Dashain and Tihar are the biggest buying season in Nepal, and the weeks when CPCs, inbox volume and Google Maps questions all rise together. A good Dashain and Tihar marketing strategy is mostly operational: the right dates, budgets paced to real demand, offers you can deliver, landing pages that answer questions, and someone answering WhatsApp. Arjan KC runs festival campaigns as part of search engine marketing, mobile and WhatsApp marketing.

This playbook is written for the 2083 (2026) season, which began with Ghatasthapana on 11 October, and is built to reuse in later years: swap in the new dates and the structure still holds.

For inventory and courier preparation, use the companion Dashain 2083 shopping checklist for sellers. For background on seasonal bidding, see PPC seasonality.

2083 festival dates

Dates below come from the Ministry of Home Affairs public holiday list for 2083 and this site’s Nepali calendar. Holiday closures can be revised; check the official notice before you publish a cut-off.

Day	BS date (2083)	AD date (2026)	Marketing meaning
Ghatasthapana	Asoj 25	Sunday 11 October	Season starts; public holiday
Fulpati	Asoj 31	Saturday 17 October	Dashain holiday block begins (17–23 October)
Maha Ashtami	Kartik 1	Sunday 18 October	Families gathered; offices and many shops closed
Maha Navami	Kartik 3	Tuesday 20 October	Vehicle and tool puja; low commercial activity
Vijaya Dashami (Tika)	Kartik 4	Wednesday 21 October	Tika day; greetings, not hard selling
Kojagrat Purnima	Kartik 8	Sunday 25 October	Dashain ends; return travel and restart
Kag Tihar	Kartik 21	Saturday 7 November	Tihar begins
Kukur Tihar, Laxmi Puja	Kartik 22	Sunday 8 November	Tihar holiday block begins (8–12 November)
Govardhan / Mha Puja	Kartik 24	Tuesday 10 November	Newar new year (Nepal Sambat 1147)
Bhai Tika	Kartik 25	Wednesday 11 November	Gifting peak ends
Chhath	Kartik 29	Sunday 15 November	Public holiday; important in Madhesh

Dhanteras (Dhanatrayodashi) falls on 6 November, two days before Laxmi Puja.

The season in five phases

Phase	2083 window	What customers do	What you do
Pre-festival	Late September to 16 October	Research and buy clothes, gifts and electronics; book travel home	Highest spend on purchase campaigns; push delivery cut-offs
Travel and shutdown	17–24 October	Travel, family time, Tika visits; heavy mobile use, little shopping for delivery	Lower bids on delivery-dependent campaigns; brand greetings; “order now, delivered after Tika”
Bridge to Tihar	25 October to 5 November	Return travel, restart, then Tihar planning	Remarket to Dashain visitors; launch Tihar offers by early November
Tihar peak	6–11 November	Gold, electronics, lights, sweets and Bhai Tika gifts	Second spending peak; same-city delivery and pickup offers
Post-season	From 12 November	Chhath in the Terai; then normal buying	Retention, reviews, search-term review and planning notes

The key timing mistake is spending evenly across the season. Demand for delivered goods is concentrated before Fulpati and before Laxmi Puja, while the holiday blocks themselves are better for brand presence and bookings for later.

Demand by category

These are the patterns to plan around; check them against your own account history from last year, aligned by festival day rather than calendar date, because Dashain moves every year.

• Clothing and footwear: strongest in the two to three weeks before Fulpati, when new clothes for Tika are bought. Delivery cut-offs matter most here.
• Electronics and appliances: Dashain offers and exchange schemes, then a second push around Dhanteras and Laxmi Puja, which many households treat as an auspicious time to buy.
• Gold, silver and utensils: concentrated on Dhanteras and Laxmi Puja.
• Gifts: Dashain gifts for family visits, then Bhai Tika gifts for siblings. Bundles and gift cards work for late buyers.
• Travel (bus and air tickets, hotels): bookings for travel home come weeks ahead of Fulpati; return travel after Tika and Kojagrat Purnima. Domestic hotels see post-Tika and Tihar holiday demand.
• Remittance and diaspora gifting: Nepalis abroad send money and order gifts for family before Dashain, often from other time zones.
• Sweets and food: Tihar is the peak, especially for Laxmi Puja and Bhai Tika orders.
• Services (clinics, salons, repairs): demand drops during the holiday blocks and returns afterwards. Bookings for “after Dashain” are the offer.

