a rich source of long-tail keywords, they’ll help you rank higher in terms of SERP positioning. In addition, adding star ratings at the exact moment the consumer is looking to identify a well-suited product is crucial reassurance. In fact, 72% of consumers won’t make a purchase until they’ve read the product reviews first.

Use Ad Retargeting on Social Media to Recapture Attention

At this point, your Google Shopping ad campaigns are working — driving high-purchase intent shoppers to your landing pages and product listings. But naturally, they leave your online store before completing a purchase to browse additional options.

This is where implementing a retargeting ad campaign can help you drive shoppers back to your online store. Research shows customers are 70% more likely to buy a product when brands use retargeting.

Through retargeting, your audience has already shown an interest in your products. To entice them back to your site, leverage UGC (user-generated content) from your customer reviews to demonstrate the value of your products as a Mother’s Day gift. Social media is well-suited to leverage UGC (user-generated content) as most consumers are browsing a range of visual content to be inspired and engaged. What’s more is you can even leverage celebrity partnerships to endorse your retargeting ads.

Make sure to use a specific Mother’s Day message along with UGC in your ad copy, such as “Your mom would love this gift” or ‘Still looking for the perfect Mother’s Day present?’.

Social media ad retargeting can be highly effective across a multitude of audiences. For example:

• 88% of Gen Zers and millennials discover products they like on social
• 69% of Gen Zers want to buy products directly via social media
• Over 90% of millennials are active on social media
• 78% of Gen Xers are active on social media channels like Facebook, Pinterest, and YouTube

When building your ad retargeting campaign, you should focus on various demographics. This may include:

• Daughters and sons across all generations
• Grandchildren (Gen Y and Z)
• Husbands across all generations
• Mothers/Fathers with adult daughters (Gen X and Baby Boomers)

The good thing about social media is that your audience is broad, so you know your messaging is likely to resonate with someone.

Develop a Mother’s Day Email Series

Email marketing presents the perfect channel for offering personalized content to your audience. Personalized email marketing campaigns are found to generate a median ROI of 122%.

Develop a series of emails targeting different segments of your email list. For example, you can segment campaigns based on age, gender, purchase history, and other user activities. Let’s say a female customer previously bought a necklace or bracelet. You could email them a discount code to buy a matching one for their mom as a gift.

Set up an email series for each stage of the decision-making process, including:

• Mother’s Day Reminder email
• Mother’s Day Product Recommendation email
• Mother’s Day Last-Minute Special Offer email
• Mother’s Day Abandoned Cart email

To give you some inspiration, check out these Mother’s Day email subject lines:

• ‘What are you getting your mom this Mother’s Day?’
• ‘5 personalized gift ideas for your mom’
• ‘The countdown is on…have you picked the perfect present for mom yet?’
• ‘You left your Mother’s Day gift in your shopping cart..get it before it’s too late!’

When creating email campaigns for Mother’s Day, incorporate social proof. This helps solidify your offering by showcasing relevant reviews, ratings, and user-generated content. Brands that have incorporated social proof into their abandoned cart email campaigns have reported seeing as much as a 16% increase in average revenue per recipient as a result.

Start Building Your Mother’s Day Marketing Campaign

Mother’s Day is right around the corner and you don’t want to miss out.

But remember, these aren’t your typical customers as they’re out shopping for their mothers. To gain trust for your brand with new customers, implement social proof, such as reviews and user-generated content (UGC) directly to your Mother’s Day marketing campaigns to help shoppers make the right gift choice for mom.

Okendo provides a suite of tools for collecting and showcasing reviews & UGC onsite as well as across marketing channels, enabling online brands to build trust, drive conversions and maximize CLTV.

Book a demo with Okendo