Several years before he wrote The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer wrote a long poem about birds finding their soulmates on February 14. Back in 1382, that day was known as the Feast of Saint Valentine in honor of two legendary Christian martyrs. That poem gave Valentine’s Day a whole new association with love and romance… and gifts.

According to the National Retail Federation, consumers spent nearly $26 billion on Valentine’s Day in 2024. Buying for friends, kids, and even themselves, Valentine’s Day shoppers think more out of the box these days, which makes the holiday a massive opportunity for retailers.

Think back to first grade. Kids pass out the same valentines to the entire class. But as you get older, the valentines you give and receive become much more personalized.

Good retail marketing works the same way.

Read on to learn how Valentine’s Day can help you start the new year strong.

Valentine’s Day is ultimately about relationships. For retailers, none are more important than those with their customers. Building and nurturing those relationships are critical components of an effective customer movement strategy.

Customer movement is a marketing philosophy and framework that’s centered on customers rather than channels. It’s the practice of moving customers through the lifecycle in order to drive predictable, profitable growth.

There’s a catch. Moving customers through the lifecycle is not possible without shopper identification.

Shopper identification is the engine that powers customer movement. When retailers pick up on digital body language, they can transform unknown visitors into known shoppers. Only after you’ve identified a shopper can you meet them where they are and personalize the shopping experience with signal-based strategies.

Targeted messages lead to stronger conversion rates, which drive retention. We found that retailers with the highest identification rates see significantly more repeat purchases.

Personalized product recommendations are a crucial part of customer movement. With the right recommendations, you can drive discovery and build loyalty by showcasing your knowledge of customers’ preferred products, styles, categories, and even price points. Some people are strictly sale shoppers while free shipping is enough for others. Knowing the difference between these segments is crucial for preserving margins — and avoiding being known as a discount brand.

Since so many Valentine’s Day purchases are gifts, this makes personalization a bit trickier.

Luckily, there are plenty of product recommendation strategies that can effectively convert new visitors. Gift guides, in particular, are tailor-made for Valentine’s Day. They make it easy to introduce new shoppers to your brand while highlighting your best sellers and hot new arrivals. Gift guides also provide the opportunity to expose shoppers to different categories and products.

This is a great strategy for a brand with a large, varied inventory. Valentine’s Day gifts can include a curated selection of items based on recipient, price point, category, and more. 

Collaborative filtering — also known as “customers who bought this also bought that” — can be similarly effective. These wisdom of the crowd recommendations carry social proof that can help inspire potentially indecisive Valentine’s Day shoppers.

Reds and pinks, hearts and flowers. With the possible exception of Halloween, Valentine’s Day may have the best branding of any “B list” holiday. That makes leaning in a layup, even if you don’t have anything special planned.

To boost chocolate sales, Richard Cadbury (yes, that Cadbury) leaned into the theme and thought of the now omnipresent heart-shaped box in 1868. Of course, there are countless ways to incorporate Valentine’s Day messaging into your campaigns without inventing a new product. You can add dating app-style swipe functionality to improve product discovery onsite or give your triggers a thematic twist for the next few weeks.

Abandoned cart campaigns are always top performers for driving conversions.If you offer a discount, consider marketing it as your valentine to the customer. And if you’re not, captioning the product with “be mine” adds festive flavor just the same. Letting the customer know they’re “on your mind” works similarly well for browse abandonment.

People tend to browse and shop different products and categories during the holidays — and not just the holidays.

You likely have a customer segment of gift-givers. They may not come right out and identify themselves as such, but there are definitely signals. You may see them just once or twice a year, around gift-giving events. Or perhaps there are clues in their purchase history — shoes in both a women’s size 7 and a men’s size 11, for example.

Since these customers have already purchased, you have a headstart. First, look at what’s worked in the past. You can message them similarly, but increase purchase frequency by moving them into another use case.

Think of the products featured in your winback messaging. You’re likely sharing some familiar favorites, reminding the customer what they loved about your brand last time. And you should!

We recommend mixing in some alternatives as well. With dynamic product recommendations, you can introduce these one-and-done shoppers to new brands, categories, or even price points. When executed well, broadening someone’s knowledge of your brand can drive a fast repeat purchase.

Many retailers think of their best customers as their biggest opportunity. However, the biggest opportunity is actually in the movable middle, those people who fall somewhere between first-time and regular buyers. The middle represents a large swath of your customer file, and incrementally moving them toward loyalists can drive sustained revenue gains.

According to Bluecore data, each additional purchase cements more brand loyalty. The likelihood that a first-time shopper will make a second purchase is 23%, though the likelihood that a two-time shopper will make a third purchase is 37% and it keeps going up from there.

As the next big gifting event on the calendar, Valentine’s Day is the perfect time to re-engage your first-time buyers from the holiday season or other buyers on the cusp of becoming loyalists. Try recommending complementary items for that holiday purchase or products that are known to spur repeat buyers. You may also want to test a Hidden Gem campaign, leveraging our artificial intelligence to find items that have low traffic but high conversions.

You can also think beyond recommendations. For example, promoting your loyalty program offerings, such as first access to brand new styles, is one way to cultivate more engagement long-term. By acquiring new loyalty program members, you can stay top of mind the next time there’s a major shopping event, and continue to collect contextual data to further personalize the experience based on behavioral data and product affinities.

Every retailer knows loyal customers are the best customers. Bluecore data found that retained customers are 9X more profitable than new customers. While the movable middle is your biggest opportunity, don’t forget that retained shoppers are still your bread and butter. 

Because the vast majority of a brand’s sales come from their top customers, you should let yours know how important they are to you. There are countless ways to shower loyalists with love: extra rewards points, members-only products and promotions, offering free shipping or a discount as a valentine, and the list goes on.

While this holiday is a great time for retailers to reinforce those relationships with their best customers, it’s important not to conflate reinforcing relationships with selling, especially after such a heavily promotional period. Your best customers know what you have to offer.

Incentivizing referrals is a great way to make your VIP feel even more important without a hard sell. When you focus on building relationships with your top customers outside of commerce, their long-term loyalty will only grow.