At A Glance
Back-to-school marketing in 2024 starts earlier, runs longer and relies more on digital engagement. Families research and purchase across online and in-store touchpoints while staying focused on value and convenience. Brands and agencies that plan sooner, activate audience insights early, and maintain consistent experiences across channels stay visible throughout the full back-to-school buying window.In the 2024 back-to-school season, shopping timelines will be stretching earlier into the summer; online and mobile commerce will play a larger role, and household spending decisions will reflect tighter budgets.
Parents and students are researching sooner, comparing prices more carefully, and moving between digital and physical touchpoints before making purchase decisions. For marketers, this shift calls for earlier planning, longer campaign windows, and messaging that reflects both value and flexibility.
Experian experts shared their predictions and tips in a Q&A video, outlining how brands and agencies can prepare for the back-to-school season.
Watch the highlights from our video below.
Three back-to-school marketing trends for 2024
Back-to-school shopping patterns are shifting as families plan earlier, shop across more channels, and stay focused on value. For marketers, success in 2024 comes down to understanding where attention is moving and how to stay relevant throughout a longer buying window.
When will back-to-school campaigns start in 2024?
In 2024, back-to-school campaigns will start earlier and run longer. Brands are moving promotions forward to reach families who plan purchases over several weeks rather than in a single peak moment.
Early engagement supports:
- Awareness before peak competition
- Higher frequency across longer decision cycles
- Coverage for late-season shoppers
Planning ahead allows marketers to stay visible as families spread purchases across categories and channels.
How is online shopping shaping back-to-school marketing in 2024?
Online and mobile shopping continue to gain popularity during the back-to-school season in 2024. Families value convenience, flexible fulfillment, and the ability to move easily between devices.
Marketers should focus on:
- Online and mobile shopping experiences, including options for in-store pickup and delivery.
- E-commerce platforms, including experimenting with shoppable ads on connected TV (CTV)
A strong digital presence supports discovery, comparison, and purchase across devices. As audiences move fluidly between channels, omnichannel strategies help each interaction feel connected, not fragmented. Identity solutions like Experian’s Digital Graph support that continuity by connecting touchpoints across mobile, desktop, CTV, and in-store, helping brands show up consistently and measure what happens next.
Why budget awareness is influencing messaging
Budget awareness is shaping back-to-school messaging as households keep a closer eye on spending. With cost pressures still top of mind, families are planning purchases more carefully and prioritizing value and practicality.
Marketers should align their efforts on/around:
- Clear pricing and fulfillment options
- Value-based offers
- Practical product bundles
What back-to-school marketing strategies should brands use in 2024
Maintain an evergreen presence
Brands should launch back-to-school campaigns early and maintain a steady presence throughout the season. Consistent visibility supports families as they plan and purchase over time.
Understanding how audiences move across channels and timing is key to sustaining that presence. Experian’s TrueTouch™ audiences help brands identify:
- Channel mix preferences
- Timing by audience segment
- Media paths across emails, digital video, and social platforms
Build loyalty programs that deepen customer relationships
Loyalty programs perform best when they reflect a complete view of each customer. When data is limited to transactions or single channels, offers can feel generic and disconnected from real needs.
Using Experian enrichment, brands can expand first-party data with a broad set of demographic, behavioral, and household insights.
With access to more than 5,000+ Marketing Attributes, brands can:
- Create loyalty offers that feel relevant across channels
- Fill data gaps in customer profiles
- Clarify life stage and shopping behavior
Prioritize value and convenience
Convenience and value remain top priorities for families balancing busy schedules during the 2024 back-to-school season.
Effective approaches to prioritize value and convenience include:
- Partnerships with delivery services such as Shipt and Instacart
- In-store and online fulfillment parity
- Pick up in-store (BOPIS) availability
How should agencies approach back-to-school marketing in 2024?
Engage early and extend your campaigns
Agencies benefit from starting conversations earlier with brand partners to support planning and execution. Longer campaign durations help capture demand from early planners and late decision-makers alike.
Adapt your channel strategies
Media plans should reflect how audiences consume content today. Connected TV and social platforms play a central role during the back-to-school season, alongside programmatic and private marketplace buying.
Experian Audiences are available across more than 200 leading activation destinations, including programmatic, social, and TV platforms, and can be curated with premium inventory through Curated Deals. Agencies can activate Experian Audiences and Partner Audiences through Experian’s data marketplace, including access to audiences available within Audigent, a part of Experian, and directly on platforms such as DirecTV, Dish, Magnite, OpenAP, and The Trade Desk.
Watch our full 2024 back-to-school season Q&A with Experian experts
Brands can activate Experian audiences across social, programmatic, connected TV, and private marketplaces through direct platform integrations, supporting consistent targeting and performance comparison across channels.
