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!
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London – 24 November, 2017 – Tapad, part of Experian, is the leader in cross-device marketing technology and continues to broaden its reach across EMEA. The business today reported a 20 percent growth in the scope of its regional device graph, a data set used by organisations to map consumers to their devices, enabling better, more personalised cross-device marketing. This news complements Tapad’s recent expansion of its UK team with the hire of experienced solutions engineer, Davide Rosamilia. As the demand for cross-device technology solutions continues to grow around the globe, coupled with the emergence of regulations such as Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Tapad is committed to offering suppliers the greatest level of insight without compromising consumer privacy. Since Tapad started licensing its proprietary Tapad Device GraphTM just over a year ago, demand for the company’s technology has experienced significant growth. New supply partnerships and proactive data sourcing have also meant an increase in devices across key markets, which contribute to the overall 20 percent growth of the EMEA device graph, including a 44 percent increase in the U.K., 47 percent in France, and 85 percent in Germany. “We’re continuing to invest heavily in growing our regional device graph, allowing us to better meet the needs of EMEA marketers as they strive to reach individuals with greater precision in some of the most tightly regulated marketplaces worldwide,” said Tom Rolph, VP EMEA, Tapad. “This year, we have also welcomed 10 new data suppliers whom we’ve helped to increase cross-device amplification, attribution and audience extension, helping to further set us apart in the marketplace and successfully expand our EMEA presence.” Available around the world, the Device Graph provides access to Tapad’s globally compliant and privacy-safe datasets across EMEA, APAC and the U.S., and offers deeper knowledge of consumer preferences, purchase intent, and conversion behaviors. “Tapad has shown a unique ability to adapt to the nuances of the local EMEA market and display impressive growth without sacrificing dedication to privacy,” said Alistair Hill, CEO and Co-founder at On Device Research. “When we started vetting technology vendors, we needed to be sure that we selected a partner that could offer compliant and privacy-safe datasets to operate within our stringent data standards. Tapad’s probabilistic solution offered us greater scale, greater device reach, and increased engagement without compromising on privacy.” For information more about the Tapad Device Graph™, or to request a demo, contact us today. Get started with us
The Tapad Device Graph™ Will Expand Sizmek’s Cross-Device Reach and Improve the Efficiency and Precision of Digital Advertising NEW YORK, November 16, 2017 — Tapad, part of Experian and a leader in cross-device marketing technology, today announced a new global partnership with Sizmek, the largest independent buy-side advertising platform delivering impressions that inspire. By integrating the Tapad Device Graph™, Sizmek will enhance its AI-powered predictive capabilities to deliver accurate, cross-device messaging at global scale in a privacy-safe environment. Combined with Sizmek’s existing data enablement, creative optimization and media execution capabilities, the proprietary Tapad Device Graph improves the efficiency and precision of digital advertising by accurately matching people and devices. This enables advertisers to get a clear view of individual customer journeys, achieve scale without compromising on efficiency, and uncover new opportunities for conversion. Sizmek’s customers will have access to Tapad’s globally compliant and privacy-safe datasets across the Americas, EMEA, and APAC. With deeper knowledge of consumer preferences, purchase intent and conversion behaviors, Sizmek and its customers are able to enhance advertising strategies including cross-device audience identification and more. “Tapad is known for their strong cross-device capabilities, and their offering is an excellent addition to our growing program for best-of-breed data and measurement partners" says Mike Caprio, Sizmek’s Chief Growth Officer. “For our customers, this partnership will add further people-based marketing precision and reach to our comprehensive offerings around creative optimization, data enablement and media execution." “Sizmek’s adoption of industry-leading AI and machine learning campaigns will be a great complement for the Device Graph,” said Chris Feo, SVP, strategy & global partnerships at Tapad. “Our ability to create smaller, more customized segments in conjunction with Sizmek’s AI modeling will deliver efficiency, effectiveness and increased ROI for marketers worldwide.” This partnership comes at a time of a massive shift in the marketing technology industry. Companies like Tapad and Telenor, as well as Rocket Fuel and Sizmek, are joining forces to adopt those technologies that are most efficient and accurate at reaching consumers at scale in a personalized and non-intrusive way. The combination of Tapad and Sizmek’s offerings will provide international marketers with exceptional resources to lead a more cost effective and results driven campaign. For information more about the Tapad Device Graph™, contact us today. Get started with us
