PDN Media recently completed a comprehensive study of shoppers’ peak planning hours - the times when consumers add the most items to theit lists. The study analyzed seven month’s worth of data and covered shoppers all across the United States.
Planning skews only slightly to the morning when looked at on a national level. But at the state level differences begin to emerge. Most California shoppers created their shopping lists between 9am and 10am. New York state shoppers had a morning peak between 9an and 11am, while the highest percentage of shoppers in Florida planned their shopping around 11am. All states also had a second peak later in the day, and again, all states varied when that was.
Peak Planning Hours by State
Peak Planning Hours in the United States By Weekday
Looking at the data by weekdays shows that consumers tend to plan their shopping on weekend mornings but all day during the workweek. Unsurprisingly, a very small percentage of consumers plan their shopping list on weekend evenings.
The most interesting findings happened by drilling into the data from particular zip codes where bid differences in shoppers’ peak planning times emerge.
Peak Planning Hours by Individual Zip Codes
These insights let PDN help advertisers be far more effective and relevant. We try to target prospective shoppers at the time when they are in the actual process of planning their future shopping trips. PDN’s unique advantage lies in the fact that we can efficiently do that even on an individual level.