Watch our full Q&A where our experts cover:
- Approaches for navigating signal fragmentation
- Channels showing strong seasonal performance
- Audience recommendations for back-to-school targeting
What separates Experian’s syndicated audiences
- Experian’s 3,500+ syndicated audiences are available at over 200 leading activation platforms, including programmatic, social, TV destinations, and can be curated alongside premium inventory through Curated Deals.
- Reach consumers based on who they are, where they live, and their household makeup. Experian ranked #1 in accuracy by Truthset for key demographic attributes.
- Access to unique audiences through Experian’s Partner Audiences available on Experian’s data marketplace, within Audigent, a part of Experian, for activation in PMPs, and directly on platforms like DirectTV, Dish, Magnite, OpenAP, and The Trade Desk.
You can activate our syndicated audiences on-the-shelf of most major platforms. For a full list, download our syndicated audiences guide.
Where you can activate Experian Audiences?
Experian Audiences can be activated on 200+ leading destinations or found directly on over 30 platforms, including:
Need a custom audience? Reach out to our audience team and we can help you build and activate an Experian audience on the platform of your choice.
Want to activate an Experian Audience on Meta, Pinterest, Snap, TikTok or on a platform not listed above? Contact us today.
Reach out to us today
Experian Audiences are pre-built, privacy-compliant consumer segments that help marketers target based on verified demographic, financial, and behavioral data.
They’re designed for flexibility across channels and can be activated on 200+ platforms, including major social, CTV, and programmatic partners.
Experian ranks #1 in demographic accuracy according to Truthset, and marketers can choose from 3,500+ syndicated audiences that capture signals such as income, spending behavior, household structure, financial attitudes, and ability to pay. These same audiences are also available through partnerships on platforms like DirecTV, Dish, Magnite, OpenAP, and The Trade Desk.
For a deeper look at our audience catalog, explore our syndicated audience guide.
In 2024, many brands are launching campaigns earlier to reach families planning ahead and to maintain visibility across longer purchase cycles.
In 2024, digital channels such as social media, CTV, and mobile display align with current shopping and media habits for back-to-school marketing.
Experian provides syndicated and custom audiences activated across major platforms using household, behavioral, and demographic data.
You can activate Experian Audiences are available across 200+ digital and connected TV platforms, including Meta, Pinterest, The Trade Desk, and Audigent PMPs.
Yes, you can combine Experian data with your own. You can combine your own first-party data with Experian’s 3,500+ syndicated audiences and additional segments from multiple Partner data providers, as a custom audience within a Curated Deal or self-service via Audience Engine.
Yes. Agencies can activate Experian audiences across social, programmatic, connected TV, and private marketplaces through direct platform integrations.
Yes. Brands can activate Experian audiences across social, programmatic, connected TV, and private marketplaces through direct platform integrations.
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FeaturedWith Tapad, part of Experian, technology, AdsWizz AudioMatic is the first Audio buying platform to offer cross-device identity resolution across the U.S. and EMEA NEW YORK and LONDON, July 17, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Tapad, part of Experian and a global leader in digital identity resolution, today announced a new joint capability with AdsWizz , the leading technology provider for digital audio advertising solutions. The partnership combines Tapad’s digital cross-device technology with AdsWizz’s AudioMatic buying platform, enabling the ability to connect audio ad experiences across screens. AudioMatic, AdsWizz’s audio-centric buying platform, supports programmatic audio buying and entirely new audio ad experiences for listeners. The integration of The Tapad Graph onto its platform enables new opportunities for marketers to reach, engage and measure each interaction with their desired consumers on digital radio and podcasts channels, and across devices. This partnership makes AdsWizz the first audio buying platform to offer this enhanced cross-device identity capability in the US and EMEA markets. “Marketers need privacy-safe digital identity resolution to reach their consumers,” says Tom Rolph, VP of EMEA at Tapad. “With audio becoming an increasingly powerful medium for engagement, it’s important that our technology extends to this channel, which is why we are excited to announce our integration with AdsWizz’s AudioMatic platform.” Digital audio is experiencing high growth, with 84% of advertisers and agencies saying it will play a bigger role in their media plans in the future. Today, 60% of digital audio is consumed via a mobile device.* The Tapad Graph is the largest digital identity resolution graph with differentiated global scale. The partnership enables audio advertisers to leverage The Tapad Graph for enhanced attribution, analytics, and targeting. Alexis van der Wyer, CEO at AdsWizz, added, “Digital audio is increasingly becoming ubiquitous in our media consumption and in our daily digital interactions, and because of that, audio advertising offers tremendous opportunity to personally interact with consumers in every moment of their daily lives. By integrating with Tapad, we enable our advertising partners to increase the effectiveness and the relevance of their marketing messages across audio channels.” To learn more about Tapad and our digital identity resolution products, visit our identity solutions page. *Digital Audio Exchange, “The Rise of Digital Audio Advertising,” https://thisisdax.