Ah, Valen­tine’s Day. Choco­lates. Flow­ers. Smart­phones. Wait, smart­phones? Wel­come to 2016 – where tra­di­tion­al Valen­tine’s Day gifts now mix with the mod­ern as con­sumer shop­ping behav­ior evolves. So what can brands and mar­keters hop­ing to get some love from their PPC cam­paigns expect as the fourth-biggest spend­ing hol­i­day approach­es?

Here are three insights on Valen­tine’s Day trends to watch in 2016.

1. Rethink Valentine’s Day Gifts

Valen­tine’s is a day for giv­ing gifts. Noth­ing new there. Some 40 per­cent of Valentine’s Day search­es in 2015 used “gift” as a key­word, accord­ing to Microsoft data.

Whether it’s on can­dy, greet­ing cards, flow­ers, a roman­tic evening out, jew­el­ry, cloth­ing, or some­thing else, peo­ple are expect­ed to spend $142 on aver­age in 2016, accord­ing to the Nation­al Retail Fed­er­a­tion.

But you know what else peo­ple would love to receive this year on Valen­tine’s Day? A new smart­phone. Maybe a lap­top or tablet. Heck, why not a fit­ness track­er?

What exact­ly is a Valen­tine’s Day gift in 2016? Chal­lenge your think­ing.

“While flow­ers and choco­lates might be the obvi­ous choic­es for Valen­tine’s gifts, you could change up your ad copy for some prod­ucts in your inven­to­ry that would make the per­fect gift but which might not be the first thing that comes to mind,” said Frances Done­gan-Ryan, Bing Ads Cus­tomer Obses­sion Man­ag­er. “The beau­ty of PPC is the abil­i­ty to change ad copy on the fly and per­haps plant some allur­ing sug­ges­tions in searchers minds as a gen­tle nudge that might make them look a lit­tle more orig­i­nal in the eyes of their loved one.”

Also keep in mind that Valen­tine’s Day isn’t just for cou­ples. Peo­ple are also buy­ing gifts for fam­i­ly mem­bers, friends – even pets.

Also, remem­ber to think about the 45 per­cent of adults who don’t cel­e­brate Valen­tine’s Day in the “tra­di­tion­al” way, but will be part of the esti­mat­ed $18.9 bil­lion in 2016 con­sumer spend­ing. This year sin­gle peo­ple will shop, go out for the evening with oth­er sin­gle friends or fam­i­ly mem­bers, or treat them­selves to some­thing spe­cial, such as a spa day.

2. Choose Your Words Wisely

If a pic­ture is worth a thou­sand words, than here are 3,000 words worth of images for you to exam­ine for insights on win­ning PPC ad copy.

First, here’s a heat map show­ing the words that work in PPC ads on Valen­tine’s Day, accord­ing to Microsoft data:

Which ad copy com­bi­na­tions work best across all devices? Here’s a look at some win­ning PPC words used in ads for gifts, flow­ers, can­dy, and cards:

Final­ly, here’s a fur­ther break­down of which copy worked best, com­par­ing PC and tablet to smart­phones:

“Our data shows ad qual­i­ty and CTR increased when superla­tives and calls-to-action are used in copy,” Done­gan-Ryan said. “So ‘best’, ‘top’ or ‘great’ cou­pled with ‘send’, ‘make some­one’ or ‘give’ saw the opti­mal response. Inter­est­ing­ly the ad copy com­bo with the most inter­ac­tion includes the brand name in the title of the ad fol­lowed by ‘col­lec­tion’ in the descrip­tion.”

Bing Ads not­ed that the top 10 search­es relat­ed to Valentine’s Day account­ed for 32 per­cent of all search vol­ume and 74 per­cent of those were relat­ed to spe­cif­ic brands.

3. Reach Consumers At The Right Moments

Valen­tine’s Day is one of the biggest moments of the mar­ket­ing year. But there are sev­er­al moments lead­ing up to Valen­tine’s Day you need to think about and cre­ate strate­gies for to ensure con­sumers will find your busi­ness or brand.

The sweet spot for tar­get­ing Valentine’s Day shop­pers is the two weeks lead­ing up to the big day. So that means, essen­tial­ly, it’s game on start­ing this Sun­day, Jan­u­ary 31, which will be exact­ly two weeks before Valen­tine’s Day.

Mobile is going to be a big dri­ver of research and pur­chase in 2016, accord­ing to Bing Ads. Twen­ty-six per­cent of smart­phone users will research prod­ucts and com­pare prices, while 14 per­cent plan to make pur­chase on their device.

Also, many men may be plan­ning a mar­riage pro­pos­al for the most roman­tic of hol­i­days. This is a huge life moment and mar­ket­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty for the right brand or busi­ness.

Anoth­er key insight for mar­keters: think about how you can take advan­tage of the many last-minute search­es that will take place the day before Valen­tine’s Day. Last year, the biggest click-through rates on ads hap­pened on Feb­ru­ary 13 between 2 p.m. and 10 p.m. across all devices. Is your ad copy opti­mized with a rel­e­vant mes­sage and word­ing for these des­per­ate, eleventh-hour shop­pers?

One final tip from Bing Ads:

“Under­stand­ing local intent is going to be huge,” Done­gan-Ryan said. “So get those loca­tion and call exten­sions set up to help your brand cap­ture those con­sumer hearts and make it mem­o­rable!”

What oth­er Valen­tine’s Day trends are you watch­ing? Have any great Valen­tine’s Day mar­ket­ing tips? Share your insights in the com­ments.