Before the Bell Rings: How to Reach Back-to-School Shoppers First

Even though summer vacation is just getting started, it’s already back-to-school planning time for brands and agencies that cater to families and kids. School supply lists will go out soon, and parents are gearing up for back-to-school shopping.

This year will present some challenges, both for consumers and the brands they do business with. Prices are higher than ever, and as a result, families are altering their spending habits. This year, Resonate data suggests 67.3% of consumers won’t be doing any back-to-school shopping, a 6% increase since last year.

That leaves just 32.7% who will be shopping for the school year. Of those, Resonate’s data reveals 20.4% are aiming to spend less than $300 on their entire haul.

In short, it’s a tough market, with a lot of competition for an increasingly small audience. A lot of brands will offer discounts to drive sales in a price-conscious atmosphere, so your discounts and sales will also be competing for their attention. To differentiate yourself beyond lower prices in a crowded field, you’ll need to understand customer motivations, values, and behaviors so you can reach them with the right message in the right place at the right time.

Fortunately, there’s good news: Predictive consumer intelligence goes far beyond transactional and past-purchase data to help you understand the why behind consumer behaviors. In this blog, we’ll look at some back-to-school spending trends to help you understand the economic landscape, and we’ll also talk about how predictive consumer intelligence will power success in a difficult market.

Let’s start by getting an overview of what’s going on with consumers and back-to-school shopping in 2026.

How Will Back-to-School Shoppers Behave in 2026?

Resonate data offers insights into how much shoppers plan to spend, what they intend to buy, and which strategies they’ll use to save money. Here’s a look at how who is doing the shopping based on their intended budgets:

The Takeaway: The consumers who do plan to shop for back-to-school represent a high-intent, high-value segment worth targeting. Spending skews toward the middle tiers, suggesting a sweet spot for mid-range product promotions and bundled offers. For marketers, the key is precision: Back-to-school is not a mass-market moment, but a concentrated opportunity to reach each segment with the right message at the right price point.

Now. let’s take a look at the buying categories that are driving consumer behaviors this year:

The Takeaway: Back-to-school is a multi-category moment, and brands that can position themselves as part of the full back-to-school haul (instead of a single aspect of it) stand to capture the most ground.

Brands can also benefit from understanding the shopping strategies parents will be using to equip their kids for a new school year. Here’s how that will shake out before the fall:

The Takeaway: Back-to-school shoppers this season are overwhelmingly value-driven, and the data makes clear that price sensitivity rather than brand loyalty is steering purchase decisions. For marketers, this is both a warning and an opening: brands that lead with full-price messaging risk being tuned out entirely, while those that show up with timely promotions, transparent value, and presence during key sales windows are positioned to win the consideration battle. A layered approach combining digital coupons, sale events, and online availability gives brands the best shot at staying in the cart.

How the Right Data Can Help You Win a Bigger Share of Back-to-School Shoppers

First, let’s talk a little bit more about what predictive consumer intelligence is. As we mentioned earlier, it tells you the “why” behind consumer decisions. This is possible for three reasons:

• Recency — Predictive consumer intelligence is continuously refreshed for the most up-to-date view of your customer right now.
• Richness — With 15,000+ individual-level customer attributes that can be used to enrich first-party data or on their own to build audiences, it gives you a depth of understanding that reaches beyond zip codes and purchase history.
• Relevance — By aligning to values, motivations, and life-stage indicators, this intelligence makes it possible to deliver true personalization in your creative, delivered to the channels where consumers make purchase decisions. It’s always the right message in the right places.

These features of predictive consumer intelligence make it possible to know every consumer as a unique individual and predict what they’ll do next. Understanding consumers is crucial to driving business success, especially in times of economic uncertainty.

Now, let’s see how it can be used to better understand an audience of back-to-school shoppers.

