How brands can use search data to plan for key seasonal occasions

Holidays and seasonal celebrations are a time to celebrate with friends and family—but they can also be a time to buy gifts and catch up on shopping. In a new study from YouGov, The path to purchase for global seasonal events, measures the market potential for seasonal events such as Christmas, Mother’s and Father’s Day, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, summer holidays/vacations, Easter and Back-to-School across 18 global markets.

We previously discussed the global market potential around key seasonal occasions using YouGov data from Profiles (an audience intelligence tool) and BrandIndex (a brand health tracker) combined with deep-dive custom research from Realtime Omnibus to help marketers understand consumer intent and provide insights into shopping trends and patterns.

But brands can get even closer to their audience by understanding their online behaviors. We analyzed data from YouGov Signal—a platform that tracks online sentiment and conversations—to see when people are searching for each major seasonal event.

Looking at seasonal events searched for in the US throughout the year, we see differences in daily online search volume for each event with Christmas leading the way. All events show a similar search pattern over time, with a steady increase in daily keyword search volume in the build-up to each event, culminating in a spike around the event itself, followed by a dramatic drop off immediately after.

Zooming into online searches for Christmas over the last year, daily online searches are predominately driven more by men (54%) than women (46%). Digging deeper by age reveals that 57% of all daily online searches for Christmas are made by those aged 30 to 44 (57%), followed by 45-54’s (20%), 18-29’s (14%) and those aged 55 and over (9%).

Download the full report to uncover further global and market-level insights such as:

• The sources consumers use to inspire their buying decisions
• How they are purchasing for each seasonal event and holiday tentpoles
• What products and services are being purchased and who they are purchasing them for
• How global consumers adjust their spending leading up to each event

Speak to an expert to get a 360˚ view of online sentiment for brands, TV shows, movies, products and key topics.

Discover more retail content here

Run your own custom research with YouGov Realtime Omnibus