How to Ace Back-to-School Season as a Performance Marketer

Back-to-school is no longer just a seasonal retail push — it’s a high-stakes period of omnichannel performance marketing. In 2023, U.S. consumers spent $135 billion on school-related purchases, with spending expected to reach $189.8 billion by 2028. Marketers are taking note: last year, advertisers invested more than $50 million in back-to-school campaigns on TV alone by mid-August, a 35 percent increase year-over-year.

However, as families navigate economic pressures and shifting shopping habits, the rules of engagement are changing. Deloitte reports that 61 percent of back-to-school spending is finalized by the end of July, with families actively stretching purchases earlier in the year. At the same time, 75 percent of parents say they’ll switch brands if prices rise, and 71 percent are willing to delay shipping to secure better value.

For marketers, this means campaigns must launch sooner, operate with greater efficiency, and deliver measurable results across every channel and screen. Rising consumer expectations amplify the need for transparency, reduced waste, and maximized return on media investment.

Here are three strategic imperatives driving successful back-to-school campaigns this year:

1. Consolidate supply paths for greater efficiency and control.

As budgets tighten and expectations rise, marketers are taking a hard look at how their media gets bought — and by whom. Working directly with sell-side partners and premium publishers allows marketers to streamline execution, gain real-time insights, and drive better return on investment. Supply path optimization (SPO) strategies enable buyers to prioritize cleaner, more direct paths to inventory, cutting out redundant fees and unnecessary hops.

This is particularly important as consumers grow more selective about where and how they shop. Nearly half of parents (46 percent) say they plan to spend the most at mass merchant retailers, up from 40 percent last year, according to Deloitte. At the same time, 46 percent are planning purchases around mid-July promotions, many of which are timed with events like Amazon Prime Day.

For marketers, this shift comes with two requirements: First, media strategies must be agile enough to align with fluctuating consumer timing and price sensitivity. Second, customer loyalty cannot be taken for granted. Brands must compete not only for reach and visibility but for higher perceived value and convenience.

SPO plays a key role in that equation. By prioritizing direct routes to inventory, especially via curated deals with trusted partners, marketers can avoid unnecessary markups, reduce data leakage, and ensure ads run in environments aligned with brand-suitable content.

2. Eliminate data waste by matching first-party data directly to omnichannel supply.

Marketers understand the value of their first-party data. However, too often that data is filtered through multiple intermediaries that introduce additional layers — and additional costs.

To drive efficiency, brands should activate first-party data directly on the sell side. Matching audiences to publisher-defined segments (e.g., “Presence of Children,” “College & Universities,” “Family & Parenting”) enables precise targeting without excessive markups. Closer proximity to the sell side also reduces dependency on third-party data, which is not only expensive but increasingly unreliable in a privacy-first ecosystem.

Thoughtfully leveraging first-party data paired with supply-side insights allows marketers to engage their audiences throughout the entire back-to-school shopping journey, which now spans CTV, mobile, desktop, online video and in-store activations.

For example, a parent may see a CTV ad during breakfast, research the product on their phone around midday, and then complete the transaction from a laptop at night. Omnichannel reach is essential, but it only works if measurement keeps pace with consumer behavior. Many walled gardens and retail media networks don’t effectively offer frequency caps across screens or unified attribution. That fragmentation makes it harder for marketers to understand what’s working and optimize in real time.

Brands that consolidate around a smaller set of trusted sell-side partners can achieve more accurate cross-platform measurement and more cohesive campaign insights. This is especially important as younger parents shift shopping behavior across channels: 33 percent of Gen Z parents now use generative artificial intelligence to inform purchases, and 75 percent rely on social media.

3. Scale responsibly with brand-safe inventory.

Back-to-school campaigns often sit at the intersection of parenting, education, wellness, and lifestyle — categories where contextual alignment is critical. That means scale cannot come at the expense of safety or quality.

With the right publisher integrations and SPO frameworks, marketers can scale across video and display inventory while maintaining control over where ads appear. This is especially important for brands in categories like sustainable apparel, healthy CPG, or dorm-related furnishings where values-driven consumers are quick to disengage when context misses the mark.

Brand integrity and media efficiency are no longer separate goals; they're now deeply intertwined. Brands should prioritize partners that take a multilayered approach to inventory quality, combining proprietary tools, third-party fraud detection, and human oversight to block bots, spoofed traffic and low-quality placements before they ever reach the auction. In today’s performance-driven landscape, buyers need peace of mind that every impression is vetted, brand-safe, and truly viewable.

The Bottom Line

Back-to-school is no longer just a seasonal spike in spend — it’s a stress test for performance marketing. As consumers tighten budgets, value will be the defining factor. Retailers and advertisers that can deliver it, consistently and clearly, will be best positioned to capture their share of this year’s $30.9 billion in potential K–12 sales and beyond. Back-to-school may come once a year, but the lessons it offers on media performance are applicable year-round.

Cassidy Diamond is the vice president of brand partnerships at Magnite, leading the Demand Facilitation team that supports Fortune 500 advertisers. Magnite is the largest independent sell-side advertising company.