First, you can layer in both shopper types AND behaviors, together. We’ve created a sample audience of Value-Focused Back-to-School Shoppers using Resonate intelligence to show the impact of this combined insight. This audience considers themselves back-to-school shoppers, think of it as a notable occasion to shop for, and are planning to use coupons and look for discounts while they shop this year.

This is an important audience to learn how to target for two reasons. First, you might want ways to sell them products that aren’t on sale in addition to ones that are, and second, as mentioned earlier, many brands will offer sales, making this a competitive audience whose attention could be hard to catch without a deeper understanding of how they tick.

Resonate’s audience of Value-Focused BTS Shoppers is made up of 8.7M consumers. Their top personal values include:

• Conformity, or avoiding upsetting or harming people
• Maintaining traditions
• Acquiring wealth and influence

They’re more likely to purchase products that are:

• Family friendly
• The best looking
• Energy-efficient

Brand is the primary purchase influence for 43% of this audience; price is the primary influence for 38%. Convenience is the primary purchase influence for just 19%.

Here are a few more insights about who the Value-Focused BTS Shoppers are as consumers:

• 66% shop online
• 24% like to shop with retailers who have enjoyable/clean stores
• 21% want to do business with retailers with friendly, helpful staff
• 30% make impulse purchases

Finally, let’s look at their media consumption habits. Their top TV networks include Disney Junior, Nick Jr., and the Disney Channel, and their top paid streaming subscriptions include Peacock Premium and Disney+, both with ads.

How to Market to Value-Focused Back-to-School Shoppers

This glimpse of insights into the motivations, values, and behaviors of the Value-Focused Back-to-School Shoppers reveals a wealth of information for marketers that can be used to create effective campaigns:

1. Despite the value focus, this audience isn’t hunting for the cheapest option. They want to feel good about the brand first, then feel like they got a deal. Lead creative with brand prestige and quality signals, then layer in value messaging (think “premium quality at a price your family will love,” not just “sale”).
2. Aesthetics are a real purchase driver. This group is more likely to buy the best-looking product and less likely to buy the practical/basic one. BTS creative should emphasize sleek backpacks, stylish supplies, and visually appealing school gear. Don’t just show the product. Style it. Flat lays, color coordination, and “back-to-school setup” content will resonate far more than utilitarian “get what you need” messaging.
3. Back-to-school shopping isn’t just about buying “the stuff the kids need.” Their personal values instead suggest it’s a family ritual. To engage this audience, lean into nostalgic, warm creative: the first-day-of-school moment, the family shopping trip, the annual tradition of getting the kids ready.
4. Make sure you capitalize on impulse purchases, especially online. This means retargeting, “frequently bought together” placements, and email sequences with curated BTS bundles can be highly effective. Don’t just get them to the cart. Use the checkout experience to surface add-ons that look great and feel family friendly.
5. The consumers who do shop in person have high expectations. Retailers should ensure BTS sections feel curated and visually appealing, not chaotic or cluttered. Endcap displays, organized product groupings by style/color, and knowledgeable staff can convert this segment in-store.
6. Go where the kids watch, because the parents are there, too. This is a kids-content-adjacent audience, meaning they’re either watching alongside their children or being heavily influenced by what their kids are seeing. BTS campaigns running on Disney+ and Peacock ad tiers will reach this audience in a high-attention, brand-safe environment.

The Big Strategic Takeaway: This audience shops with their heart and their eyes as much as (or even more than) their head. The winning back-to-school strategy here is: aspirational but accessible, beautiful but family-warm, brand-forward with a value payoff. Skip the “practical” and “easy” angles and instead sell the feeling of nailing back-to-school season.

Ready for Your Brand to Nail Back-to-School Season?

Resonate offers a couple of options for audience activation depending on your needs. If you’re looking to move quickly, we have pre-built back-to-school audiences available for immediate activation. If you’d like to explore our 15,000+ attributes and build custom audiences, one of our data experts will work with you. Get started by scheduling a consultation today.