Social Rocket
Pinterest advises advertisers to rework their Shopping Ads right after Christmas: away from gift ideas and delivery deadlines, toward personal purchases, travel planning and new routines. The updated business guide from 6 October 2026 provides a German practical example – with a Q5 campaign, TUI reached 41 percent more people via Premiere Spotlight than the annual average.
For e-commerce teams, this creates an additional campaign window between Black Friday business and January. What matters is not simply a new budget, but the shift in purchase motivation.
What makes the "fifth quarter" special
Q5 in the narrower sense refers to the week between Christmas and New Year; in travel planning the phase can extend into January. Anyone still advertising "the perfect gift" on the 24 December misses many people on the 27 December. On Pinterest, new goals then come to the fore: beauty routines, home setup for everyday life, resolutions, travel and clothing for the start of the year.
The platform cites a notable European figure for this: every second monthly active Pinterest user in Europe keeps shopping in the weeks after Christmas, according to Pinterest's own data. The audience therefore does not automatically disappear with the holidays – it looks for other products and occasions.
The German TUI example: Christmas meets wanderlust
The TUI case study from Pinterest is particularly illustrative. The travel provider combined warm Christmas visuals with sunny destinations and early-booking offers. Premium video ads appeared in the home and search feeds; collections supplemented the videos with further travel pins.
In the period stated, 25 December 2024 to 12 January 2025, TUI reached 41 percent more people with Premiere Spotlight than the annual average. The video completion rate of takeover placements in December was 2024 29 percent above the annual average of individual placements. These are comparison values for reach and video usage, not disclosed booking figures.
The creative mechanism is also usable outside the travel industry: after Christmas a furniture retailer no longer shows a gift table but a freshly organised workspace. A cosmetics brand swaps glitter make-up for a care routine. A fitness provider promotes the start of a habit instead of a voucher.
Three changes for the campaign calendar 2026/27
First: prepare two variants per seasonal visual. One version sells the Christmas gift, the second the use of the product in everyday life. Image, headline and product selection can often come from the same raw data.
Second: plan the shift before Christmas. Sets, offer pages, product catalogues and tracking should be ready for the 26 December. For shop operators, it is worth a look at our Pinterest Black Friday guide: the basics of catalogue quality and attribution also apply in Q5.
Third: vary creatives instead of just turning up spend. Pinterest points to the Media Library and Smart Assembly. According to internal platform data, ad groups with five to ten ads achieve an ROAS 2,7 percent higher than the global average. The Pinterest Shopping Ads guide explains how goal, catalogue and optimisation fit together.
For evaluation, brands should track reach, video views, clicks and actual orders separately. The current Pinterest business figures also show why the platform is keen to expand its European advertising business.
The real Q5 opportunity is a simple shift: after Christmas, planning doesn't stop, it just changes. Those who adjust their visual style in time can reuse existing creatives for a second sales phase.
Sources: Pinterest Business, 6. October 2026, Pinterest/TUI case study, Social Media Today, 29. September 2026.