Infillion’s Guide To Back-To-School Ad Strategies For 2025

For advertisers, no sooner does the holiday shopping season end than planning for back-to-school shopping begins. And with good reason. Consumers have more shopping options – and more advertisers vying for their attention – than ever. But don’t worry: we can help you cut through the clutter.

In anticipation of this year’s shopping season, we conducted a study – taking a look not just at parents anticipating shopping for their kids, but also at college students. Research was conducted by Infillion’s in-house research team using a survey methodology. The survey targeted two key groups—parents and college students—who were asked to report their anticipated shopping behaviors for the 2025 school year. Participants were recruited via Prolific.com, an online platform that connects researchers with diverse respondent pools. All respondents were based in the United States.

Consider this an early look at the trends that will be dominating back-to-school shopping in a few months.

Know Your Shoppers’ Budget

For many shoppers, budgets will be small this year. According to our research, 43% of college students and 60% of parents will have a total budget of less than $500. This sounds substantial at first glance, but remember: this is inclusive of all household sizes (e.g. families shopping for multiple kids) and includes higher-ticket purchases like laptops and tablets. Based on differing circumstances from household to household, this could represent a strong budget, or something more bare-bones.

How to address it:
Ensure your messaging features products at a wide range of price points. This will help relieve user pressures, as they’ll be able to compare prices and make the best decision for their finances.

Focus on Convenience

There’s a reason “Save time, save money” is a classic ad strategy. People often are short on both. If your brand can help relieve a lack of either time or money, you’ll be putting yourself in a good place to attract back-to-school shoppers.

Case in point: When parents are shopping for laptops, they do so at Walmart (47%), Target (42%), and Best Buy (35%). These are all retailers known more for their one-stop-shop convenience rather than their technological expertise or highly specialized products. This suggests that parents and caregivers are trying to minimize shopping trips. That is: pick up some erasers, a few juice boxes, and a laptop all in one go.

How to address it:
If you’re advertising for a big box retailer, you’re in an advantageous position. And if you’re not, the strategy is the same: showcase a wide range of different products with different uses to advertise how your brand can satisfy multiple shopping needs in fewer trips.

Remember Brick-and-Mortar

It may feel like we’re never coming back from the digital era, but brick-and-mortar has been making a surprisingly strong showing of late, especially with college-aged consumers.

Here’s what we mean: regarding apparel purchases, 38% of college students enjoy in-person shopping at Walmart (vs. 27% of parents), 41% at Target (vs. 30%), and 31% at JCPenney (vs. 14%). For a mobile-first generation, this creates an incredible opportunity to reach younger shoppers on the go for increased brick-and-mortar attention.

How to address it:
Ensure that your campaign landing pages include mobile-optimized content. This is more likely to resonate with on-the-go shoppers who may be within walking distance of your retail outlets or who are looking to do price comparisons while shopping. Additionally, you may want to consider including geolocation strategies and store locators throughout your campaign.

Looking for more back-to-school shopping insights? You can find details about these trends and more in our Back-To-School research playbook. Reach out to Infillion here and let’s schedule a walkthrough.