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/DAX-Whitepaper.pdf About Tapad Tapad, Inc. is a global leader in digital identity resolution. The Tapad Graph, and its related solutions, provide a transparent, privacy-safe approach connecting brands to consumers through their devices globally. Our one-of-a-kind Graph Select offering enables marketers the flexibility and freedom of choice to correlate devices to varied objectives, driving campaign effectiveness and business results. Tapad is recognized across the industry for its product innovation, workplace culture and talent, and has earned numerous awards including One World Identity’s 2019 Top 100 Influencers in Identity Award. Headquartered in New York, Tapad also has offices in Chicago, London, Oslo, Singapore and Tokyo. About AdsWizz: AdsWizz has created the end-to-end technology platform that is powering the digital audio advertising ecosystem. AdsWizz powers well-known music platforms, podcasts and broadcasting groups worldwide with a comprehensive digital audio software suite of solutions that connect audio publishers to the advertising community. From dynamic ad insertion to advanced programmatic platforms to innovative new audio formats, AdsWizz efficiently connects buyers and sellers in digital audio. AdsWizz is headquartered in San Mateo, California, with an IT Development hub in Bucharest, Romania, and presence in 39 markets around the world. About AudioMatic: AdsWizz Demand Side, audio-centric DSP and audio buying platform, AudioMatic, enables programmatic audio buying and entirely new audio ad experiences that are proven to be more engaging and more effective, and have delivered measurable results for agencies and their brands all over the world. All the biggest ad agencies have used our programmatic trading platform, including Omnicom, GroupM, Havas, Publicis, Mobext, and more. Contact us today
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The UK digital advertising market is worth £13.44bn, an increase year-on-year of 15%, reveals the 2018 IAB UK & PwC Digital Adspend Study. Report highlights The majority of all growth is coming from smartphone advertising, which has increased by £1.65bn (35%) from 2017. Smartphone advertising now represents 51% of all UK digital ad spend, up from 45% in 2017. Video is now the largest display format (£2307m), overtaking standard display banners (£1486m). Outstream/social in-feed has increased its majority in total video spend, now occupying a share of 57%, up from 52% in 2017. Social revenue now represents 23% of all digital ad spend. Growth is predicted to slow during 2019, with 5% estimated growth (+9% digital, +11% display, +9% search) compared to 15% in 2018. 2018 marks the tipping point towards a mobile-first ecosystem “For the past few years, industry commentators have been hailing the year of mobile. Each January the predictions come and the waiting commences for evidence to mark a tipping point, a shift to a mobile-first digital ad ecosystem. Well, drumroll… it was 2018! The latest Adspend report from IAB UK and PwC reveals that spend on smartphones outstripped spend on desktop for the first time last year. Brands spent 51% of total spend (which stands at £13.44 billion) on smartphones in 2018, up from 45% in 2017 – a significant milestone in the evolution of digital advertising. “This evidence shows that advertisers are increasingly thinking mobile-first. Growth in investment has historically lagged behind the amount of time spent on the device and we expect to see growth continue at a rapid pace to keep up with audience behaviour – two thirds of time spent online is now on mobile, according to UKOM. Other areas of growth highlighted by the report include video, which accounts for 44% of the total display market, while mobile video now makes up 51% of smartphone display. This is no doubt down to bigger mobile screens, better 4G and more readily available WiFi making video ads an increasingly attractive option. “Across the board, advertisers are investing in digital for longer-term brand building as well as short-term activation, with the direct-to-consumer market helping to drive this trend. What’s more, digital continues to be an accessible and popular route to market for businesses of all sizes, from leading advertisers to SMEs.” Tim Elkington, Chief Digital Officer, IAB UK Content & context crucial for attracting audiences “As people spend more and more of their time on mobile, it’s comes as no surprise that advertisers will follow where audiences are with their marketing spend. “Video has been the driving force in this growth, indicating that engaging visual content is still key in helping brands to achieve great results and to capture consumer attention in a vast sea of digital noise. “Video still has a way to go if it is to reach the level of effectiveness of traditional formats like cinema, but it will be interesting to see how the format develops over the next year or so. Ultimately, brilliant content and properly considered context are crucial for advertisers hoping to attract relevant audiences and build strong brands long term.” Kathryn Jacob OBE, CEO, Pearl & Dean Mobile-first approach driving investment in user experience “As a mobile-first approach has become the norm for many businesses, we’ve seen significant innovation and investment in the user experience that has fuelled the rise in mobile commerce. “Yet, for some years, limitations in the technology and formats available