Loading...

Four back-to-school audience segments you’re probably overlooking (but shouldn’t be)

Published: May 5, 2025 by Experian Marketing Services

Don't miss out on these overlooked back-to-school audiences

Back-to-school season remains one of the biggest retail moments of the year—and 2025 is expected to follow suit. Total spending is projected to reach $84.51 billion, with K–12 shoppers alone contributing nearly $50 billion—59% of the total. E-commerce will also play a major role, accounting for 37.4% of total back-to-school sales.

However, 2025 shoppers may be facing even higher costs due to the incoming tariffs with everything from laptops and lunchboxes to kids’ clothing and crayons becoming more expensive. In anticipation of these rising prices, shoppers might once again start early to score deals. Last year, 55% of back-to-school and college shoppers had already started buying items in July for the upcoming school year. This early start coincided with major July promotions like Amazon Prime Day, in which U.S. shoppers spent a record $14.2 billion online, where school-related purchases surged by over 200%.

Whether you’re marketing school essentials or offering services to help students succeed, it’s easy to default to the same go-to audiences. This blog post highlights overlooked back-to-school segments to help you build personalized back-to-school strategies that resonate with students, parents, and educators. You can find the complete audience segment names in the appendix.

School the competition: How Experian can help you connect with 2025 shoppers

With summer just around the corner, back-to-school might not be top of mind, but there’s no better time to start planning. Whether you’re reaching parents, students, or educators, Experian’s syndicated audiences can help ensure your marketing messages make the honor roll by landing with the right people at the right time.

  • Experian’s 2,400+ syndicated audiences are available directly on over 30 leading television, social, programmatic advertising platforms, and directly within Audigent for activation within private marketplaces (PMPs).
  • Reach consumers based on who they are, where they live, and their household makeup. Experian ranked #1 in accuracy by Truthset for key back-to-school attributes such as Presence of Children.
  • Access to unique audiences through Experian’s Partner Audiences available on Experian’s data marketplace, within Audigent for activation in PMPs, and directly on platforms like DirectTV, Dish, Magnite, OpenAP, and The Trade Desk.

Meet your overlooked back-to-school audiences

Back-to-school shoppers aren’t one-size-fits-all. From parents prepping supply lists to students outfitting dorms, reaching the right audience is key to making the grade with your campaign.

Let’s go beyond the basics. Here are four back-to-school audience categories you can target with Experian:

  1. New year, new gear-ers
  2. Weeknight TV watchers
  3. Parenting personas
  4. School-season meal planners

Let’s open our notebooks and break down the audience segments within each group. Whether your customers are buying backpacks, stocking the fridge, or searching for school essentials, these insights will help your campaign pass with flying colors.

New year, new gear-er

New year, new gear-er

From teens picking out their first-day outfit to college students stocking up for dorm life, these audiences represent a wide range of priorities, needs, and spending behaviors. They’re also heavily influenced by trends, technology, and value-driven purchases.

Don’t overlook these five high-potential audiences in your strategy:

  1. Big-Box Electronics Stores: High Spenders
  2. Amazon Frequent Spenders
  3. Department Store Deal Shoppers In Store Spenders
  4. Teen Apparel (Clothing): Online and In Store High Spenders
  5. Dell Computer and Apple Mac Purchaser
Weeknight TV watchers

Weeknight TV watchers

Back-to-school season is also back-to-routine season. Families are gathering for more shared TV time in the evenings—especially in August and September. This makes co-viewing households a prime audience for messaging tied to school-year prep.

Rethink your back-to-school approach with these five overlooked segments:

  1. Co-Watchers
  2. Co-Watchers with Children
  3. Cord Cutters: Recent
  4. Engagement Channel Preference: Streaming TV
  5. Digital Video
Parenting personas

Parenting personas

Targeting by household structure helps tailor messaging to the right family dynamic—whether it’s parents with toddlers or households with college students.

