SOASTA^®, Inc., the leader in cloud and mobile testing, today announced the findings of its 2013 Valentine’s Day e-Card Survey. SOASTA commissioned the research because of its involvement in testing and preparing the websites of some of America’s leading online greeting card companies like Hallmark. Conducted online by Harris Interactive in late January, the SOASTA study questioned 2,474 American adults aged 18+ and determined 38% of Americans plan on sending an e-Card for Valentine’s Day this year. Using e-cards for this year Valentine’s Day was most popular with men 35 to 44 (47%) followed by men 18 to 34 (41%) and women 18 to 34 (41%).

“On Valentine’s Day, millions of Americans turn to Hallmark to express themselves,” said Cheryl Davis, Hallmark Digital Technical Operations Manager. “We depend on SOASTA to make sure our web site is ready to handle the heavy traffic so that everyone can make sure their loved ones know they were thought of on this special day.”

“Our research shows that over 1 in 3 Americans plan on sending an e-Card for Valentine’s Day, with the morning being the most popular time to do so,” said Tom Lounibos, SOASTA CEO. “Whether it’s Valentine’s Day or Christmas, companies trust SOASTA to make sure their web and mobile sites perform successfully during times of peak demand.”

Married Americans say their spouse is the number one person whom they plan on sending an e-card to (28%). That was followed by American adults who said they’d send one to friends (14%), parents who would send one to their children (11%), American adults who’d send one to their mothers (9%), boyfriends/girlfriends (8%), fathers (3%), grandparents (3%), secret crushes (3%), employed adults who’d send one to coworkers (3%), the hot receptionist at work (3%) and bosses (2%). Only one percent of Americans said they would send an e-Card for Valentine’s Day to a weekend fling. Four percent said they would only send an e-card if they got one themselves first.

In fact, there was a sense of quid pro quo when it came to Valentine’s Day e-Cards. A majority of Americans (54%) said they expected to get something in return for sending an e-card to a romantic partner or love interest, including:

• 35% a “thank you”
• 19% an e-card in return
• 17% a kiss
• 10% sex
• 10% dinner
• 8% a date
• 5% a physical card in return

Nearly 3 out of four Americans (73%) like something about e-Cards, including they’re free (53%), they’re convenient if you forget to buy a physical card (43%), they have animations (35%), they’re environmentally friendly (34%), they’re interactive (24%), you don’t need to know the recipient’s postal address (23%), they can be edgier than traditional greeting cards (13%), no one has to see you buy them (9%) and they can contain NSFW (not safe for work) content (6%).

However, while some Americans believe NSFW content is a positive feature, many more (29%) don’t want to see those images in an e-Card for Valentine’s Day. They also don’t want to see the following:

• 25% Unicorns
• 24% Pictures of sender’s kids
• 23% Pictures of sender’s spouse
• 19% Kittens
• 16% Picture of sender
• 16% People kissing
• 13% Hearts
• 13% Flowers

About SOASTA

SOASTA is the leader in cloud and mobile testing. Its web and mobile test automation solution, CloudTest, enables developers, QA professionals and IT operations teams to test with unprecedented speed, scale and precision. The innovative product set streamlines test creation, automates provisioning and execution, and distills analytics to deliver actionable intelligence faster. With SOASTA, companies can have confidence that their applications will perform as designed, even in peak traffic. SOASTA’s customers include many of today’s most successful brands including American Girl, Chegg, Gilt Groupe, Hallmark, Intuit, Microsoft and Netflix. SOASTA is privately held and headquartered in Mountain View, Calif. For more information about SOASTA, please visit www.soasta.com.

Survey Methodology

This survey was conducted online within the United States by Harris Interactive on behalf of SOASTA from January 24-28, 2013 among 2,474 adults ages 18 and older. This online survey is not based on a probability sample and therefore no estimate of theoretical sampling error can be calculated. For complete survey methodology, including weighting variables, please contact William McCormick

SOASTA is a registered trademark of SOASTA, Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners. Other product or company names mentioned may be trademarks or trade names of their respective companies.