Mother’s Day Marketing Tips for Online Shops

Much like Mother's Day itself, Mother’s Day marketing is something you simply shouldn't ignore! Whether you buy a gift for the mother(s) in your life or not, if you run a business, Mother’s Day is a great opportunity to sell more than usual.

We'll cover the following topics:

1. When is Mother's Day in Europe?
2. Mother's Day statistics
3. Mother's Day marketing: Take your strategy to a "mother” level

When is Mother's Day in Europe?

In Europe, Mother's Day often occurs in the first half of the calendar year. However, depending on the country, this ranges from February (in Norway) to June (in Luxembourg).

There are even more Mother's Days around the world. For a complete list, check this Wikipedia page.

If you sell internationally, it's good to keep up with the different dates around the world. Download our European Holidays calendar, which includes all the most important dates for 2024 and 2025.

Mother's Day statistics

Mother's Day is celebrated in the entire world, and for good reason! Before we look at some numbers for the individual markets, let's take a quick look at the following chart, which shows shopper attitudes towards Mother's Day in different global markets.

Source: Statista

Whether consumers buy Mother's Day gifts because they “want to” (Poland!) or because they “have to” (Denmark), it's clear that many consumers take part. Seriously, can anyone question how much the Polish love their mothers after this survey?

Let's look at some numbers of the individual markets. Here are a few numbers from across Europe:

Mother's Day UK

UK shoppers are some of the best in the world. When it comes to Mother's Day spending, they do more than keep up. According to Statista:

UK retail spending for Mother's Day hit £1.49 billion in 2022.

It's worth noting that this number took a dip in 2023 (£1.28 billion), but that should surprise no one given the global economic situation. It will be interesting to see what happens in the coming years.

Mother's Day Germany

Ah, Muttertag. Germans spend a lot on Mother's Day. Not only do florists see sales double during the week of Mother's Day, but retail spending as a whole sees a lot of action in the lead up to Mother's Day. According to the German Trade Association (HDE):

In Germany, Mother's Day has the highest consumption after Christmas and Easter.

Mothers are clearly held in high regard in Germany.

Mother's Day France

The French are no exception. You can expect most people to buy gifts for their mothers. With a budget of around €50, a lot of the typical gifts can be expected: flowers, jewellery, perfume. According to French Moments,

2/3 of French adults intend to give a Mother's Day gift to someone in their life.

Mother's Day Poland

Poland is famous for their holidays celebrating every family member. Not only is there a Mother's Day and Father's Day, but they also have Grandmother's Day, Grandfather's Day, and Children's Day.

With mum being the glue that holds everything together, you can bet that most Polish people will be showing their mothers some love. We saw how the Polish market feels about Mother's Day at the beginning of this section, but according to Statista, they also put their money where their mouth is:

76% of Poles plan to buy a Mother's Day gift this year.

One thing's for sure: Nobody can claim Poles don't love their mothers!

Mother's Day Spain

In Spain, Mother's Day spending seems to skew heavily towards male shoppers. However, it's also common to buy gifts for the different mothers in your life, whether it's a grandmother, sister, aunt or partner. According to start.io:

76.4% of Mother's Day shoppers in Spain are male.

If we look at the age of Mother's Day shoppers in Spain:

• 57% are 18-24 years old
• 32.8% are 25-34 years old.

Consider all of these factors when running Mother's Day marketing campaigns in Spain.

Mother's Day Netherlands

The Dutch seem to love their mothers as much as everyone else (except the Polish!). Nothing too jaw-dropping to report here. According to a four-year survey from Statista:

60.5% of Dutch people celebrate Mother's Day.

Mother's Day Italy

Average purchase values vary greatly in the Italian market. However, it's worth noting that most people will still buy their mother a gift. According to a Statista survey:

66% of Italians plan to purchase a gift for Mother's Day.

Mother's Day marketing: Take your strategy to a "mother” level

Okay, the headline is more of a dad joke. (Shameless plug for our Father's Day article).

You, as a retailer, are expected to prepare for Mother’s Day every holiday before any of your customers do. In other words, you should be marketing Mother's Day early enough that it actually reminds your customers that the holiday is coming up.

So, how can you remind them? You can do this in a number of ways.

Website changes

You could redesign your homepage with a floral motif in the weeks leading up to Mother's Day, for example. Likewise, you could do something similar in your newsletter or social media advertising (more on that soon).

Besides creating visual cues on your homepage, you can do something more direct like making a Mother’s Day gift guide and creating a special landing page dedicated to gift ideas.

