Experiential Marketing: Types, Examples and How To Run a Campaign (2026)

Experiential marketing allows you to build connections between your brand and its community by offering an immersive experience. Those experiences can take many forms: pop-ups, workshops, live sessions, market fairs, and guerrilla stunts.

One 2026 report found 57% of brands plan to increase attendance at events this year. This comes after US advertisers moved money toward experiential marketing in 2025 and out of traditional broadcast and print spaces.

Here’s what you need to know to engage your customers with experiential marketing, with examples of immersive marketing campaigns from real brands.

What is experiential marketing?

Experiential marketing focuses on engaging consumers by inviting them to participate in memorable, immersive brand experiences—think pop-up shops, virtual experiences, brand experiences, and live events. The goal is to build meaningful, emotional ties between your brand and your target audience through a direct connection, often involving personal participation.

“Traditional avenues like banner ads or Instagram can be effective parts of a marketing strategy, but with those, there’s no interaction,” says Naomi Ratner Oshry, director of business development and communications at experiential agency 3CS, which has worked with brands including Hulu, Sports Illustrated, and Disney+. “Today’s consumers value experiences and engagement.”

The American Marketing Association also makes a distinction between “event marketing” and “experiential marketing,” with event marketing focusing less on the experience and more on building relationships, generating leads, and enhancing brand visibility. Some examples of event marketing include conference and trade shows, webinars and online workshops, and networking events.

Key elements of an immersive brand experience

There are four core elements of an immersive brand experience:

• Active participation. Have customers interact with your brand through free samples, product trials, workshops, or competitions.
• A clear emotional goal. Dapper Boi creates an emotional connection with product drops that instill fear of missing out. “They wanted to get in on it, and they knew they only had three weeks to get in at a special price before we sold out,” Founder Vicky Pasche tells Shopify Masters.
• Multisensory engagement. According to VML’s Future 100 report, nearly three-quarters of global shoppers believe that brands should engage all of their senses—especially scent. Mood Media found customers are 100 times more likely to remember what they smell versus what they touch, see, or hear.
• Integrating the brand into the experience itself. Desmond & Dempsey does this through a comfort feeling that underpins each touchpoint. “It’s very tactile, and that is the key theme across all our customer experiences: on the website, with the unboxing experience, and any subsequent emails you get from us, and then in store in the pop-ups that we’re doing as well,” says CEO Joel Jeffery.

Experiential vs. traditional marketing: What’s the difference?

An experiential strategy differs from traditional marketing because it may not lead to immediate product sales. Instead, goals include getting your brand name in front of potential future customers, sharing free samples of a new product, driving social engagement, and increasing intangible assets like brand goodwill.

Differences between the two include:

Types of experiential marketing

• Pop-up shops and product sampling
• Market, fair, and craft show booths
• In-store workshops and community events
• Virtual reality, livestream, and AR activations
• Mobile and vehicular activations
• Guerilla stunts and brand partnerships

Pop-up shops, craft booths, market fairs, workshops, mobile brand activations, virtual livestreams, and guerrilla marketing stunts are all examples of experiential marketing. Here’s how each type works:

Pop-up shops and product sampling

Pop-up shops are time-limited stores that allow shoppers to buy your products in-person. Combine this with free sampling. Studies have shown that people who receive free samples are significantly more likely to buy.

Among US adults who are interested in attending a pop-up, one 2026 report found food and dining pop-ups are by far the most attractive format. Interactive or art exhibits have the widest cross-generational appeal, with 36% of Gen Z and 29% of baby boomers saying they are interested in attending one.

Tap to Pay on Shopify POS lets you process payments at these events using just your smartphone.

Market, fair, and craft show booths

Market fairs and craft booths offer brands face time with potential customers while also creating the chance to participate in the community.

Beauty brand Three Ships used this type of experiential marketing to launch their business. “That was the main source of acquisition in those early, early days for us,” says Founder Laura Thompson in a Shopify Masters interview. “We’d pay a hundred bucks for the full day and do $1,500 to $2,000 in eight hours.

“We started to build up more of a local following, and it allowed us to learn so much about our customers and how they consume skin care. Seeing people’s reactions in person allowed us to be really nimble around how we could improve our product and our packaging.”

In-store workshops and community events

In-store workshops and community events create an opportunity to teach potential customers how to do or make something. Apps like Evey Event & Tickets add this functionality to your Shopify store, so you can manage attendee lists and track their behavior in-store.

Issues Magazine Shop, for example, hosts Zene Shine, an annual summer event that sources magazines from 70 individual creators from an open source submission. They also run Collage Nights, a workshop program that teaches local community members how to repurpose old magazines into art.

“They’ve been really popular,” Founder Nicola Hamilton tells Shopify Masters. “I think it’s back to the same reason why Issues is succeeding: We have this craving for tangible, tactile experiences. We want to go and experience something in the community that is three dimensional.”

Virtual reality, livestream, and AR activations

Shoppers are more open to virtual experiences than ever before. Clutch’s 2026 study found 58% of shoppers already use augmented reality (AR) before making a purchase. Just over half say they’re likely to increase their use of this technology in the next two years.

