TikTok has quietly become one of the biggest winners of the 2026 back-to-school shopping season. Agencies tracking client budgets told Digiday that spending on the platform climbed anywhere between 20% and 40% year over year across July and August, as brands chased shoppers who were browsing, deciding and increasingly buying inside the app.
What the agencies are seeing
Jack Johnston, vp of social innovation and growth at Tinuiti, said TikTok spend across the agency’s clients was up roughly 20% year over year for July and August. More telling: TikTok’s share of the agency’s overall social budget rose 55% between July and August alone.
At Go Fish Digital, the jump was steeper. President David Dweck reported a 41% year-on-year increase in TikTok spend among brand clients, and a 160% rise in the number of advertisers using the channel during back-to-school. On sales volume over the past two years, he said TikTok now sits directly behind Amazon for his clients.
The reason is partly arithmetic. Amazon, Walmart and Google have become crowded and expensive for performance advertisers. Once budgets max out there, marketers go hunting for what Dweck described as white space
obanswer.
TikTok Shop is doing the heavy lifting
Commerce is the engine. NielsenIQ figures cited by Digiday put TikTok Shop sales up 84% between March 2025 and February 2026, making it the fourth-largest retailer of health and beauty products in the US by annual sales. eMarketer expects another 48% rise across 2026.
That is changing how budgets are structured. Go Fish clients have leaned on TikTok Shop Ads via the automated GMV Max format. For brands not chasing in-app checkout, mid-funnel formats are picking up the slack: Johnston pointed to Consideration Ads, live on TikTok since last June, as a format the platform has been pushing hard.
Brand-side, hospitality group Hilton made TikTok central to a campaign for its Graduate hotel chain aimed at parents and students handling cross-country moves, running alongside Instagram and YouTube. Geoffrey Goldberg, co-founder and chief creative officer at Movers+Shakers, the agency behind it, called TikTok spend for the campaign a “non-negotiable” given how much attention sits on the platform during that window.
The calendar is stretching
Back-to-school traditionally runs late July to early September. PwC data cited in the report puts typical household spending at $922 on school or college products, with 47% of households expecting to spend more this year.
But the window is widening. Criteo’s Janine Flaccavento said advertisers launched campaigns about a week earlier than in 2025. Open Influence’s Aynsley Moffitt said client spending picked up right after Independence Day. Criteo data showed cookies, snacks and candy sales rising from the first week of July and up 80% by the first week of September, largely driven by sponsored products and display inventory on retail media networks. Flaccavento’s blunt read: brands not advertising from the second week of July missed the ramp.
Other channels moved too
- YouTube: up around 6% over the summer for Open Influence clients.
- Search: up 16% on average in August, per Go Fish, with Google search costs up an estimated 20%.
- Why search got pricier: more advertisers competing, plus Google AI Overviews reducing available ad surface area — a squeeze Dweck expects to persist.
Why it matters for Indian marketers
TikTok isn’t in play in India, but the pattern absolutely is. Substitute Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts and Meta’s shoppable formats, and the same three dynamics apply: saturated marketplace inventory pushing budgets to social commerce, automated bidding formats absorbing performance spend, and seasonal windows opening earlier every year. Back-to-school here maps onto the June-July admissions cycle and the long festive runway from Onam to Diwali.
The strategic note is worth borrowing. Valtech’s Pascal Malotti, discussing marketer caution amid tariff-driven economic uncertainty, said “the calendar is becoming a substitute for the forecast” — meaning when demand modelling gets shaky, brands anchor spend to fixed retail moments instead. If that’s your plan, start earlier than last year and budget for the ramp, not just the peak.
Source: Digiday
