Your Last-Minute Guide to Winning Valentine’s Day Campaigns

Valentine’s Day may be predictable on the calendar, but consumer behavior around the holiday is anything but. At Yahoo DSP, we know what consumers are reading and searching, based on signals derived from our direct consumer relationships across Yahoo-owned and operated properties. Our Identity graph helps stitch these signals together to create a more comprehensive view of the consumer while respecting consumer privacy. This Valentine’s season, Yahoo Search trends show that people are prioritizing experiences, self-expression, and self-care, often making decisions at the last minute. For marketers, these moments of intent create prime opportunities to connect with high-value audiences across verticals, from CPG and Retail to Entertainment and Dining, with relevance and impact.

What Yahoo Search data is telling us:

• Last-minute dinner plans. Dining out drives the largest share of Valentine’s Week activity. In 2025, searches for Valentine’s Day restaurants in the final four days matched the prior twelve days combined.¹ In 2026, interest is already up 8% year to date, signaling continued urgency around plans.²
• Gifting skews male. Valentine’s “gift for” searches consistently favor male recipients. In 2025, they were 1.9x more likely to be for men³ and in 2026, that gap remains wide, with searches 75% more likely to be for men than women.⁴
• At home goes sweet. Nearly half (44%) of Valentine’s Day recipe searches in 2025 focused on desserts and treats rather than dinner, appetizer, and general Valentine’s Day recipe searches combined , highlighting indulgence as the centerpiece of at-home celebrations.⁵
• Getting ready still matters. Valentine’s Day beauty and fashion trends remain strong. Searches for Valentine’s Day nails surged over 4x in the  14 days ending on February 14th compared to the first 2 weeks of January in2025,⁶ with 2026 interest showing no signs of slowing.
• Valentine’s is bigger than romance. Gal-entine’s Day search interest is pacing 10% ahead of last year,⁷ while self-care searches rise 14% during Valentine’s Week versus early January.⁸

Yahoo DSP is the perfect matchmaker for your Valentine’s Campaigns

Yahoo DSP advertisers can leverage the Yahoo data signals to target high-value audience segments at scale across channels, devices, and all sources of inventory, including private marketplaces and premium formats. In addition, Yahoo diverse signals power a suite of advanced measurement solutions, helping advertisers understand performance and optimize Valentine’s Day campaigns with confidence.

• Match with the right Audience this Valentine’s Day: At Yahoo DSP, advertisers can activate against Valentine’s Day intent using proprietary data built from direct consumer relationships across Yahoo properties. By leveraging signals such as search behavior and content consumption, brands can build and customize high-value audiences aligned to specific KPIs and campaign goals. For example, beauty and personal care advertisers can reach users searching for terms like “Galentine’s Day”or “self-care inspiration”, while dining and local services can engage audiences searching for “romantic dinner” or “Valentine’s Day restaurants”. Advertisers can further scale and refine reach by layering in one of 550+ interest-based audiences, including Valentine’s Day intenders, beauty salon enthusiasts, and diners actively looking to book reservations. In addition, Yahoo DSP’s partnerships with data partners and major commerce media networks enable brands to connect with high-intent shoppers, from grocery and retail buyers purchasing Valentine’s chocolates and gifts to home décor enthusiasts planning at-home celebrations, turning seasonal intent into measurable impact.

• Valentine’s moments across inventory and channels: While love stories can be enjoyed year-round, there’s something especially irresistible about cozying up with a rom-com or romantic drama this time of year. Through the Yahoo DSP, advertisers gain access to 100% of non–walled garden inventory⁹, enabling you to reach audiences during this highly relevant moment across CTV, mobile, web and audio. You can leverage contextual and genre-specific targeting to align your message with romance-driven content. And to simplify execution, Yahoo Curated Inventory groups offer efficient access to romance-themed supply across premium streaming channels. Perhaps romance isn’t top of mind, but rather a love of sports. No worries, we’ve got you covered there, too. Yahoo Curated Inventory spans every major sports category, from the upcoming start of the MLB season to the NBA playoff,  and everything in between and beyond.

• Love is a journey- understanding the Path to Conversion: Much like Valentine’s Day itself, conversions are rarely driven by a single moment. Yahoo DSP’s Path to Conversion analysis shows how an omnichannel approach influences consumer behavior and drives stronger results by revealing which touchpoints people engage with before converting. In one recent campaign for an Entertainement advertiser, omnichannel exposures consistently outperformed single-channel strategies, demonstrating the power of cross-channel synergy: users exposed to multiple channels were 1.3x more likely to search,¹⁰ 3.1x more likely to visit a website,¹¹ and 58% more likely to visit in-storecompared to those exposed to a single channel.¹² The results also revealed the critical role of CTV, which helped drive 43% of website visits¹³ and 58% of in-store visits.¹⁴ By understanding these paths, advertisers can move beyond last-touch thinking and activate Valentine’s Day campaigns across CTV, display, and audio with confidence, knowing each touchpoint contributes to meaningful engagement and conversion.

When Valentine’s insights meet rich audience segments that can be activated across channels and inventory where consumers spend their time, delivering relevant campaigns becomes easier. And with robust measurement in place, marketers can close the loop, clearly understanding how their Valentine’s campaigns drive real impact against business goals. Reach out to your Yahoo DSP representative to learn more.

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¹ Yahoo Search, Feb 11-14, 2026 vs. Jan 30 - Feb 10, 2025

²  Yahoo Search, Jan 1 - Feb 2, 2026 vs. Jan 30 - Feb 10, 2025

³ Yahoo Search Jan 1 - Feb 14, 2025

⁴ Yahoo Search Jan 1 - Feb 2, 2026

⁵ Yahoo Search Jan 1 - Feb 14, 2025

⁶ Yahoo Search Jan 1 - Feb 14, 2025

⁷  Yahoo Search, Jan 1 - Feb 2, 2026 vs. Jan 30 - Feb 10, 2025

⁸ Yahoo Search, Feb 10-16 vs Jan 1-7, 2025

⁹ Internal Yahoo DSP Data, December 2025

^10-14  Internal Yahoo DSP Data, Q1 2025