This study explores the research hotspots and trends in the field of impulsive buying behavior internationally and conducts a visual analysis to provide insights for high-quality development research in China’s marketing sector. Methods: Using the Web of Science Core Collection, the study retrieved English-language articles with "Impulsive Buying Behavior" as the search keyword, covering the period from January 2015 to December 2024. The visual analysis tool VOSviewer was applied to analyze the network views of the included literature and to construct time-series-based knowledge maps, focusing on publication volume, journals, researchers, and keywords. Results: The findings indicate that the annual publication volume in the field of impulsive buying behavior has shown a steady upward trend internationally. The research is of high quality, with most publications appearing in SCI-indexed journals. Researchers' contributions exhibit strong continuity and interconnectivity, forming effective networks and a cohesive system. Over the past decade, keywords such as "online shopping," "e-commerce," and "digital marketing" have emerged as highly prominent. The theme of "consumer emotions and experiences" has become a key research hotspot. With the development and application of emerging internet technologies such as big data and artificial intelligence in digital media construction, "personalized recommendation systems and real-time consumer behavior analysis" are expected to become significant research directions for impulsive buying behavior in the new era. These findings provide valuable references for the development of new theories and technologies in international research on impulsive buying behavior.