Direct Affiliate ||

The month of May brings in an important event on everyone’s marketing calendar – Mothers’ Day. If you play your cards right, this event can be a big opportunity for you as an affiliate as well, given the rise in spending propensity in the build up to Mothers’ Day. Spending for this festivity is almost on par with Valentine’s Day, or perhaps even more.

Many will be on the lookout for good gifts to surprise mum with. However, there’s a lot of potential to go beyond the typical one-off, physical gifts as well. During this period, people will keep their mothers at the forefront of their minds, which means potential to boost marketing performance just by tweaking creatives and changing your marketing angles.

Even if you don’t specialize in a niche typically associated with mothers and maternity, there are still opportunities available for you to optimize your campaigns with.

Check out our hot tips below!

CONTENT PAGE

The Opportunities of Mother’s Day
Mothers’ Day across Cultures
Best Niches for Mothers’ Day⭐
Marketing Tips & Tactics⭐
Past Successful Campaigns
End Notes

The Opportunities of Mothers’ Day – Spending and Business Potential

In 2020, a National Retail Foundation survey found the average consumer to be willing to spend more for Mother’s Day festivities, going up $8 to $205 in total. 86%, an increase from 84%, of Americans were planning to celebrate Mother’s day. Unsurprisingly, the top 3 gift categories were in the form of electronics, housewares and books. In the United Kingdom however, consumers were urged to avoid interaction and stay home due to the pandemic. This resulted in 25.4% of consumers spending less, driving retail sales to dip from 59.5% to 53.7%.

In contrast, 2021 UK retail sales predictions are 9% higher at £1.34billion, with 71% of purchases set to be online in view of non essential stores remaining closed. Web sales have notably increased by 17% in the first two weeks of March as many brands and retailers rode on the ecommerce wave of online shopping. Similarly, Wunderkind’s report showed that in the first week of March, email channel revenue soared 12.3%. Meanwhile Argos UK reported online sales of Mothers’ Day gifts standing at 235%, tripling that of 2020’s.

Additionally, an Argos poll revealed 60% are celebrating with a renewed appreciation of close tie relationships. This sentiment was similarly reflected in a GlobalData survey, where 85.3% agreed Mother’s Day was an important occasion as the desire to cherish loved ones remains despite social distancing measures. Or perhaps, precisely because of them.

The atypical increase in spending could be attributed to a case of revenge spending. Bloomberg estimates that Americans are holding onto a stockpile of $1.7 million in excess savings to splurge in consumer spending vengeance. Revenge spending was first recorded in April 2020 China where recovery progresses back to normalcy. In contrast to 2019, Tiffany & Co’s China sales soared 90% in May 2020, whereas a Hermes store reopening in Guangzhou recorded a whopping $2.7 million on the first day. In Seoul, 25% were observed to have revenge spent according to the Seoul Institute. Roughly a third, 30.2 % reported to have revenge spent in the fourth quarter of 2020,following closely behind at 23.4% for the first quarter of 2021.

Mothers’ Day across Cultures

Mother’s Day is celebrated across the globe with many cultures adopting different practices. Supposedly, the tradition first started with the ancient Greeks who held festivities as a way to honour the mother of the olympian gods and goddesses, Rhea. Meanwhile, early Christians celebrated Mother’s Day on the fourth Sunday of Lent to honour Mary, the mother of Christ.

Some countries celebrate Mothers’ Day on 21st March, like the bulk of Arab including Egypt, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.Eastern and Southern Eurasian countries including Russia hold a joint celebration together with International Women’s Day on the 8th. Coincidentally for the UK and Ireland, Mothers’ Day is celebrated on the fourth Sunday during Lent, which fell on the 22nd of March this year.

In May, most countries celebrate Mothers’ Day on the second Sunday of the month. These countries include most of Asia, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Austria, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Switzerland, Turkey, Belgium and Germany. On the other hand, Mexico and other parts of Latin America celebrate it on the 10th instead. Spain observes it on the first Sunday of May, while France celebrates it on the last, or on the first Sunday of June if it happens to fall on the same day as Pentecost.

In anticipation for Mothers’ Day 2021, nearly half of the consumers celebrating Mothers’ Day expressed a desire to change things up. In addition, while most of them will be celebrating with the traditional mother figures of their lives, 34% will be looking to treat themselves, and 31% plan to celebrate their significant other. This points towards a variety of potential audiences you can explore in your marketing.

