Easter is a holiday that brings people together. Families don their best pastels and gather around a table to enjoy a meal together, and a visit from the Easter Bunny works wonders for keeping kids enthralled in a fruitful hunt for pastel-colored eggs.
The very nature of Easter—the decorations, the food and candy, and the festive outfits—land it as a prominent consumer holiday. Last year, the average celebrator spent $151, which laddered up to a total estimated spend of $18.11 billion.
Based on historical purchasing plans, we’ve pulled readership data and Taboola Trends insights around lifestyle (flowers, gifts, and greeting cards), food (chocolate and candy), and fashion (clothing).
Whether you have a whole host of Easter items to market, just one product you’re focusing on for Easter, or you’re an agency with multiple clients to service, we have the data and insights you need to create successful Easter campaigns.
Hop on in.
Easter Lifestyle Campaigns
Reach consumers buying flowers, greeting cards, and gift cards with these best practices for lifestyle campaigns, based on 35 billion impressions and 72 million clicks.
Launch Ads From 6-7 AM and 8-11 PM
Spend for lifestyle content increases around 9am, right as clicks begin to decrease.
To more efficiently reach lifestyle consumers, try showing them your ads during their morning commute, when they may have more time to devote to clicking and exploring.
Reach Consumers on Wednesday
Marketing spend on days like Tuesday and Friday are not met with as high of consumer demand as Wednesday.
Try showing ads to consumers when they’re in the middle of their week. They may be looking for a break and be more open to crossing off some of their pre-Easter shopping to-dos.
Test images that feature animals and food without a person as the subject
According to Taboola Trends data, including animals in lifestyle images can increase click-through rates by 82%. And, images with food can increase CTR by 60%.
Leaving people out of images can have a 28% CTR impact, too.
Other factors driving clicks are close-up images, excluding text, indoor settings, and black & white vs. color.
A great example is this Instagram post from 1800Flowers.
Here, they shared a close-up image of their flowers in a seasonal indoor setting, complete with candy strewn about and no person in sight.
Test keywords such as ‘foil’, ‘eat’, and ‘everyone’
When it comes to lifestyle content, consumers want to know what’s appealing to the masses, and they always want to hear about food.
Avoid getting lost in the shuffle with high-competition keywords such as ‘card’, ‘green’, and ‘app’.
There’s also an opportunity to reach consumers with keywords that have a low spend, but a high potential for CTR impact. These include ‘outside’ and ‘belong’.
Five Sample Titles in Action
Our Title Analyzer Tool allows you to test multiple title options in realtime and see how they stack up against one another. Based on the above keywords, we selected five.
- These Are The Ten Easter Gifts Everyone Is Talking About
- Fruit And Flower Arrangements That Look Good Enough To Eat
- Eight Easter Decorations For The Perfect Dinner Outside
- Here’s What You Can Create For Easter With Ribbons And Flowers
- The Simple Flower Trick That Was Made For Easter
Here’s how they shook out in the analyzer:
The key takeaways here? Consumers are regularly on the hunt for tricks and tips, and anything that looks good enough to eat can spark curiosity.
To bring some of these learnings to life, here’s how Easter ads for lifestyle consumers could look at various stages of the marketing funnel:
Easter Food Campaigns
To find the sweetest opportunities for reaching consumers on the hunt for chocolate, candy, and other foods this Easter, we analyzed 7 billion impressions and 13 million clicks.
Launch Ads After 7 PM
Ad spend is highest right around the middle of the day, but the real opportunity lies in post-dinner hours.
Perhaps it’s the last meal of the day that jogs consumers’ interest in making food-related purchases, or maybe it’s those late night cravings, but in either case, this is the time of day to seize opportunities.
Reach Food Consumers of Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday
While spend sees its peak on Monday, the real opportunities are found on Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday.
Reach consumers as their new week begins, again right in the middle, and right as the weekend kicks off.
Test close-up images without text or animals
According to our Taboola Trends data, food images that do not include animals can boost CTRs by 176%.