Budget pacing and bidding

Plan from the benchmark, then your history

The managed accounts behind the Nepal Digital Marketing Benchmark Report 2027 show Google Search CPC roughly 30–50% higher through Dashain and Tihar. These are medians from managed accounts, not a national census. In practice, plan from the top of your industry’s normal band in the Google Ads CPC breakdown: if your clicks normally cost NPR 30, budget for NPR 39–45 during peak weeks. Media spend and management fees are separate, so a festival increase is a media decision.

For Meta, use the ranges in Meta Ads costs in Nepal and watch your own CPM week by week rather than applying a fixed uplift.

Google Ads

• Launch early. Start festival campaigns two to four weeks before the peak so Smart Bidding has data before auctions tighten. Avoid structural changes in the peak week.
• Seasonality adjustments, used sparingly. Google’s seasonality adjustments tell Smart Bidding to expect a conversion-rate change for a future event. Google says they suit short events of one to seven days and may not work well beyond 14 days, and that Smart Bidding already handles normal seasonal patterns. They apply to Search, Shopping and Display campaigns on Target CPA or Target ROAS, and to Performance Max. Use one for a short flash sale, not for the whole five-week season.
• Manual and Maximise Clicks campaigns need budget raises and, where used, higher bid caps in the pre-festival and Tihar peaks, and reductions during the shutdown days.
• Performance Max can run without a product feed (Search, YouTube, Display and other inventory), but launching it for the first time in festival week is a poor experiment. See Performance Max for Nepali SMEs.
• No Shopping campaigns for Nepal. Nepal is not on Merchant Center’s list of supported target countries, so do not plan Nepal-targeted Shopping campaigns.

Meta

• Budget scheduling. For campaigns or ad sets on a daily budget, Ads Manager lets you schedule budget increases for specific periods, by amount or percentage, and reverts to the base budget afterwards. Schedule increases for the pre-Fulpati and pre-Laxmi Puja windows instead of editing budgets by hand in the busiest week. Check current limits in Ads Manager.
• Keep remarketing on. Remarketing audiences built in October are still warm in November; do not switch them off the morning after Tika. See remarketing limits in Nepal.
• Frequency: festival feeds are crowded. Rotate creative weekly rather than raising frequency on one ad.

Creative and offers

• Prices in NPR, cut-offs in words. “Order by [date] for delivery in Kathmandu Valley before Fulpati” beats a countdown timer.
• Greetings on Tika day, offers before it. Ads on Vijaya Dashami and Bhai Tika that greet rather than sell keep the brand present without wasting spend on low-intent days.
• Real scarcity only. Avoid “only 3 left” or fake countdowns. Customers check claims in the chat, and a mismatch between ad, landing page and first reply leads to bad reviews in the season when people read reviews most.
• Bundles for each festival: Tika outfits, Laxmi Puja electronics, Bhai Tika gift sets, sweets boxes.
• Payment clarity: say whether you accept COD, eSewa, Khalti or cards, and any advance for COD orders.
• Language: test Nepali, Romanised Nepali and English variants; festival copy often performs better in Nepali.

Landing pages

Send festival traffic to one festival page, not the homepage. It should carry:

• NPR prices, delivery areas and dated cut-offs at the top.
• Business hours and closed days for each holiday block.
• Payment options and the returns or exchange policy.
• A WhatsApp button whose greeting repeats the offer and dates.
• Fast loading on a phone over 4G.

Publish it early, then freeze the URL so ads, Google Business Profile posts and WhatsApp greetings all point to the same place. The guides to landing pages for Nepal and the CRO checklist cover the details.

Image: Arjan KC media library.

