Google: 62 Percent Of Valentine’s Day Restaurant Searches Were Mobile

Google is releasing some data on mobile search and Valentine’s Day. The company said, “A whopping 62 percent of total searches for popular national chain restaurants [in the US] on Valentine’s Day occurred on high end mobile devices or tablets.” One more time: 62 percent of all US-based national chain restaurant queries were coming from […]

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Screen Shot 2012 02 15 At 12.52.04 PMGoogle is releasing some data on mobile search and Valentine’s Day. The company said, “A whopping 62 percent of total searches for popular national chain restaurants [in the US] on Valentine’s Day occurred on high end mobile devices or tablets.”

One more time: 62 percent of all US-based national chain restaurant queries were coming from mobile devices.

Google focused on national restaurant chains because it could disambiguate and identify them as such. It could well be that the 62 percent figure extends across the entire restaurant category.

Restaurant chain searches leading up to Valentine’s Day

Screen Shot 2012 02 15 At 12.24.12 PM

Google told me that it sometimes can’t tell what’s a restaurant search and what’s not. For example, someone searching for “radicchio” or “papaya” might be looking for a restaurant, recipes or nutrition facts. By contrast, Google knows for sure that Morton’s or McCormick & Schmick are restaurants.

Google also reported last-minute searches for flower-related terms grew 227 percent during the same week leading up to Valentine’s Day. On the day itself “Consumers were 560% more likely to click to make a call week over week.  And mobile clicks to get directions increased 514% over the same period as people were scrambling to find a nearby florist.”

Google also graphed click to call actions hour by hour on V-Day itself (w/in California), with an early peak at 8:30 am(ish) and another one during the lunch hour.

Click to call pattern on Valentine’s Day (California data)
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Google also saw tablet queries rise on the weekend before Valentine’s Day. That’s consistent with tablet usage patterns, which are heavier on the weekends and during the evening. Last-minute searches went to PCs and smartphones.

Google uses the data to make the valid point that if your business (florist, restaurant, etc.) wasn’t optimized for mobile you might have missed out on some meaningful revenue opportunities.

In a related vein, Google also offered an instructive case study involving 1-800-Flowers, which recently redesigned its mobile site and saw an immediate gain in engagement and conversions.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Greg Sterling
Contributor
Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land, a member of the programming team for SMX events and the VP, Market Insights at Uberall.

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