"We’re about one month away from Easter. Last year the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics projected Easter spending to amount to $1.84 billion. A total of 81% of Americans celebrated the holiday and spent an average of $150 per person. This year’s numbers aren’t out yet, but here are the details from last year."

"'Despite a modest drop, the Easter forecast is still very positive and nearly as high as last year’s record,' said NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay. 'Consumer spending remains healthy both for this holiday and this spring, and that paints an optimistic picture for the U.S. economy in the year ahead.'”

"According to the survey, consumers will spend $5.7 billion on food (purchased by 87% of shoppers), $3.2 billion on clothing (48%), $2.9 billion on gifts (61%), $2.6 billion on candy (89%), $1.3 billion on flowers (39%), $1.1 billion on decorations (42%) and $780 million on greeting cards (46%).

"In preparation for the Easter holiday, 59% of consumers will shop at discount stores, 46% will visit department stores, 28% will make purchases online, 25% will go to a specialty store and 25% will go to a small business or local store."

That's a lot of Easter preparation with the potential of spending a lot of time running around looking for all of these items. To save time, many Easter Diners may turn to the internet. According to AudienceSCAN, last month, 61.5% of these shoppers used a search engine to research a product they were considering and, within the last six months, 38.2% used mobile devices to search for nearby retailers. These consumers also value savings, with 55.1% using the internet to find coupons and discounts within the last month and 37.7% using a mobile device within the last six months to redeem or download coupons.

“'With more than three-​quarters of consumers saying they will celebrate Easter this year, the holiday continues to be a traditional staple for Americans,' Prosper Insights Executive Vice President of Strategy Phil Rist said. 'We continue to see consumers across ages, genders, regions and disposable incomes participate in this holiday.'” 

"Consumers intend to celebrate Easter in several ways: 60% will visit family and friends, 58% will cook a holiday meal, 51% will go to church and 17% will go to a restaurant. The Easter Bunny is expected to have a busy holiday season: 35% of consumers will participate in an Easter egg hunt and 16% will open gifts. In addition to traditional holiday events, some consumers will pursue more leisurely activities: 45% will watch TV, 11% will shop online, 9% will shop in a store and 8% will go to a movie."

Easter Diners are 107% more likely than other adults to find advertising on their mobile apps useful, according to AudienceSCAN, and that's not where digital's influence on them stops. Last year, these consumers were driven to action by email ads (58%), online or over-​the-​air radio (57.5%) and ads on daily deals sites such as Groupon (59.5%). Don't hesitate to mix in some traditional ads. Last year, 74.5% took action after seeing a TV commercial and 61.7% were driven to action by both digital and print newspaper ads.

AudienceSCAN data is available for your applications and dashboards through the SalesFuel API. Media companies and agencies can access AudienceSCAN data through the AudienceSCAN Reports in AdMall.