Four audiences you might be missing this back-to-school season:

  1. Digital Moms and Dads
  2. Sports Utility Families
  3. Colleges and Cafes
  4. Kids and Cabernet
School season meal planners

School-season meal planners

Food and grocery shopping routines shift during the school season. These audiences are ideal for promotions tied to lunch prep, after-school snacks, and weeknight meals.

Add these four under-the-radar audiences for back-to-school success:

  1. Online Grocery Delivery Services: High Spenders
  2. Grocery Stores: High Spenders
  3. Fast Food/QSR Frequent Spenders
  4. Fast Food/QSR Pizza Frequent Spenders
Core back-to-school shoppers

Core back-to-school shoppers

Of course, you’ll want to add traditional back-to-school audiences to your strategy. These audiences are highly engaged and often the decision-makers, making them ideal for marketers looking to drive purchase intent early and often.

Here are four key back-to-school audiences you can target–all are available by life stage to reach PreK, elementary, middle, and high school households:

  1. Back to School Supplies
  2. Back to School Moderate Spend
  3. Back to School High Spend
  4. Back to School Apparel

Make the grade with Experian this back-to-school season

As marketers gear up for the back-to-school season, it’s the perfect time to sharpen your strategy and connect with back-to-school shoppers. Whether you’re building tried-and-true segments or exploring more unexpected, high-potential groups you might have not considered, Experian can help you reach the right audience. If you’re looking to create targeted segments for activation across digital and TV or gain insights to guide your campaign planning, Experian has you covered.

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. Additionally, work with Experian’s network of data providers to build audiences and send to an Audigent PMP for activation.

Circana, Kontext, Sport Innovation Lab logos

You can activate our syndicated audiences on-the-shelf of most major platforms. For a full list of Experian’s syndicated audiences and activation destinations, download our syndicated audiences guide.

Explore our other seasonal audiences that you can activate today.

Activate back-to-school audiences today with Audigent

Ready to ace your back-to-school campaigns? Audigent will build customized deals that combine premium Experian syndicated or Partner Audiences and inventory into a single, streamlined deal ID – tailored to your campaign needs. Plus, our powerful supply-side optimization ensures your campaigns deliver top marks in performance.

Connect with the Audigent team today at AudigentAgency_Brands@experian.com to get a head-start on back-to-school success.


Contact us

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.


Latest posts

Loading…
Auto marketers: It’s time to pay attention to Gen Z

What generation already has 68 million consumers, is set to be the largest generation ever, and $360 billion of disposable income? While you may think these attributes describe millennials, they are actually a portrait of Generation Z, better known as Gen Z, the newest generation that is emerging in the marketplace. Gen Z is beginning to make an impact worthy of focusing your next auto marketing campaign around.  Gen Z and the automotive market  Made up of consumers born after 1996, Gen Z is ready to be noticed and become a force to be reckoned with in the market. In the automotive market alone, Gen Z made up 3.8 percent of all new vehicle registrations in the first quarter of 2019. While that number may seem small, consider the fact that in 2015—just four years ago—they only made up 0.5 percent of new vehicle registrations. These are statistics that should make automotive marketers pay attention.  Digital consumption of Gen Z   Most marketers tend to lump Gen Z with millennials – after all, they grew up with smartphones and social media, so how different can they be than the generation that came of age with the Internet? However, unlike millennials, Gen Z is considered a true “digital generation” – performing many of life’s day-to-day activities online. This means that they do a lot of research when shopping for a product. In fact, according to the Center for Generational Kinetics, 52 percent of Gen Z has looked at online reviews for a product while shopping in-store.  But how do digitally native consumers impact automotive marketers? In order to sell cars, marketers’ messages need to be relevant. Like many other generations, Gen Z interacts with brands across a number of different devices and touchpoints. They’re constantly bombarded with messages and advertisements, so much so that it becomes information overload.  Auto marketing to Gen Z To create consistent messages that resonate, brands need to communicate across these different touchpoints and tell a story that is relevant to your audience. For example, you wouldn’t show an advertisement of someone buying their dream sports car to a member of Gen Z. Most of these consumers are buying their first car, so it would typically make more sense to show them ads for economical, reliable, sedans or cross-over SUVs.  Historically, automotive marketers have relied exclusively on CRM data, but this strategy isn’t effective when it comes to Gen Z, the fact of the matter is that they probably haven’t purchased a car from you previously.  Identity resolution and Gen Z auto marketing  The recipe for marketing success with Gen Z is identity resolution – combining your first-party identity signals across channels with third-party resources, as well as advanced technology, such as machine learning and artificial intelligence, to truly create and deliver campaigns that are relevant to the youngest generation. The more knowledge marketers have on your audience, such as demographics, life events and purchase behavior, enables them to tailor the messages to the audience in a way that will cut through the noise and resonate.  As more members of Gen Z come into the marketplace, automotive marketers will want to ensure they’re meeting them where they are, delivering messages that matter to them. This will help marketers not only sell more cars, but also begin to create relationships that could last for years to come.   Your identity resolution partner  Experian is here to help you create an identity resolution strategy that will take your automotive marketing campaigns to the next level. We help brands put real people at the center of their business by resolving fragmented identity signals. Deliver personalized, relevant messages across channels to effectively target your ideal customers. Get started with identity resolution today! Contact us today

