With the back-to-school season approaching, marketers are preparing to engage both eager students and parents. Our Q&A video with Experian experts shares our predictions and tips for the 2024 back-to-school season so you can craft effective back-to-school marketing campaigns.
From early campaign launches to the rise of online shopping and budget-conscious consumer behaviors, let’s explore what lies ahead and how brands and agencies can prepare.
Watch the highlights from our video below.
Three trends for the 2024 back-to-school marketing season
Campaigns will start earlier
We expect back-to-school marketing efforts to kick off earlier than usual. Brands will launch campaigns with special promotions to secure mind and market share ahead of competitors. Additionally, the traditional back-to-school season is extending, urging marketers to prolong their campaigns to capture the attention of consumers who are taking more time to make purchasing decisions.
Online shopping will continue to rise
The surge in online shopping during the pandemic has become a lasting trend – and is especially appreciated by busy parents seeking convenience. Brands should focus on enhancing online and mobile shopping experiences, including options for in-store pickup and delivery. Marketers should prioritize their online presence and optimize e-commerce platforms, including experimenting with shoppable ads on connected TV (CTV), to meet the needs of families shopping for back-to-school supplies.
Budget consciousness is top of mind
With inflation on the rise and tighter budgets at home, households are becoming more selective in their back-to-school spending. Marketers should align their efforts with value-driven products and prioritize advertising that resonates with these financial priorities.
Strategies for brands and agencies
Next, let’s explore strategies brands and agencies can use to prepare for the upcoming back-to-school season.
Brands
First, we’ll highlight three recommended strategies for brands.
Maintain an evergreen presence
Launch your back-to-school campaigns early and maintain a steady presence throughout the season. Experian’s TrueTouchTM audience insights can guide your channel selection for maximum impact, helping you decide on key channels such as email, digital video, or specific social media platforms.
Build loyalty programs that deepen customer relationships
Use your customer data to create loyalty programs that foster stronger connections with your audience. By using insights from Experian, you can gain a holistic understanding of customer profiles and identify potential back-to-school prospects within your existing customer base. On average, Experian has 250 behavioral anddemographic marketing attributes per individual, which means we can decorate households and people with marketing data to get a full customer profile and fill in any gaps you have on your audience.
Prioritize value and convenience
Offer flexible shopping options like in-store, online, and buy online, pick up in-store (BOPIS) to cater to busy families. Partner with services like Shipt or Instacart to streamline shopping experiences.
Agencies
Now, we’ll share two ways agencies can effectively prepare for the back-to-school season.
Engage early and extend your campaigns
Initiate conversations with brands earlier to ensure timely planning and execution. Extend campaign durations to capture late-decision makers.
Adapt your channel strategies
Shift focus to digital channels like CTV and social media, aligning with evolving consumer habits and preferences. Experian works with major platforms, marketers, and agencies, which means we have existing partnerships across the ecosystem for you to connect with and bring your consumer data to life to meet your needs.
Watch the full Q&A
The 2024 back-to-school season promises new challenges and opportunities for marketers. By starting campaigns earlier, optimizing online experiences, and aligning with budget-conscious consumers, brands and agencies can position themselves for success.
Watch our full Q&A video where our experts cover:
- Tactics we predict marketers will employ to navigate signal loss
- Which channels will be the most successful
- Recommended audiences for targeting
- And more!
