Back-to-School 2024: How to Ace Your Influencer Marketing Campaign This Year

It may feel like summer has just begun, but back-to-school season is right around the corner! 

Back-to-school season rivals as one of the top retail holidays in America, following closely behind Black Friday and Cyber Monday. In fact, the National Retail Federation (NRF) estimates that consumers will spend an astounding $81 billion — yes billion — on back-to-school shopping alone this year. 

For brands looking to target students and their parents this season, social media and influencer marketing are sure ways to spread brand awareness, inject authenticity into your marketing strategy, and boost engagement online.

Keep reading to find the latest back-to-school statistics and insights from market analysts, plus 4 actionable influencer marketing tips to ace your campaign this upcoming season.

2024 Back-to-School Retail Trends

Back-to-school spend is increasing. 

While the growth rate is slowing down, analysts predict back-to-school sales will still increase to $81 billion this year, up from $78 billion in 2023. 

This year, back-to-school shoppers are also planning on increasing their budgets. In fact, for the 2024-2025 school year, 55% of budgets are over $800. Specifically, 21% (up from 13% in 2023) are in the $800-$1000 range, and 34% (up from 30%) are at more than $1,000. 

Back-to-school shopping is starting early.

Every school district has different start dates, ranging from mid-August into mid-September. But don’t wait until then to start your back-to-school marketing campaign!

22% of consumers have already started their back-to-school shopping in early June. Plus, 68% of shoppers say they typically plan their back-to-school and college shopping around retailer events like Prime Day and 4th of July sales — both of which are set to happen this month.

Ensure your back-to-school campaign doesn’t end too early, either. While some have started their shopping early, 63% of consumers won’t be looking to buy their school supplies, clothing, or electronics until August and September. Keep your campaign going into the school year, and weave in back-to-school messaging into your evergreen influencer campaigns to maximize sales this upcoming season.

Consumers are looking for back-to-school deals.

With so much to shop for, students and parents are seeking the best back-to-school discounts — leveraging major summer sales like Amazon Prime Day, as mentioned above. 

In general, retailers and marketplaces alike have noted that consumers are increasingly concentrating their spending around peak sales seasons. In fact, three-quarters of US retail shoppers want digital coupons, and a similar share said the same of relevant promo codes.

Shoppers are shopping both in-person and online.

According to the latest data from Zeta Global, consumers’ back-to-school shopping preferences are varied — but most plan to shop both in-store and online. 

When it comes to in-store shopping, the types of stores consumers prefer are wide-ranging, largely depending on their budget. Some plan to hit big box stores, some will visit department stores, and some will shop at local retailers.

4 Influencer Marketing Tips for Back-to-School Season

To capitalize on this exciting shopping season, leverage influencer marketing. Whether they’re first-year college students or moms with school-aged children, influencers can highlight your brand values and get the message out more broadly than your brand can do alone. They can tell stories about getting their kids back in school, what products they’ll be buying, and more — seamlessly sharing how your brand is supporting people of all circumstances for back-to-school and the options you’re offering for their wide spectrum of budgets. 

Keeping this year’s trends in mind, here are 4 actionable influencer marketing strategies to help you ace your back-to-school campaign in 2024. 

1. Provide early bird discounts through affiliates.

Consumers are looking to save by shopping early, searching out deals, and prioritizing their spending on essential school supplies. So, create cost-saving opportunities for your shoppers by running an influencer-affiliate campaign and give your influencer partners unique discount codes to share with their audience.

This strategy is a win-win for all parties involved. Your influencers’ loyal followers will be excited to shop with your brand at a discounted price, allowing your brand to boost sales even amidst the economic downturn. Meanwhile, your influencer affiliates will benefit financially from the commissions you pay them for driving conversions. 

The best part is that you can easily track all of the sales from your influencers through their discount codes and prove the impact of your work to your executive team. If you’re using Aspire, you can even automate link tracking and affiliate payment by using our sales tracking tool.

2. Encourage in-store shopping by working with local influencers.

Specifically on TikTok — which is known to populate For You Page content based on location — partner with influencers who live near one of your stores and ask them to create content highlighting your product. Create a sense of FOMO by using language like, “Run, don’t walk to [Store].” 

Instead of influencers driving clicks to your website, have their call-to-action lead to a store locator page and track those clicks. Be sure to create a store locator that is socially optimized and reflects your digital experience. 

If you’re having difficulty finding influencers in a specific location, try Aspire’s suite of creator discovery tools to easily connect with local influencers. Specifically, our powerful influencer search engine allows you to filter not only by location, but also by social following size, audience and creator demographics, aesthetic, and more. If you need to find a very specific pool of influencers — say, students in LA who are about to head off to their first year of college — leverage our Creator Marketplace to get inbound applicants with this callout. Once you publish your campaign with this specific demographic requirement, relevant influencers can find you. 

3. Lean into lo-fi video content.

In this new era of “lo-fi” content, consumers don’t want to see overproduced ads — they want to see relatable video content that almost feels like they’re on FaceTime with a friend. By leaning into lo-fi video content, you’re able to clearly convey how your products can provide value this back-to-school season in a way that feels native to each platform and, more importantly, authentic to their audience. 

Drive conversions to your mobile site or app by asking influencers to post video content on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, and more. We’ve seen the best performance from content such as back-to-school hauls, dorm room must-haves, packed lunch recipes, and locker organization hacks. 

By working with these talented video creators, you can provide social proof and position your products as a necessity this back-to-school season. 

4. Run a Partnership Ads campaign.

The key to any successful marketing initiative is to know your audience and customize your assets to resonate with that audience. So, leverage the influencer-generated content (IGC) from your back-to-school campaign in a Partnership Ads (previously known as Branded Content Ads) campaign to stretch the impact of content you already own and to boost performance. 

These IGC-based ads allow you to personalize your ad creative and messaging to each of your audience segments — whether you’re targeting parents or students — leading to better results. In fact, Meta’s studies have shown that Partnership Ads drive 53% higher click-through rates and a 19% drop in CPA. 

You can view our partner webinar, Meta + Aspire Present: How To Lower Ad Costs With Branded Content Ads, for a detailed overview of Partnership Ads. 

Ready to get started? Download A step-by-step guide to running an influencer campaign to learn how to run a successful back-to-school campaign from A to Z.

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