Stock, delivery cut-offs and courier closures

• Confirm cut-offs in writing with each courier, by region, before you advertise a date. Many couriers slow or stop during the holiday blocks.
• Stop promising Dashain delivery the moment the cut-off passes. Switch ad copy and the landing page to “delivered after Tika” or “reserve now”.
• Keep stock data current. Pause ads for out-of-stock products daily during peaks.
• Plan the restart: orders taken during the holiday ship in a backlog; tell customers the expected date in the confirmation message.

The seller checklist and the logistics and courier marketing guide cover inventory and courier planning.

WhatsApp response SLA

Click-to-WhatsApp ads only pay off if someone answers. Write the service level down and staff to it.

Window	Target	If you miss it
Published business hours	First reply within 15 minutes	Pause click-to-WhatsApp ads until cover is back
Evenings in peak weeks	First reply within 1 hour; away message after	Cap ad delivery to staffed hours
Tika and family days	Away message with the next open slot	Pause chat ads; keep brand greetings only
After the delivery cut-off	Quick reply stating the new delivery date	Remove delivery promises from ads and greeting

To make the SLA workable:

1. Roster by name. List who covers WhatsApp, Messenger and calls on every day of both holiday blocks, with a backup.
2. Quick replies for prices, delivery dates, COD areas, payment and returns, so answers are consistent.
3. Away and greeting messages that state hours and the current cut-off, updated whenever dates change.
4. Labels for new enquiry, quoted, paid, COD confirmed and delivered, so nothing is lost between shifts.
5. Escalation for complaints and payment problems to a named senior person.
6. Ad scheduling that matches staffed hours for chat campaigns.

The WhatsApp marketing playbook covers templates and the API. This section is about who is awake to answer.

Google Business Profile hours

Set special hours for each holiday block in Google Business Profile, including closed days and “opens after Tika”. Otherwise Maps sends people to a closed door, and that is how festival reviews go wrong. See online reputation and GBP management.

Diaspora targeting

Nepalis abroad buy gifts and send money home for Dashain and Tihar. For gift shops, florists, cake and sweets sellers, remittance services and travel:

• Target by location and language: Nepali-speaking audiences in the countries where your customers’ families work and study.
• Time zones: schedule ads and staff replies for evenings in the audience’s time zone, not Kathmandu’s.
• Payment and delivery: state clearly how overseas buyers can pay and when delivery in Nepal is guaranteed.
• Start earlier: diaspora orders need extra lead time for delivery before Tika.

The Nepali diaspora marketing guide covers channels and messaging.

Measurement and post-season review

During the season:

• Track conversions by phase (pre-festival, shutdown, bridge, Tihar), not just by month.
• Import confirmed sales and qualified chats as offline conversions so bidding learns from revenue. See UTM and offline conversions for WhatsApp.
• Separate COD orders placed from orders delivered.

After Bhai Tika:

1. Export the search terms report for the season; it is the best negative-keyword list you will get all year.
2. Compare year on year by festival day, not by calendar date, since Dashain moves every year.
3. Review chats won and lost with their sources and response times.
4. Save the landing page as next year’s template.
5. Write down the cut-offs, courier issues and staffing gaps while they are fresh.
6. Keep a small remarketing budget on festival visitors into Mangsir.

Related published figures

There is no published festival-lift figure on this site. Case studies show what happens when the destination converts and the reply path works year-round: a Kathmandu clinic’s Search and Maps calls rose about 85% in six months (case study), and a home services Google Ads account cut CPA by 42% in 90 days (case study).

Festival checklist

• 2083 dates confirmed against the official holiday notice.
• Festival landing page live with NPR prices, cut-offs and hours.
• Courier cut-offs confirmed in writing by region.
• Budgets paced to the pre-Fulpati and pre-Laxmi Puja peaks; Meta increases scheduled.
• Seasonality adjustments, if any, limited to short sale windows.
• WhatsApp roster, quick replies and away messages ready.
• Google Business Profile special hours set for both holiday blocks.
• Offline conversions and a post-season review on the calendar.

Next: Google Ads vs Meta Ads in Nepal · ad account ownership · Google Ads in Nepal. To have a festival plan built, see hire packages.