Latest posts
Black Friday online traffic increased 7% in 2012 versus 2011 as the top 500 retail sites received more than 193.8 million total US visits. So far this Holiday week of online traffic to the top retail sites is up 10% on average. Online retail traffic was up 1% on Black Friday compared to Thanksgiving Day 2012 traffic this year. Amazon.com remained the top visited retail site on Black Friday while Walmart was the second most visited retail site. BestBuy moved up to the 3rd most visited site while Target was the 4th most visited site. JC Penney moved up from being the 8th most visited retail site on Thanksgiving Day to the 5th most visited on Black Friday. Among the top 5 sites, JC Penney saw the biggest day-over-day growth at 26%. Looking at the top 20 retail sites on Black Friday, the Apple Store site saw the biggest day-over-day growth at 99%. Check back for CyberMonday insight and a weekly recap of this week. Learn more about the author, Matt Tatham
A few months ago, during a conversation with the Simmons team at Experian Marketing Services, we started talking about how Hispanics are influencing the mainstream. Someone threw out the “salsa outsells ketchup” anecdote we’ve all heard, and we realized that it was time to stop reusing the same examples and start trying to really prove whether or not this influence is happening. Not long after, the Latino Influence Project was born. The study leverages a custom analysis of data from the Simmons National Hispanic Consumer Study, which measures over 48,000 respondents across 60,000 variables, including language, demographics, brand preferences, attitudes, lifestyles and even political outlook. Not surprisingly, the data showed that non-Hispanics who live in high-density Hispanic neighborhoods behave, buy and believe more similarly to Hispanics than non-Hispanics living in low-density Hispanic neighborhoods, even after controlling variables such as geography, education, income, age and other factors. Some of our findings reinforced what we expected to see. For example, the data shows that non-Latinos living among Latinos: Consume and enjoy more Hispanic products, including food, music and sports. They are 5.5 times more likely to eat jalapeños and are 6 times as likely to listen to and enjoy salsa and merengue. Enjoy standing out in the crowd and being fashionable. They are twice as likely to say they like to stand out from the crowd and 70% more likely to experiment with new clothing styles. However, we were surprised to see that the Latino influence on the mainstream extends far beyond just food, sports and fashion. Non-Latinos living among Latinos also: Lead the way in technology. They are twice as likely to use their cell phones and the Internet for information and entertainment. Eat less processed food. They are twice as likely to look for organic and natural when shopping for food. Are environmentally conscious. They are twice as likely to buy recycled products. The growing Hispanic population together with the influence they are exerting on non-Hispanics that live around them means that our whole notion of “general market” is changing, and will continue to evolve. We think that’s pretty cool. To find out more about the Latino Influence Project and learn more about what we found (and what we think it all means), please join the Webinar being hosted by Wing and Experian Marketing Services on Thursday November 29th, 2012 at 2:00 EST. You can also download the Latino Influence Project report. Holly McGavock is Wing's Director of Planning, where she helps brands like Olay, Downy, Red Lobster and Radio Shack, among many others, connect with Latino consumers.
Experian Marketing Services Consumer Expectation Index shows positive outlook for 2012 holiday season Today we released the newest Experian Marketing Services’ Consumer Expectation Index (CEI) analysis of the first half of 2012. As noted in the release, during the first six months of 2012 we reported that consumer optimism has reached an all-time high over the last four years, beating 2008 by 8 index points. The CEI provides us with unprecedented insight into our economic outlook by who we are; men versus woman, age, household income and employment status, to name a few of the 60,000 variables that we have access to. What’s most striking about today’s release is that optimism is up across the board among men and woman and all age groups; even the unemployed increased their economic outlook from an index of 87.6 to 88.0 from the first half of 2011 to the same period this year. As we approach the holiday season, the latest CEI figures indicate a strong seasonal performance for retailers. The CEI figure for the week of Sept. 3, 2012, (the most recent single week for which data is available) was 7.4 points higher than it was at the same point last year and higher than it has been heading into the holiday season since 2008. This holiday season also could be very good for brands and retailers with big-ticket items to sell Further, key consumer groups are even more optimistic. On Sept. 3, the CEI of those adults who made an online purchase in the past year was 2 percent higher than the national average and 8.1 points higher than the CEI recorded for online shoppers at this time during 2011. This holiday season also could be very good for brands and retailers with big-ticket items to sell, since the CEI among adults planning to make a big-ticket purchase hit 117.9 the week of Sept. 3, 2012, compared with 103.5 the same week in 2011 and 100.5 in 2010. In fact, a CEI above 100 indicates that consumers are more confident than they were during the base line period, which was the first half of 2004, years before the recession began. Perhaps it’s all the talk of the looming fiscal cliff that makes today’s release appear to be counter-intuitive. In fact searches for “fiscal cliff” increased over ten-fold comparing last week to the week ending November 3rd. However, if we look for what people were searching for using search term variations, the top searches were “what is the fiscal cliff” and “fiscal cliff definition,” showing that consumers are still learning what the fiscal cliff is and what it means for them. Hitwise "Fiscal Cliff" Search Term Variations Rank Search Term Percent Volume 1 fiscal cliff 48.07% 2 what is the fiscal cliff 6.74% 3 fiscal cliff definition 6.58% 4 fiscal cliff 2013 6.28% 5 obama fiscal cliff 2.83% 6 what is a fiscal cliff 2.40% 7 the fiscal cliff 1.13% 8 what is fiscal cliff 1.06% 9 fiscal cliff looms 1.03% 10 fiscal cliff defined 0.77% Note – data is for the 4 Weeks Ending November 10, 2012 Source: Experian Marketing Services As the population becomes more educated on the looming crisis, we’ll keep tabs on any resulting changes to consumer optimism, specifically which demographics are most concerned. Learn more about the CEI here.