Best Niches for Mothers’ Day

Typically, the best selling products for Mothers’ Day are flowers, cards, perfume and jewelry. However, there’re a lot more opportunities outside of these basic eCommerce campaigns as well. Think out of the box and go beyond one-off physical gifts.

Here are some niches to look into:

1. Food Delivery & Entertainment Offers

Similar to Valentine’s Day this year, the current pandemic situation makes it risky to indulge in extended outdoor activities. So as to not risk mum’s health, why not enrich her Mothers’ Day with some indoor dining and entertainment? Food is an avenue that holds big potential on this particular day, given how many mums would like to take a break on this special day. Many would love the opportunity to sleep in and leave the cooking to the rest of the family – who might not necessarily have the skills.

Even if taking over the chores for the day aren’t on the minds of your audience, it’s your opportunity to step in with some well-timed prompting, like “hey, know what would be a great idea for Mother’s Day? Boy, have we got the thing for you ;)”

Of course, there are plenty of Movie and Video on Demand affiliate offers you can promote. Notable programs include Hulu, Amazon Prime and Apple TV. There are multiple food delivery partner programs available as well. Explore your options and see which will work best with your audience.

2. Health & Fitness

Health-related gift options would be great for audiences (more on this below, link to Audiences) shopping for more senior mums or grandmothers. Consider vitamins, supplements, joint care and support, therapeutic devices such as massagers and supportive footwear. On the other hand, fitness-related product and course offers would be good for younger mums wishing to stay slim and fit.

For courses, why not take it a level higher and suggest your audience to sign up with their mothers as a family bonding activity? Mummy and daughter zumba classes are a whole thing.

3. Fashion & Beauty

Here’s a niche that will work with most ladies, especially the stylish, fashionable mum. Enable your audience to spoil and pamper their mothers with luxurious skin care products and quality clothes, bags and accessories (that they can show off and brag to their friends with).

An Amazon shopping survey from last year had 7% of consumers feedback that they would be giving face masks and other personal protective equipment for Mother’s Day. 5% said they would be gifting “other quarantine essentials”. The Beauty category is definitely a strong potential niche to get into for this event.

4. Hobby

Common hobbies amongst mothers include: gardening, knitting and sewing, reading, cooking, yoga, music, photography, travel and many more. Encourage your audience to support their mothers’ hobbies, or help their mothers explore new ones or gain new skills. Campaigns for products and learning courses are both possibilities to consider. Books and CDs went up in sales last year, as did housewares and gardening tools. In addition, wine subscriptions would be great for classy mums that enjoy wine tasting. A coffeemaster class would be great for one that relishes in high quality grinds.

5. Finance

Financial investment and insurance plans too complex for parents to follow? Reach out to their children, and suggest that they help their parents grow their money and prepare for a comfortable retirement.

6. Technology & Gadgets

In this day and age, electronics are one of the most useful, desirable gifts one can get. For mothers, home and kitchen appliances are especially essential. Devices such as phones, tablets, kindles and other reading devices are popular as gifts for parents as well.

Last year saw an overall 4% more interest in getting electronics as Mothers’ Day gifts. Younger consumers under age 25 in particular are a good group to target in particular for this niche. Being more tech savvy, they are also more willing to invest in more expensive electronics to be better connected with mum. Devices such as Alexa, Google home devices or Facebook Portals are popular options with them as well.

Additionally, who hasn’t expressed frustration at helping parents pick up complicated technology? In the words of Ronny Chieng, a Malaysian Comedian, explaining a computer problem to your mother over a phone call could quite possibly be “the most excruciating form of torture”. Consider helping your audience by suggesting a digital learning course for their parents.

7. Home & Living

Traditionally, mothers are the designated homemakers in the family. Help your audience support her in that tiring task with products that’ll improve living quality and spruce up the place. Indulgent items such as scented candles, herbal and essential oils, bath bombs and bathrobes are all the rage these days. Home security and furniture are practical possibilities too.

8. Experiences

The past few years show that consumers have an increased preference and emphasis on curating unique experiences. Make this day special for mum: offer bookings for massages, pedis and spa. Since international travel is limited now, consider local staycations and virtual tours as well.

9. Pet

The pet niche holds great potential for this holiday as well, as we will elaborate later (link to pet-moms section). Aside from pet products such as toys, treats and cages, another popular option would be customizable merch with pet related images, such as T shirts, mugs, tote bags and other apparel. Make your designs relatable, something pet mums would be proud to wear or let their pets wear.

Marketing Tips & Tactics

Broadly put, there are two points of view to consider, and thus two types of audiences you can reach out to: 1) those who will be doing the buying, and 2) those who will be doing the requesting – aka mothers themselves.

