How Winning Design Strategies Boosted Spring Festival Campaign Traffic

Operations Design: A Win‑Win Mindset

The 2019 Spring Festival campaign was the largest housing‑related operation of the year, exceeding traffic expectations through a combination of upgraded user experience, business integration, and data‑driven flow optimization.

1. Upgrade Experience

Information Transmission – The main visual extracted activity keywords, linked them to real‑world scenarios, and used a theme park metaphor to reinforce the brand, redefining the rental‑season IP and making the prize‑draw more visible.

Emotional Transmission – The number of games increased from one simple mini‑game to five diverse challenges, each with distinct difficulty, points, and clear logic, enhancing richness and user engagement.

2. Combine with Business

Designers collaborated with product teams early (starting Oct 26) to define activity scale, IP name, themes, game formats, and prize mechanisms. Business goals included promoting brand apartments, increasing merchant exposure, and embedding activity tags into functional pages to drive traffic across rental categories.

3. Boost Traffic

Designers refreshed the main rental category pages, highlighted the apartment entrance, and added game‑task prompts, resulting in a noticeable rise in click‑through rates. Diverse media channels (e.g., subway ads, iQIYI splash screens, outdoor displays) further amplified reach.

Data‑Driven Perspective

Three data dimensions were examined: total volume, variables, and quality.

Total Volume – Overall traffic scale and distribution, used to assess whether business goals were met.

Variables – Trend analysis of key metrics over time to identify issues and adjust strategies promptly.

Quality – User activity and conversion rates, indicating satisfaction and participation willingness.

The analysis highlighted a slight decline in user retention but an increase in session duration and average visit time, suggesting a need for further investment in conversion and retention.

Data‑Driven Design Process

Define core metrics (SMART goals).

Break down activity metrics into actionable indicators.

Set page‑level metrics (PV/UV, dwell time, shares, etc.).

Translate metrics into design tasks (e.g., replace leaderboard with timed lottery to boost participation).

Validate metric completion through trend, multi‑dimensional, and funnel analyses, adjusting tactics in real time.

Key Takeaways

Identify target user groups and understand their psychology before planning activities.

Pre‑heat the activity, then leverage residual traffic with post‑event incentives.

Focus on new‑user conversion and retention beyond the campaign.

Encourage cross‑business collaboration for greater impact.

Publish results transparently to gather user feedback and avoid abrupt endings.