Sep 19,2019 by Experian Marketing Services

‘Tis (always) the season for audience optimization

As summer fades, marketers are gearing up for another campaign cycle. It’s a process that repeats itself annually, but we can’t just copy-and-paste our plans. With each passing year, the media landscape changes drastically, as do the behaviors of the audiences we are trying to reach. As ever, marketers have to be strategic—and nimble—to reach the right customers at the right time, with messaging central to seasonal events and personal preferences. Marketers can ensure their messaging reaches the right customers with audience optimization.  Reach target audiences this season  It can be a hassle to create custom audience segments and bespoke creative messaging every time the seasons change, but now, more than ever, we must ensure brand campaigns are as timely, relevant and personalized as possible. In a world of multitasking and multiscreening, there’s an expectation among consumers that all communications they receive are relevant to them—especially from brands.  This is why it’s critical to understand your audiences and how to engage them through the most effective channels.  To help marketers win the battle for consumer attention—and sales—4C developed the Scope platform. This self-serve software arms brands with powerful tools for managing audiences and optimizing campaigns across channels including TV and digital. So, whether it’s building an efficient media plan, buying targeted ads, or measuring business outcomes, audience optimization is truly in scope.  Deliver audience-based marketing messages across the TV and video space   Recently, 4C teamed up with Experian to expand our audience marketplace across linear TV, OTT and social media. Brands using the Scope by 4C™ platform can leverage Experian data across a variety of planning and buying use cases, including audience-based linear TV planning and programmatic scatter buying; OTT campaigns across FreeWheel, Telaria, and SpotX; and social advertising on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.  Scope’s TV Planner allows marketers to combine historical cost and ad occurrence data with Experian audiences to create customized TV plans in minutes. The outputs go beyond GRPs to maximize in-target impressions for a secondary audience as well as indexing high against the primary demo. With audience-based TV planning brands can truly maximize their upfront buys and use the fantastic reach of linear television for seasonal performance marketing, not just brand awareness.  OTT harnesses the big-screen, living-room impact of TV with the targeting precision and flexibility of digital. By using Experian segments to create OTT audiences in Scope, brands can really focus on creative strategy, using the immersive power of video to drive specific business outcomes.  From a social perspective, we can combine the pinpoint targeting marketers have come to rely on from platforms like Facebook with advanced segmentation enabled by Experian. The output is high-performing audiences that can be reached at scale with dynamic creative to achieve unparalleled ROI.    Focus marketing strategies on audience optimization this season   Leveraging customized audiences across channels is the modern approach to marketing and has completely shifted the way marketers target consumers. With the relationship between 4C and Experian, there is now a better way for marketers to identify the most valuable potential customers, uncover the most appropriate messaging, and execute campaigns across the most engaging channels – during peak seasonal campaigns and every single day. Contact us today