Food images that are close-up and without text increase CTRs by 56% and 75%, respectively. Other factors with CTR impacts include indoor settings and female subjects.
A great example of an Easter food campaign is Peeps’ work with celebrity pastry chef Candace Nelson.
Together, they worked to create Easter-centric recipes developed by Nelson herself, and create images like this one:
Try keywords such as ‘one’, ‘eating’, and ‘fast’
Garner attention from readers by narrowing down their options, and giving them ways to nail Easter without the major time commitment.
Stay away from keywords such as ‘wild’, ‘clean’, and ‘delivery’ that are facing too much competition.
You can also get in front of food consumers with high opportunity keywords such as ‘check’, and ‘juicy’, as in “don’t forget to check on your juicy Easter ham!”
We’re putting the top performing food keywords to the test the same way we did with the lifestyle keywords in our Title Analyzer. The headlines we’re testing are:
- The One Candy Ever Kid Wants In Their Easter Eggs
- Cook Fast, Eat Slow With These 11 Easter Recipes
- Everyone Is Buying This Chocolate Bunny For Easter
- One Celebrity Chef’s Secret To A Juicy Easter Ham
- The Candy Of Easter, From Best To Worst
And the results:
It’s clear that food consumers want to know what’s the best and what’s the worst, and they don’t want to miss out on what other consumers are interested in.
With these results in mind, here’s how Easter food ads could look throughout the marketing funnel:
Easter Fashion Campaigns
To find out how to reach those looking to dress to impress in their Easter best, we gathered learnings from 12 billion impressions and 23 million clicks.
Launch Ads at 11PM
Spend on ads sees its peak in the early to mid morning hours, but a time of demand that isn’t yet met with spend is 11PM. This pre-bedtime hour finds consumers in a moment of free time—perhaps they’re laying in bed—and they may be more ready to shop and explore.
Reach fashion consumers on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday
Easter fashion shopping is for the weekend warriors. Demand takes a dip towards the middle of the week, but when it picks back up in time for the weekend, be there to meet it with ad spend.
Test outdoor images without animals
A closer look at Taboola Trends data around fashion images show that images in an outdoor setting with a person as the subject and no animals present can be quite impactful to CTR.
Other impactful factors include having food present, opting for color over black & white, and leaving text off of images.
Take this Easter fashion campaign from Lilly Pulitzer, for example, totally nails it.
Their image is full of bright colors, has a female subject, and they tie in surprise gifts with purchase to further entice.
Test keywords like ‘dress’, ‘clothing’, and ‘piece’
To capture the attention of fashion consumers looking for an Easter outfit, try getting right to the important words.
Avoid words such as ‘eyes,’ ‘shoes,’ and ‘home’ that see too much competition.
You can also test keywords such as ‘jackets’ and ‘shop’ that don’t have a lot of spend behind them, but have the potential to perform.
Next up in our Title Analyzer are some headlines for Easter fashion using the above keywords. The five titles we tested were:
- The Dress That Women Everywhere Are Buying For Easter
- Eight Chic Jackets For An Outdoor Easter Party
- It’s Not Too Late To Shop For The Perfect Easter Dress
- All You Need Is This One Piece To Throw Together An Easter Outfit
- Twelve Creative Kids’ Clothing Ideas For Easter Day
And the results are in…:
The key takeaways here are to consider social influence—if everyone is buying something, surely it must be good. Also, remind consumers that they can still make a purchase in time for a holiday as it nears.
Taking those headlines and image trends into consideration, here are a few examples of Easter fashion campaigns brought to life:
Hoppy Easter Campaign Planning
Before eggs are painted and the bunny makes his appearance, Easter campaign planning mode is in full swing, and relying on data is key to drive clicks and engagement.
Consider these tips and trends as you get to creating, and for even more insights, keep an eye on Taboola Trends. The information updates weekly, so you always have a fresh look at what’s performing in the lifestyle, food, and fashion verticals, and beyond.