14 DAY TRIAL // Whether you like it or not, Valentine's Day is a force of nature, you simply can't ignore it. Still, even though it lands on the same day every year, a lot of people put off preparations until the very last minute.
And, in the very last minute, they have to rely on their phones more than anything else to pull things off, at least that's the story that Google is seeing in its searches.
"For last-minute reservation makers, mobile was the device of choice. A whopping 62% of total US searches for popular national chain restaurants on Valentine’s Day occurred on high end mobile devices or tablets," Google wrote.
"Searches for these restaurants grew 359% on mobile, 142% on desktop and 135% on tablets between February 7th and February 14th," it added.
The figure is hardly surprising, when you're hours away from your grand surprise dinner and you still haven't found a restaurant, you're desperate and you don't have the time to find a computer and start searching.
The fact that phones can be used to make calls as well, useful when you're trying to make a reservation, also helps.
Even if dinner is all set, you may still find yourself scrambling to find just the right flowers and, once again, people turned to their phones. Useful in this case was a special mobile ad unit with click to call which enables users to click on an ad and immediately be directed to a business' phone number.
"Mobile searches for flower-related terms grew 227% from February 7th to February 14th in the US," Google explained. "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."