Get Ready: Here’s How Your Customers Will Search — And Spend — This 4th Of July Weekend

With July 4th right around the corner, Americans are stocking up: on food items, beach accessories, (high-priced) gas, and more. If you're wondering what this behavior means for your business, we put together some data that might help. Our Data Insights team took a look at where — and when — customers are most likely to get driving directions, call, or click to a website this July 4th season (based on search engine data from the days surrounding last 4th of July).* From a return to heightened travel "post" pandemic to the prospect of a looming recession, it's clear there are diverse macro forces continuing to impact the consumer behavior we've observed. But when it comes to the hard numbers, here's what we found. Customers are busy in the days leading up to July 4th July 4th, 2021 fell on a Sunday, so a lot of people used the few days before the long weekend to take care of some personal administrative tasks. For some, that meant sprucing up before seeing family and friends. Directions clicks to Beauty Services saw a 15% jump on June 30th, compared to day-of-week averages from the preceding weeks, and Laundry Services saw a 24% jump in directions that same day. But the summer sprucing up didn't stop there: a lot of search engine users ran to Furniture Stores for some new stuff (+18%), or Storage Units to put away the old stuff (+22%). But the majority of people who wanted to give new summer life to their dwellings visited a Bed & Bath retailer, creating an 83% spike in clicks for directions to those locations. Interestingly, consumers chose to continue the personal admin trend prior to July 4th with an internet upgrade. Television and Internet Service locations saw a 27% and 21% increase to direction clicks on 7/1 and 7/2, respectively, and phone call clicks from search engines saw a similar increase on those days. For phone support agents, that means a few more crazy days before (hopefully) some well-earned time off. Banking professionals and support agents in the Financial Services space see the same surge. While clicks for directions to ATMs, Bank Branches, and locations offering Loans & Advances all jump between 16 to 25% on July 1st and 2nd, phone calls to these same institutions see up to a 38% increase in the same timeframe. The Loans & Advances subvertical can see phone call spikes as high as 94% — even over the July 4th holiday itself. The increase in calls, questions, and support requests over the 4th of July weekend doesn't limit itself to just these industries, though. Retail also sees an increase in clicks to call, with clothing stores, sporting goods stores, and general retail locations seeing staggering call volume increases on 7/4, to the tune of 96%, 60%, and 151%, respectively. Americans celebrate the holiday with food, trips, and lots of shopping Whether it's a good old-fashioned American BBQ (grocery stores see driving direction increases of 4-12% on every day leading up to and including the holiday), a trip to a historic or cultural attraction (+40% in directions clicks on the 4th for these types of locations), or a road-trip (parking sites see +42% in driving directions on 7/4), Americans are out and about on the 4th… …and then they run out of steam. For the next day or two after July 4th, our data shows that some people don't even bother with leftovers. Directions clicks are up 15% for both QSR and other types of Restaurants on July 5th. QSR locations, which may be more order-online-friendly, also see a 20% increase in website clicks on the 5th. Fine dining shines a bit more on July 6th, when both phone call clicks — presumably for reservations or business hours — and driving directions increase by more than 20% each. But what are consumers doing when they aren't cooking or eating out? Shopping. Starting on the 5th of July, sporting goods stores, furniture stores, bed & bath stores, and general retail stores begin to see increases to website clicks in the order of 19% to 47%, a trend that continues through July 7th and well into the rest of July. These same types of retailers, plus clothing stores and appliance stores, can see clicks for directions increasing between 25% and 69%. So, it's clear that these businesses need to make sure they are optimizing for both in-store and online shopping when thinking about their midsummer sales. Most businesses can anticipate an influx of clicks, calls, and engagement Seeing these surges across almost every industry raises an important question: how can companies capitalize on increased traffic while mitigating support requests? It starts with the basics: every business should clearly state an open/closed status for the holiday, update their holiday hours so customers can confidently take action on them, and make sure potential customers can easily find any other important details prior to visiting a business location. In other words, the more information you make easily accessible via your listings — and/or the more questions you can answer with search on your website — the fewer support requests you're likely to get. Making relevant information easily accessible throughout the entire customer journey not only serves to deflect potential support cases, but also helps consumers confidently navigate the path to purchase. In other words, the best defense is a good offense: if you put your best (digital) foot forward to ensure that your customers can find the information they are most likely to be looking for, wherever they search, you're far less likely to end up fielding support requests over the holidays — and more likely to help your customers convert. "The best course of action for businesses that expect to see a seasonal surge this 4th of July is to make sure products, services, and any special offers are well known and easy to find online," says Derick Jaros, Head of Industry for eCommerce at Yext. "That means making key updates to your online listings — and your website — before we head into the holiday weekend." Want to see how this summer compares to last summer for your industry? Check out the Yext Search Data Hub for a view of every major search engine metric, year over year, by geography, vertical, and business type. *Internal Yext Data, 2022: each day's worth of search engine listing clicks, for the timeframe of 2021-06-30 through 2021-07-09, for US location-like entities in each subvertical, were compared to the average for the same subvertical and same day of week over the timeframe of 2021-06-08 through 2021-07-08. This methodology deliberately seeks to quantify local fluctuation leading up to the American July 4th holiday and does not account or correct for seasonality.