The Tapad Device Graph™ increases Throtle’s amplification by 475 percent. NEW YORK, Nov. 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ — Tapad, now a part of Experian, the leader in cross-device marketing technology, today announced a partnership with Throtle, a leading data onboarding company. The Tapad Device Graph™ will enhance Throtle's best-in-class onboarding capabilities by providing accurate and privacy-safe cross-device reach as well as precise audiences at scale. In partnership with Tapad, Throtle will deterministically link its services to a corroborated individual with hundreds of targeting attributes. This linkage allows Throtle to offer true cross-device identity management and identity resolution services to accompany its robust onboarding capabilities. Throtle will also work with Tapad to validate its device graph, building larger, more comprehensive audience segments. To date, the Tapad Device Graph™ has connected 61 percent of Throtle IDs to related ones in the graph, with an average amplification rate of 475 percent for Throtle's IDs, or 4.8 new IDs per each of Throtle's. Throtle has also seen its overall match rates involving Tapad's identity insights rise an average of 15 percent since the inception of the partnership. More specifically, Tapad's mobile advertising IDs (MAIDs) have increased Throtle's in-app identity inventory by 35 percent. "Tapad has proven to be a trusted source for cross-device matching and has a tremendous reputation in the advertising and marketing technology industries for delivering superior precision and scale with the utmost dedication to privacy," says Paul Chachko, CEO, Throtle. "Since we first began our test phase, and continuing through to this day, Tapad has met and exceeded our expectations for what a partner should be." With Tapad's strong commitment to precision and accuracy, Throtle was confident that this partnership would prove to be the right choice for the strategic expansion of its platform. Not only does Tapad deliver in-depth insights, parsing deterministic from probabilistic linkages, but its pool of device-level touchpoints enables Throtle to increase scale without seeing a decline in precision. "Accuracy and precision are core characteristics of our proprietary Device Graph," explains Chris Feo, SVP, Strategy & Global Partnerships, Tapad. "When Throtle approached our team, we knew we would be the right partner to assist their leading onboarding technology. We're excited to work with Throtle to achieve cross-device reach, audience scale and precise deterministic and probabilistic linkages for its clients." For more information about the Tapad Device Graph™, or to request a demo, visit https://www.experian.com/marketing/consumer-sync About TapadTapad Inc. is a marketing technology company renowned for its breakthrough, unified, cross-device solutions. The company's signature Tapad Device Graph™ connects millions of consumers across billions of devices. The world's largest brands and most effective marketers entrust Tapad to provide an accurate, privacy-conscious, and unified approach to connecting with consumers across screens. In 2015, Tapad began licensing the Tapad Device Graph™ and swiftly became the established gold-standard throughout the ad tech ecosystem. Tapad is based in New York and has offices in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, London, Los Angeles, Miami, Oslo, San Francisco, Singapore, and Tokyo. Tapad's numerous awards include: Forbes' Most Promising Companies, Deloitte's Technology Fast 500, Crain's Fast 50, TMCnet Tech Culture Award, and Global Startup Award's "Startup Founder of the Year". In 2016, Tapad was acquired by the Telenor Group, one of the world's largest mobile operators. About ThrotleThrotle is a data onboarding company focused on deterministic matching and identity resolution, empowering brands with true individual-based marketing. Our data centric onboarding approach guarantees the highest level of accuracy, scale, and responsiveness for our clients. For more information on Throtle, please visit, throtle.io. Contact us today!