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Back-to-School Campaigns Are Here. Is Your Data Flunking Out?

  • Editorial Team
  • 23 hours ago
  • 2 min read

Marketers can’t afford to fail their audience during retail’s second-biggest season.


Back-to-school marketing is a high-stakes game. Families are stressed. Brands are scrambling. And everyone’s fighting for the same attention span. But what if half your media budget never even makes it to the right household?


That’s the risk when you trust unvalidated consumer data.


New data from Truthset reveals just how far off-target many back-to-school campaigns might be. According to Truthset’s Quarterly Industry Report Q1 2025, targeting data identifying households with children is accurate just 41% of the time. Translation? If you're spending $1 million on a campaign with a $10 media CPM, up to $590,000 could be wasted. Your real, effective on-target CPM skyrockets to $24.39.


Now let’s add another layer: household income accuracy sits at only 46%. So even if you reach a parent, you might completely misjudge their buying power, serving high-end electronics to families on a budget, or pushing budget buys to households looking to splurge.


This isn’t just a media efficiency issue. It’s a trust issue.


When audiences receive irrelevant or tone-deaf ads, they don’t just tune out, they lose confidence in the brand. In a season as emotionally charged as back-to-school, that’s a costly mistake. Families are making hard choices under economic pressure during a time crunch. Brands should be showing up with empathy and precision, not assumptions.


The solution? Validate before you activate.


Truthset helps marketers ensure the data powering their campaigns is accurate, actionable, and anchored in reality. We don’t sell data—we grade it. Our proprietary scoring methodology evaluates consumer data accuracy at the record level across leading data providers. That means brands, agencies, platforms, and publishers can finally see how reliable their audience data is before spending a dime on media.


Our ratings help you:

  • Identify the most accurate data for key attributes like the presence of children, income, and more.

  • Benchmark and compare different data sources to make smarter investment decisions.

  • Build higher-performing, privacy-compliant audiences that reach the right people the first time.


By integrating Truthset scores into your pre-bid targeting or measurement workflows, you reduce waste, increase relevance, and improve performance across every channel.


Because back-to-school shouldn’t be a guessing game. Let’s make sure your next campaign passes the test.


Want to know how accurate your audience data really is? Reach out to Truthset for a custom validation report before your next activation.



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