As the Chinese New Year 2026 approaches, consumers across Asia and globally are preparing for one of the most important traditional holidays. For eCommerce businesses, this period represents not only a peak in holiday spending but also a unique opportunity to capture high-intent traffic and drive conversions. PropellerAds has released insights and forecasts for Chinese New Year 2026, highlighting a peak season for mobile traffic, e-commerce spending and entertainment-driven campaigns.
Understanding Consumer Behavior During Chinese New Year
During the Chinese New Year period, online engagement rises sharply. In China, average daily internet usage approaches seven hours, providing ample touchpoints for advertisers. Similarly, markets in Southeast Asia—including Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and Vietnam—as well as Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and major Western cities with large Chinese communities such as Sydney, San Francisco, London, and Vancouver demonstrate increased eCommerce activity. Even markets like Australia, Canada, the United States, and parts of the EU see notable spikes due to holiday-related consumer interest.
Popular categories during this period include food and beverages, snacks, kitchenware, health supplements, electronics, and apparel. These segments consistently deliver high conversion rates on ecommerce platforms and affiliate offers.
Optimized Campaigns and Targeted Offers
Success in ecommerce advertising begins with clear product focus and audience targeting. Advertisers are advised to prioritize a single high-demand product or special holiday offer and create Chinese New Year-themed creatives to engage audiences. CPA-based campaigns on platforms such as Shopee, Lazada, Zalora, and Pomelo Fashion can leverage pre-designed landing pages to efficiently guide users to purchase.
Scalable ad formats including Popunder, Push, In-Page Push, Interstitial, Telegram Mini App Ads and Survey Exit Ads. Dynamic targeting and retargeting strategies ensure campaigns reach high-intent users, while personalisation by geography, browsing history, or holiday interest improves click-through rates and average order values.
Landing Page Experience and Conversion Optimization
The key to ecommerce success lies in simplifying the purchase process. Product pages should clearly present product information, price, and key selling points with high-quality visuals or short videos. It should be noted that the ecommerce experience in Asian markets is often highly social media-driven and very different visually to Western markets.
Checkout processes should minimize steps, support guest checkout and mobile payments such as Apple Pay or Google Pay, and transparently display total costs to reduce cart abandonment. Automated email workflows for welcome sequences, cart abandonment, post-purchase follow-ups, and re-engagement campaigns further enhance retention and repeat purchases.
Data-Driven Growth and Post-Holiday Planning
Holiday campaign performance relies on careful data monitoring and iterative optimization. Key metrics include:
- Acquisition Stage: Customer acquisition cost (CAC), return on ad spend (ROAS)
- On-Site Experience: Conversion rate, average order value (AOV), key page bounce rate, checkout completion rate
- Retention Stage: Repeat purchase rate, customer lifetime value (LTV), repurchase cycle
Chinese New Year traffic peaks offer eCommerce advertisers a unique opportunity to explore new products, test campaign strategies, and enter or expand within Asian markets. Retail Media professionals should explore how they can tailor their campaigns to meet the specific needs of this audience, in the market’s unique ecommerce environment.
