Back-to-school shop­ping ain’t what it used to be. Instead of the Trap­per Keep­ers and Lisa Frank fold­ers avail­able local­ly, stu­dents have count­less options and opin­ions at their fin­ger­tips to find pre­cise­ly what they want. And if Mom and/or Dad are still pay­ing, they can much more eas­i­ly price com­pare. And this means mar­keters real­ly have their work cut out for them this time of year.

The back-to-school mar­ket is huge – worth an esti­mat­ed $68 bil­lion, per the Nation­al Retail Federation’s esti­mates, and includ­ing 70 mil­lion stu­dents in the U.S. alone – but, unlike the slight­ly more lucra­tive win­ter hol­i­days, this sea­son is long-run­ning and varies by region.

It is fur­ther com­pli­cat­ed by a dis­parate audi­ence that includes stu­dents, as well as their par­ents and teach­ers.

“For younger stu­dents, par­ents are the pri­ma­ry tar­get. Once you get to mid­dle school ages, stu­dents have strong views and influ­ence around prod­ucts, espe­cial­ly in the fash­ion area, but par­ents are still engaged,” said Bruce Clark, mar­ket­ing pro­fes­sor at the D’Amore-McKim School of Busi­ness at North­east­ern Uni­ver­si­ty. “By col­lege, this is large­ly about the stu­dent, not the par­ents, though an excep­tion would be the fresh­man year tran­si­tion, where par­ents often have strong feel­ings about their child leav­ing the nest.”

In addi­tion, Clark notes retail­ers of big tick­et items like com­put­ers need to address par­ents regard­less of age, since Mom and/or Dad are like­ly pay­ing the bill.

Brid­get Fahrland, senior vice pres­i­dent of client strat­e­gy at Flu­id Inc., which says it cre­ates com­merce expe­ri­ences and soft­ware, agrees back-to-school con­sumer tar­gets depend entire­ly on age.

Because mar­keters don’t know who has the most influ­ence on back-to-school pur­chas­es on a fam­i­ly-by-fam­i­ly basis, brands can cov­er a lot of ground with pro­mo­tions like self­ies for a chance to win and/or bonus rewards for par­ents, said Jan­ice Pol­lard, senior mar­ket­ing man­ag­er at dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing agency Hel­loWorld.

“Plus, social plat­forms make it fun and easy for both kids and par­ents to plan back-to-school shop­ping, such as a Pin to Win con­test,” Pol­lard said.

Retail­ers can also use loca­tion to tar­get mes­sag­ing to con­sumers lin­ger­ing around school sup­plies rather than rely­ing on cal­en­dars that may prove inac­cu­rate.

But what else do mar­keters need to know about tar­get­ing school-age chil­dren and young adults?

1. Mobile Is Age-Agnos­tic

Mobile is an impor­tant con­sid­er­a­tion regard­less of age because it is ubiq­ui­tous.

To wit: Per Google, par­ents are using mobile more than ever to tack­le back-to-school shop­ping in micro-moments for their younger chil­dren. In fact, Google sees an evo­lu­tion in shop­ping behav­ior in which par­ents no longer plan back-to-school shop­ping trips but rather shop in so-called I‑want-to-buy moments with their devices.

But mobile is equal­ly impor­tant for old­er stu­dents as more than 75 per­cent own mobile devices and 31 per­cent of col­lege stu­dents plan to buy prod­ucts with said smart­phones, the NRF says. An addi­tion­al 41 per­cent will use those mobile devices to research prod­ucts and price com­pare, per the NRF.

Col­lege stu­dents – and even old­er high school stu­dents – are always shop­ping on their phones, accord­ing to Fahrland.

“While they may be enticed by back-to-school deals, back to school is less of a shop­ping ‘event’ for them than it was for pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tions,” she said. “There is less of a rad­i­cal peak here and more of a slight bump.”

2. Styl­ish­ness Is Also Age-Blind

Old­er stu­dents are dri­ven by trends and new releas­es, so cam­paign­ing should tie into that, Fahrland said.

But, unlike back-to-school shop­ping of yore, experts also say social com­mu­ni­ties mean even the youngest con­sumers are tapped into what’s in and what’s out for a giv­en school year. (Per Google, that means we’ll see more bik­er jeans and culottes this year, along with few­er com­bat boots and maxi dress­es.)

3. Kids Have More Influ­ence Than They Used To

Younger stu­dents have a much high­er aware­ness of their per­son­al style pref­er­ences at an ear­ly age, as well as a desire to express their indi­vid­u­al­i­ty, accord­ing to Pol­lard.

“If you were a kid in the ’80s, maybe you were des­per­ate­ly pin­ing for a pair of styl­ish and sul­try Jor­dache jeans, but your par­ents made you wear the sen­si­ble and eco­nom­i­cal Tough­skins,” she said. “These days, though, kids have more influ­ence on their indi­vid­ual looks, and get a lot of help from their dig­i­tal com­mu­ni­ties to decide what to wear.”

4. Parental Involve­ment Means Bud­gets Mat­ter More

For the K to 12 audi­ence, Fahrland notes back-to-school shop­ping is more of an event that still takes place with parental input.

And, per the NRF, par­ents tend to be more bud­get-con­scious, so retail­ers should tar­get them with ads and mobile offers to dri­ve con­ver­sions.

5. Col­lege Stu­dents Have More Inde­pen­dence And Want To Hear About It

Take dorms, for exam­ple. The NRF says 31 per­cent of col­lege stu­dents will live in a dorm this year, which is the high­est in its sur­vey his­to­ry, and the aver­age col­lege stu­dent will spend $900 on back-to-school shop­ping.

“Col­lege is often about mov­ing away from home for the first time, so in addi­tion to the chang­ing school expe­ri­ence, there is a chang­ing life expe­ri­ence,” Clark said. “The lat­ter can be mar­ket­ed in terms of the free­dom and adven­ture of the new col­lege world.”

Aalap Shah, co-founder of social media agency SoMe Con­nect, agrees back-to-school mes­sag­ing for col­lege should be more cen­tered around stu­dents them­selves.

“They are mak­ing the pur­chas­es more direct­ly and will be mak­ing fur­ther pur­chas­es once they are on site. Here is a good oppor­tu­ni­ty to talk to those stu­dents,” he said.

6. Dude, Where’s My Ship­ping Offer?

It’s also impor­tant to look at prac­ti­cal con­sid­er­a­tions, like actu­al­ly acquir­ing the goods old­er stu­dents pur­chase for them­selves. Case in point: The NRF says 90 per­cent of back-to-col­lege shop­pers plan to uti­lize offers like free ship­ping and near­ly half plan to use ship-to-store or in-store pick-up options.

Regard­less of age, mobile and style are two vital com­po­nents of back-to-school cam­paigns.