Aug 08,2019 by Experian Marketing Services

Tapad, part of Experian, and AdsWizz partner to enable digital identity resolution across audio ad campaigns

With 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

Jul 17,2019 by Experian Marketing Services


Appendix

New year, new gear-ers

  • Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Shopping Behavior > Big-Box Electronics Stores: High Spenders
  • Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Shopping Behavior > Big Box and Club Stores: Amazon Frequent Spenders
  • Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Shopping Behavior > Department Store In Store Spenders
  • Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Apparel > Teen Apparel (Clothing): Online High Spenders
  • Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Apparel > Teen Apparel (Clothing): In Store High Spenders
  • Lifestyle and Interests (Affinity) > Technology > Dell Computer Model
  • Lifestyle and Interests (Affinity) > Technology > Apple Mac Purchaser Model

Weeknight TV watchers

  • Television (TV) > Household/Family Viewing > Co-Watchers
  • Television (TV) > Household/Family Viewing > Co-Watchers with Children
  • Experian > Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Entertainment > Streaming/Video/Audio/CTV/Cable TV: Cable/Broadcast TV: Cord Cutters: Recent
  • TrueTouch: Communication Preference > Engagement Channel Preference > Streaming TV
  • TrueTouch: Communication Preference > Engagement Channel Preference > Digital Video

Parenting personas

  • Lifestyle and Interests (Affinity) > Personas > Digital Moms
  • Lifestyle and Interests (Affinity) > Personas > Digital Dads
  • Mosaic – Personas – Lifestyle and Interests > Group D: Suburban Style > D15 – Sports Utility Families
  • Mosaic – Personas – Lifestyle and Interests > Group O: Singles and Starters > O53 – Colleges and Cafes
  • Mosaic – Personas – Lifestyle and Interests > Group A: Power Elite > A03 – Kids and Cabernet

School-season meal planners

  • Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Grocery > Online Grocery Delivery Services: High Spenders
  • Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Grocery > Grocery Stores: High Spenders
  • Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Food and Drink > Restaurants: Fast Food/QSR QSR Frequent Spenders
  • Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Food and Drink > Restaurants > Fast Food/QSR Pizza Frequent Spenders

Core back-to-school shoppers

  • Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > Back to School Moderate Spend – PreK (Early Ed – PreK)
  • Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > Back to School Moderate Spend – Elementary School
  • Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > Back to School Moderate Spend – Middle School
  • Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > Back to School Moderate Spend – High School
  • Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > Back to School High Spend – PreK (Early Ed – PreK)
  • Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > Back to School High Spend – Elementary School
  • Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > Back to School High Spend – Middle School
  • Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > Back to School High Spend – High School
  • Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > Back to School Apparel – PreK (Early Ed – PreK)
  • Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > Back to School Apparel – Elementary School
  • Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > Back to School Apparel – Middle School
  • Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > Back to School Apparel – High School
  • Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > Back to School Supplies – PreK (Early Ed – PreK)
  • Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > Back to School Supplies – Elementary School
  • Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > Back to School Supplies – Middle School
  • Retail Shoppers: Purchase Based > Seasonal > Back to School Supplies – High School

Subscribe to our newsletter

Enter your name and email for the latest updates

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

About Experian Marketing Services

At Experian Marketing Services, we use data and insights to help brands have more meaningful interactions with people. As leaders in the evolution of the advertising landscape, Experian Marketing Services can help you identify your customers and the right potential customers, uncover the most appropriate communication channels, develop messages that resonate, and measure the effectiveness of marketing activities and campaigns.

Visit our website

Subscribe to our newsletter

Stay up to date on the latest industry news and receive expert tips from our marketing experts.
Subscribe now!