The impact of tariffs on the U.S. economy looms overhead — 26% of back-to-school shoppers expect to cut back their spending this summer, 49% due to price inflation, per a Samsung Ads survey. And according to Deloitte, back to school spending is flat year-on-year, averaging at $570 per child.

As such, the brands looking to capture their share of back-to-school spending are operating with a paid media playbook including both safe bets and necessary gambles.

For advertisers like Staples and JanSport that means prioritizing short-form video, paid social and creator marketing activity. The latter’s “Always With You” campaign hinged on humorous short-form videos made for TikTok and YouTube, for example.

At clothing subscription service Nuuly, the season is a crucial one. Speaking ahead of the brand’s autumn/winter campaign launch in August, Kim Gallagher, executive director of marketing and customer success, told Digiday that it’s gained traction with Gen Z customers in the last eighteen months, aided by a student discount scheme first launched in 2024. Nuuly, which is owned by Anthropologie and Urban Outfitters parent Urbn, turned its first full year of operating profits this year; it now boasts well over 300,000 subscribers.

“Paid social is the big workhorse channel,” she said. As such, the brand typically prioritizes TikTok and Meta, and began using Snapchat in July to better reach younger consumers.

“We have definitely upped our spend on TikTok, but we’re only doing that via influencer. We don’t find that the Gen Z consumer wants any content to be explicitly advertising from a brand,” she said. Instead, the brand leans on creator marketing and a recently launched “Cluub” ambassador program, which offers subscribers rewards in exchange for user-generated content. “That’s been a huge source of growth for us, and it’s something that we are continuing to invest in,” she said, without providing a precise breakdown of Nuuly’s digital media budget.

Nuuly’s not alone in its focus on creator partnerships; Old Navy and Target have narrowed their attention on influencers too, while backpack brand Miles has used sampling to cut through.

For Mike DaRe, U.S. president of creative and PR agency Smarts, it’s a consequence of that channel’s maturity and its capacity to reach younger consumers. “Especially in back to school we’re seeing a lot more of the creator economy come to life, because there’s a trust that creators have earned on the micro and macro levels with consumers in these categories,” he said.

Gallagher said the brand has also begun to focus spending on streaming and CTV, with Hulu and Peacock riding high on the plan alongside Netflix and Amazon Prime. It’s also recently dipped into Reddit, an increasingly vital hub for fashion-forward web users. “I wouldn’t say we have it all figured out yet, but we’re definitely making some inroads there,” she said.

The back-to-school period is a “Super Bowl” moment for apparel brands, noted American Eagle CMO Craig Bommers, who spoke to Digiday shortly before the brand’s Sydney Sweeney-led campaign launched in July (and before the brand ran into the public, political pushback).

Bommers didn’t reveal the campaign’s budget, but had said the paid media mix behind American Eagle’s campaign prioritized YouTube, Instagram and CTV elements to reach older, college-aged, Gen Z consumers. “Because of our younger customer base, paid social will be a big component,” he said.

The latter included sponsored placements on HBO Max shows featuring Sweeney (like Euphoria) as a means of further linking the brand with the star. While American Eagle’s creator efforts have focused on building up its affiliate influencer network (launched earlier this year), it’s also devoted some paid social spending to BeReal and, like Nuuly, Snapchat. The brand used the platform’s Snap Stories format to serve Sweeney-starring ads to users inside the Stories feature, as well as offering an AR filter themed around the campaign. “The creative we specifically shot for this will feel conversational and disruptive,” he said. “We [think] it will really cut through.”

Though the platform ranks behind Meta or TikTok in most advertisers’ media plans, “Gen Z’s continued usage” of the platform makes it useful to brands like Nuuly, Gallagher noted. And Bommers said it was an important conduit for a brand like American Eagle. “We’ve always punched above our weight there because we share that same consumer base,” he said.

At media agency Tinuiti, Q2 client spending on Snap rose 51% year on year, while spending on Reddit rose 55% in the same period. VP of research Andy Taylor suggested this was a sign of broader diversification of paid social investment by retail brands, during and without the back-to-school season.

“TikTok [and] Instagram [are] certainly the biggest examples of this, but Snapchat, Twitter, threads, YouTube… we regularly see Gen Z over index as using these platforms for product discovery,” Taylor said.

Not every campaign leans so heavily on digital channels. Mid-Day Squares, a snack brand that sells its high protein chocolate bars to college-aged students in Canada and the United States year-round, utilizes a split strategy: an in-person advocacy and speaker program that sees its founders discuss entrepreneurship at universities (armed with copious samples), backed by paid social.

“We don’t focus on the product, we focus on how we build the business, showing consumers the good and the bad of what it looks like to build,” said co-founder Jake Karls. He said the creative in the brand’s paid ads, which are concentrated on Meta and TikTok, follow a similar line.

And not every Gen Z-focused brand is explicitly targeting Gen Z consumers; Deloitte’s survey found that 62% of parents say their children persuade them to spend more during the back-to-school season.

Tucker Matheson, co-founder of performance agency Markacy, pointed out that some advertisers will find direct mail a useful addition to the media mix,  particularly if they’re targeting parents – the people actually making purchases happen for the younger end of the Gen Z cohort.

“For our clients, the game plan has been to get ahead of creative production in May/June and to launch omni-channel campaigns across Meta, YouTube, TikTok and direct mail to build the top of the funnel for the short back-to-school shopping period,” he said.

But where advertisers are targeting young consumers themselves (or those in the broad Gen Z cohort that are old enough to wield a credit card), digital and social channels are the key. 40% of back-to-school shoppers plan to spend more online this year, according to a survey  by Yahoo DSP, while NRF figures suggest online shopping would account for 48% of college shoppers this year.

”We are targeting mothers on Facebook, Instagram and direct mail… and Gen Z more on YouTube and TikTok,” said Matheson.