Google Mobile Searches Jump On Black Friday

by Laurie Sullivan@lauriesullivan, November 28, 2016

Rhode Island and Delaware had the most searches containing the keywords “near me” of any state in the U.S. during the U.S. holiday Black Friday weekend, according to data from Google released Monday.

Online searches helped in-store traffic jump nearly two-thirds in the U.S. on Black Friday, per Google data that attempted to draw a correlation between online searches and in-store visits. The AdWords Store Visits metrics aggregates anonymized data from Android users that have “Location History” activated on their device.

Bing also began showing real-time holiday hours in search results. The Bing holiday hours feature launched on desktop and mobile in time for the holidays. The extra information aims to help consumers make the connection between what they search for online and travel into the stores to purchase.

Google reports that store foot traffic jumped 65% on Black Friday compared with an average weekend day in November. Clothing stores and toy stores saw more than double the foot traffic on Black Friday compared with an average weekend day in November, per Google.

The data also suggests that consumers spent more time in stores. Consumers typically spend between 35 minutes and 1.5 hours on Black Friday in electronics stores, compared to 25 minutes on an average day in November. Shopping malls showed a similar increase in visit duration compared to the average day in November.

While Black Friday had the highest mobile shopping searches on google.com of any day during the weekend, Thanksgiving Day came in a close second — peaking at 8 p.m., presumably after visitors had left and families were winding down for the night after a full day of activities.

Consumers also took to desktops, increasing online sales. comScore also reported that consumers spent $24.52 billion online in the U.S. from desktops — up 12% compared with 2015 — during the first 25 days of the November to December 2016 holiday season.

Thanksgiving Day saw a 17% gain to $1.29 billion in spending. Black Friday 2016 had an even stronger spending day, with $1.97 billion in desktop online sales, just under the $2 billion milestone and up 19% from Black Friday 2015.   

comScore data shows that households earning more than $100,000 in annual income accounted for 42% buyers and 45% of desktop spending on Black Friday.

MediaPost.com: Search Marketing Daily

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