Here are the audiences to explore and the angles you can cover.

1. Spending Audiences:

(Adult) Children

This is the main target audience everyone will be fighting to get attention from for this event. Sons and daughters will be on the lookout for gifts for mum, ready to spend substantial amounts. However, you can also nudge them to go beyond physical gifts, that it would be more meaningful to enhance her life or make things easier for her in other ways. Almost every affiliate vertical can be framed to be relevant, as we explored earlier.

In targeting this audience, consider segmenting more finely by age and recommending products from different price ranges considering their spending power and financial obligations. It would also be good to accommodate variations in family structure. Traditional nuclear families will likely remain the majority, but consider also the existence of adoptive, foster, lgbt, multigenerational, as well as single-mother households, which are on the rise. Change up and run multiple creatives and captions to reflect these unique nuances and strike deeper into your audiences’ hearts.

Grandchildren

This is a slightly more specific, but nonetheless relevant subcategory. There is potential in differentiating them from the above, since the type and style of gifts one looks for grandmother will likely differ somewhat from what you would buy for mum. Given the seniority, health, relaxation & comfort devices such as massagers and soothing blankets and patches will appeal more and align with their idea of what grandmother would want and need.

It is also more likely that one’s grandmothers would live a considerable geographical distance away, perhaps even in a different country. Recommend long distance gift options and products that include free or flexible shipping.

Godchildren

Godparents are a common thing in Christian-Europe, as they occupy an essential role in baptisms, pledging to be the child’s spiritual and religious mentor. Traditionally, each child has a minimum of 3 godparents, 2 of the same gender, and 1 of the other. They are usually close relatives or friends of the birth parents.

These days, godparents have moved away from being a religious/spiritual sponsor to something more secular. While not all godparents and godchildren are close, this is still a potential niche you can tap into with appropriately themed products – particularly so in predominantly Christian countries, such as Poland, Italy, Spain, Austria, France etc. with a high percentage of baptisms per live births.

It is interesting to note that greater importance is attributed to choosing godmothers, and that godmothers retain more contact with the child over the years. Why not prompt godchildren to send small gifts or cards to their godmother this holiday?

Husbands and Dads

It’s not just children mums have expectations for on this day. Some mothers wish for their partners to showcase their appreciation and love for them as well, for being the mother of their children. This is especially so for couples with young kids who aren’t old enough to partake in Mothers’ Day yet.

This Reddit thread reveals that there are men who would appreciate a reminder or suggestions on what they can do or get for their wives on this day. Why not help them out?

Mothers Themselves

After all, even mothers have mothers. Like grandchildren, they’ll be buying gifts for a more senior mum, so products to promote should tend towards health and relaxation.

As mentioned, a significant portion will also be looking to treat themselves. Here’s more to consider as you target them in your marketing:

2. Mothers

As a business, brand or publisher, you could acknowledge the hard work and struggles of mothers and validate them. Celebrate and reward motherhood with exclusive promotions or giveaways. Suggest and help them make their lives easier through your goods and services.

Affiliates and marketers should consider that mums vary wildly by what they identify with, which influences the products and aesthetics that appeal to them. Think soccer mum vs yoga mum. The stay at home mum vs the corporate mum. The needs and wants of these groups are all different. There are so many product niches to get in on and keywords to potentially bid on.

Which brings to mind another unique niche: pet-moms.

There is a rise in pet ownership in place of having children, notably amongst millennials. This comes about as childcare is becoming too expensive and demanding in the hectic lives of today. Pets are as dear to owners as children – fur-babies, if you will. The National Day Calendar even declared the second Saturday of May to be National Dog Mom’s Day.

Both attached and single women can identify as pet-moms, which means plenty of marketing opportunity for you. Motherpuppers, cat mums, parronts with fids (feathered kids)… the possibilities are endless. If you have a store offering customized shirts and various merch, pet related designs are something to offer and promote during this period.

Targeting Tactics

As we mentioned previously (link to Mothers Day Spending Opportunities), there are countries that would have already celebrated Mothers’ Day in March, or perhaps aren’t due to celebrate it till later in the year. Exclude these countries in your campaigns and targeting. With regards to France which celebrates Mothers’ Day later in the month, it could be good to run related campaigns anyway, and scale as it gets closer to the date.

Create customer profiles based on the audiences and characteristics we’ve shared above. Create specific content for them and target them based on age, gender, related interests and long tailed keywords.

