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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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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