have meant that mobile advertising couldn’t always keep pace with changing consumer behaviours – delivering weaker performance when compared to desktop. “Fortunately, mobile has made huge strides in recent years. Mobile advertising affords great targeting opportunities for brands and a more interactive and immersive experience for consumers. “There is no reason to doubt this trend will continue as advertisers design their media, creative, and targeting strategy with mobile at the heart – optimising performance, enhancing the customer experience, and delivering the best results.” James Cragg, UK Managing Director, Tug New technologies to improve investment efficiency “The UK digital ad market has continued to grow despite the various challenges that the market has faced, including the current socioeconomic climate and general changes in the industry. As spend increases, it’s important to look at how media buying can be made as efficient as possible, minimising waste and maximising the return on investment. “Marketers will start to look to new technologies, like AI, to offer an impartial and more efficient approach to media buying, allowing marketers to measure effectiveness of campaigns and allocate spend accordingly.” Carl Erik Kjaersgaard, Chief Executive, Blackwood Seven Industry going from strength to strength “This significant growth in ad spend is great to see and shows that our industry is going from strength to strength. It’s especially good to see that as advertisers invest more and more in digital advertising, they’re becoming more considered in where they’re spending their money – with a large portion of the growth coming from companies that are part of IAB’s Gold Standard. “At The Trade Desk, we’ve long been ambassadors for the importance of transparency. These findings show that it isn’t just the right thing to do, but makes good business sense as advertisers increasingly choose partners who are demonstrating a commitment to best practice.” Anna Forbes, UK General Manager, The Trade Desk Advertisers embracing mobile “As consumers spend more of their time online, it’s no surprise that digital ad spend has continued its rise, up 15% to £13.4bn. With digital, in every sense, becoming further embedded in our daily lives, it is inevitable that this number is set to rise further next year. “Given the vast majority of people using their smartphone as their primary digital device, evident from site traffic stats we see across the board, the IAB report shows that advertisers have started to fully embrace this shift by following with ad spend. Over the last few years, a combination of faster wireless connectivity along with more capable devices has made it the go-to device for consumers to get online. This is set to continue over the next few years with 5G and even faster, more capable smartphones arriving (i.e. foldables) that will further cement ‘mobile’ as the main digital device to reach consumers.” Wajid Ali, Head of Paid Search, ForwardPMX Budgets must go to professionally produced content “In the IAB’s latest ‘Digital Adspend Study’ it is positive to see that outstream continues to dominate video spend, showing close to a 10% year-on-year increase. “Unsurprisingly, the study highlights that mobile is the most important distribution device (76% of all video spend is on the smartphone), and it’s great to see the format we invented dominating that space. “However, it’s now more pertinent than ever that clients and agencies invest their outstream budgets into professionally produced content and not social infeeds. Budgets must go where content is being produced, rather than aggregators and distributors, where the content is read rather than where a click happened. “We must remember how important local, national, and vertical press are to the global digital ecosystem. By unifying the best publishers at scale, delivering mobile-optimised creativity and outcome-orientated distribution, we are fighting to ensure publishers are getting their fair share of revenue in comparison to the social platforms.” Justin Taylor, UK MD, Teads UK market in robust health “The latest IAB digital ad spend report shows encouraging signs that the UK digital advertising market is in robust health, with mobile advertising continuing its upward trend. “The rise of up-and-coming ad formats like Shopping Ads, Google’s Responsive Search Ads, and Facebook Messenger Ads show that advertisers are looking for ways to capture consumer attention in the evolving digital landscape. As a result, the lines across search, social, and e-commerce are more blurred than ever with the introduction of features like Checkout for Instagram and Shopping ads on Google Images. Furthermore, with the rapid growth of Amazon’s ads business, e-commerce has quickly emerged as a third pillar of digital advertising, making it vital for marketers to have a complete view of the customer journey across channels and devices, if they hope to more accurately understand campaign performance and attribution.” Wesley MacLaggan, SVP of Marketing, Marin Software Digital identity resolution essential in understanding customer journey “Last year’s figures show that UK ad spend is starting to mirror the behaviour of consumers who, according to UKOM data, spend two-thirds of their time online on a smartphone. The fact that mobile ad spend now surpasses that of ad spend on desktop highlights marketers’ understanding that digital identity resolution is essential, not a nice-to-have. “Appreciating the cross-device behaviours of consumers allows brands to gain a better understanding of the customer journey and build stronger relationships with their audiences long term.” Tom Rolph, VP EMEA, Tapad, a part of Experian. Contact us today