Be sure to establish accurate tracking for performance data insights. Make sure you’re up to date with the recent changes on multiple ad platforms that came with iOS14.5 ATT updates. Verify domains, and set up the necessary APIs.

Creative Tips

1. Gift Guides

Men are from Mars, women are from Venus. For some men, mothers are probably beyond the spacetime continuum – even harder to fathom and a whole different ball game. This is the perfect time to flex a list of great gift ideas. Use an arsenal of catalogues, carousel ads, collections and guides available on various social media platforms to showcase your offerings.

Online is rife with exceedingly generic mothers day gift ideas for mums. Be unique! Cater to your niche. Create gift guides for different types of mums – gardener, knitter, baker, yoga, lawyer, soccer mums… et cetera! Help your audience surprise their mums this Mothers’ Day.

2. Wish Lists

Alternatively, enable mothers to easily build wishlists or pinterest boards with your products. This makes it more convenient for them to wink-wink-nudge-nudge their husbands and children with.

3. Pre-event & Last Minute Reminders

Remind your audience of Mothers’ Day in advance, and send out last minute promotions for the procrastinators.

4. Newsletters

If you have an email list, sending out event-specific newsletters in advance to raise awareness of the event and product availability is critical. Don’t be coy! By holding back, opportunities will instead be taken up by your more aggressive competitors. More importantly, as mentioned above, consumers are shopping in advance. Make sure to capture the moment by doing advanced research and preparing dedicated content.

5. Creative Elements

Incorporate references to Mothers’ Day in your copy, and create appropriately themed landing pages and content just for Mothers’ Day.

Taboola, a native ads network, shared a few tips for Mothers’ Day creatives on native: Images with food and color have higher CTR. Portray action in your videos. Use their Title Analyzer tool to analyze headlines and predict CTR for you. Keep your audience engaged with personalized and interactive elements such as quizzes, polls, games, and surveys.

Capturing attention is not as easy as one might think. As our brains manage visuals 60,000 times faster than text , aesthetics matters. Visual appearance directly impacts memory function through the use of shapes, colours and fonts. An appealing, attractive and most importantly, relevant Mother’s Day banner can contribute greatly to traffic.

Past Successful Campaigns

For inspiration here are some great Mother’s Day campaigns that have successfully leveraged an emotional approach.

Tesco’s #EveryMum is one such campaign that genuinely brought out the intangible aspects of being a mother. Tugging on viewers heartstrings by placing the different kinds of Mums out there, including stepmoms and foster moms amongst others. What would we do without them?

Google’s #HeyMom is reminiscent of how we take mothers for granted growing up well into our adult years. Turning to them for pretty much everything and anything. The kind of reassurance and feeling of knowing they are always there for you is a raw and presumably strongest emotion there is.

Pandora’s My Strong Mother, is short, sweet and to the point. The core message lies behind the strength and power of mothers. The strong female empowerment is portrayed well here, aligning well with the brand.

Clarin’s Speak Out Your Love campaign is a little different from those above. Encouraging users to literally “Speak Out Your Love” by leaving voice messages for their mother’s via the brand’s WeChat platform. Consumers will then qualify for a free gift at the retail store on Mother’s Day weekend. As much as one feels that incentivisation cheapens the genuine emotion behind, this would otherwise provide an opportunity for those needing that extra push to speak out personally in person.

End Notes

Mothers’ Day is definitely an opportunity you don’t want to let pass you by, whether you are a marketer, affiliate, publisher or business owner. In addition, gathering data from your marketing efforts for this event is especially important, considering what comes up soon after.

That’s right — Fathers’ Day.

Admittedly, Fathers’ Day is often eclipsed by Mothers’ Day in terms of spending. From surveys, its found that 46% of people plan to get a Mothers’ Day gift compared to the 30% for Father’s Day. 63.9% of said shoppers buy gifts specifically for their mum as opposed to wives, girlfriends and other female figures in their lives, as compared to the 53.3% buying gifts for their dad in June. The clear winner of Mother’s versus Father’s Day spending is certain.

However, for those wondering if Fathers’ Day is really worth investing time and effort in, consider this. Father’s Day sales discounts are often skewed towards a narrow range of categories, and the discounts offered often aren’t as steep compared to Mothers’ Day. This means where there’s intense ad competition during Mothers’ Day, Fathers’ Day could be a prime time opportunity for you. The above strategies and tactics outlined above can be harnessed and reapplied, potentially to even better results…

But more on that next time.

Direct Affiliate is a direct advertiser & affiliate network specializing in Europe campaigns. Get top CPA COD Nutra, eComm and Education offers with us! Check us out on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.