Your marketing efforts (i.e. social media and email marketing campaigns) could point to this landing page. With a dedicated landing page, you'd be able to optimise your Mother's Day marketing campaign budgets. By targeting keywords in your ads that are present on your landing pages, you'll most likely see your cost-per-click (CPC) prices go down because ad platforms will recognise their relevance.

Another helpful idea would be to segment your products into “mother categories”.

Is mother-dearest a chocolate lover, or a travel-mum? Is she a music-collector or a bookworm? Is she an athletic mum? Target those keywords and build your landing pages/gift guides around these "mother categories”.

Mothers have hobbies, too! This is a sporty mom!
(Source: Shutterstock/HD92)

Remember that mums can fit into niches as well. Sometimes, displaying each of these categories helps your customers decide what the perfect gift would be. Aim to inspire your site's visitors.

It's also important to remember that Mother's Day should be a fun and warm holiday, so your website (or landing page) texts should reflect that.

Pro tip: Getting traffic to your site is always an important step towards increasing sales. However, once shoppers arrive, your site should inspire trust in your website. This is particularly true for shoppers who are new to your brand.

Social media posts

You can go a number of directions with social media: Create an ad campaign highlighting your best "mum gifts". If your budget is limited, try some organic posts.

When it comes to organic posts, you could share some customer reviews, for example. Sharing the occasional glowing customer review is never a bad idea, but for Mother's Day, you could try something slightly different. For example, try sharing some reviews that contain the word "mom" or "mother".

With the Trusted Shops reviews platform, filtering for such reviews is easy. The Social Media Creator tool lets you turn those reviews into social media posts in just a few clicks:

(Background image source: Shutterstock/Oliver Hoffmann)

From there, you can get creative with your headlines and hashtags to draw attention to your great product line or your equally awesome customer service.

How subtle you want to be is completely up to you, but a simple social post like this should remind your customers that Mother's Day is coming and that they need to stay ahead of the game. After all, hell hath no fury like a mother scorned, right?

Want to read more about sharing Trusted Shops reviews on Social Media? Check out our whitepaper below:

Coupons and Pro-MUM-tions

Get it? Pro-mum-tions?! What would Mother's Day be without a few good dad jokes? Probably a memorable one.

Bad jokes aside, you could also think about offering up some coupons or promoting a sale in your email marketing and advertising campaigns.

We all know Mother's Day is a big holiday. We know that retail spending can go into the hundreds of millions in every major market. Investing in the promotion of your own sales could be well worth the effort if executed correctly.

Theoretically, whatever you might lose in offering those discounts, you’ll make up for in volume sales. Discounts and coupons are a great way to get shoppers to make purchases on your site. Hopefully, you can build some rapport with these shoppers and earn a second purchase from them in the future.

Target those shoppers with multiple mums in their lives

Shutterstock/Yuganov Konstantin

Keep in mind that your shoppers might be more than just sons and daughters.

Here is an interesting stat:

Men spent on average £12.18 more than women on Mother’s Day. Men generally spent about £41.15 while women spent about £28.97.

It’s difficult to say exactly, but one factor into why men spend more is that men often end up buying presents for their mother as well as their wives. Or mother-in-laws, too (insert joke here), so this might explain why men have been spending more than women.

The point is that shoppers aren’t only sons and daughters, but perhaps, husbands, fathers, grandfathers, nieces, friends or grandchildren. Keeping this in mind could help your strategy when choosing products to sell and how to display them, particularly when it comes to your targeting efforts.

Recommended reading:
5 Marketing Ideas for the Easter Holidays

Be ready for last-minute mother-lovers

We all love our mothers, right? But, let’s be honest. Some of us end up shopping for them at the last minute (we've all been there at least once, right?).

About 24% of men who bought gifts for Mother’s Day bought things impulsively. About 18% of women did this.

However, being prepared for the last-minute rush of purchases is only half the battle, so prepare your marketing budget appropriately and leave some money in that budget for that last week. During those last few days, you might want to switch from subtly reminding them about Mother's Day to obvious reminders.

Shutterstock/Olga Mandryk

You could even poke fun at their forgetfulness or procrastination skills. Give them a mom-like guilt trip (all in good fun of course).

Though it may be hard to deliver physical gifts at the last minute, consider promoting printable gift-cards to your last-minute buyers.

If you offer fast shipping options, make sure to highlight this on your page.

Have a physical shop? You might want to consider some local-based digital ads, like Google Maps or Waze.

Conclusion

There you have it- A few quick tips on promoting to those people who love all the special mums in their lives. If you get in the minds of your customers early (and late), Mother’s Day can be a great opportunity for your online shop! Just don’t forget the flowers for your own mother!

Remember, Mother's Day falls on different days in different countries. Download our European Holidays Marketing Calendar to get an overview of the biggest e-commerce holidays in the biggest European markets.