Take Twitch streamer Kai Cenat, who cofounded personal care brand Tone alongside other members of his creator collective. Kai hosted a livestream to reward Twitch subscribers with a free gift through Tone’s online store.

During the stream, viewers could scan an on-screen QR code to sign into their Twitch account on the Shopify drop page. After they confirmed their active subscription to Kai’s Twitch channel, each viewer got a unique discount code to spend on site, then check out with Shop Pay in a few taps.

“A core tenet of our business has always been finding ways to reward the communities our creators have built,” says Aaron Ford, SVP of growth at Tone. “Meeting fans where they already love spending time, and bringing them into our brand with a community-first lens—rather than as transactional consumers.”

Mobile and vehicular activations

Mobile retail activations and moving branded vehicle pop-ups encourage customers to go out and do something to participate.

Beauty brand Glossier did this with shoppable billboard campaigns. Customers in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles could shop their new Boy Brow Arch exclusively through the Shop app. The catch: They had to scan the QR code on the billboard to access it.

“Our goal with this campaign was to be disruptive, find a fresh way to bring a new brow product to the market, and generate engagement within our community,” says Glossier’s CMO Kleo Mack.

Guerrilla stunts and brand partnerships

Guerilla marketing uses surprising and unorthodox ideas to get people’s attention on a limited budget.

Hip-hop duo Snotty Nose Rez Kids, for example, placed flyers with images of their merch on telephone polls near local basketball tournaments.

“In small towns, that’s kind of unheard of,” Quinton “Yung Trybez” Nyce tells Shopify Masters. “It would catch your eye because it wasn’t a big city where you’re going to a corner and it’s loaded with [flyers].”

Benefits of experiential marketing

• Builds emotional connection
• Creates memorable experiences
• Enables direct interaction
• Offers differentiation

“Experiential marketing is all about bringing a brand to life, and today’s consumers are all about experiences,” says Naomi of experiential agency 3CS. “If companies do experiential marketing right, it can be very impactful with lots of unique benefits.”

Here are a few of those benefits:

Builds emotional connection

A winning experiential marketing strategy creates positive emotional ties between your brand and target audience. This emotional bond with your company can translate into purchases: 61% of consumers are more inclined to purchase after an event.

“It’s a longer-term approach,” Naomi says. “Someone can have an amazing time at an experiential activation and not make an immediate purchase. However, a year later when they’re interested in buying X product, they’ll think back to the awesome hands-on experience with your company and purchase with you.”

Creates memorable experiences

Standout experiential marketing efforts can generate online buzz and free word-of-mouth marketing—pulling in an even wider audience’s attention. All this can become user-generated content (UGC) for your content marketing strategy when used with FTC disclaimers.

In a 2025 Shopify survey of store owners, 53% of merchants cited this type of word of mouth as their most common Year 1 growth strategy.*

Luggage brand Béis, for example, acquires an average of 2,500 new followers and more than 2.5 million social media impressions when they host pop-up shops. These events drive a 30% increase in traffic and an average revenue lift of 10%.

Enables direct interaction

Customer interactions garnered from experiential marketing allow you to learn more about your customers and get insights into their preferences, product usage, and challenges. This lets you tailor your marketing strategy and adjust your product to better meet their needs.

Uncle Studios did this by positioning their pop-up staff outside the fitting rooms.

“Whether people knew us or not, we were listening to what people were saying,” says Founder Allegra Shaw in a Shopify Masters interview. “Especially when there are two friends in change rooms, they’ll be talking back and forth and you get a lot of insight into fit, quality, and fabrics.

“You get to talk to the customer, you get to learn about them in real life, and then you get to see how they interact with the brand and your product.”

Offers differentiation

Marketing is the top Year 1 challenge at 37%, according to Shopify’s 2025 survey of store owners.* On-brand experiences can create brand awareness by capturing the attention of potential future customers and setting you apart.

“We don’t have a huge marketing budget,” says Kat Kavner, cofounder and CEO of Heyday Canning, on Shopify Masters. “The money that we do have, we really want to focus it on one thing and take a risk on doing something that we think is really creative and fun—that has the potential to cut through the noise and help us grow some brand awareness.”

Experiential marketing examples

• Red Bull Stratos
• Mejuri
• Barbie Selfie Generator
• Bandit Running
• Endorphins

Landmark campaigns and more recent examples can serve as inspiration for your own strategy. Here are some of the best experiential marketing campaigns from big and small brands that prove it can work at different budget levels:

Red Bull Stratos: Extreme livestream

Red Bull drew eyeballs and headlines worldwide for sponsoring a highly extreme event: Felix Baumgartner’s Guinness World Record-breaking skydive from the edge of space. The company livestreamed the dive, leveraging technology to create an exciting experience for viewers and a memorable global spectacle.

Mejuri: Scratch-and-win Shop gift cards

Mejuri treated their New York location as the base for their US Open campaign. Every shopper who entered the store received a scratch-and-win gift card with varying amounts of Shop Cash to purchase jewelry with. Shop users also got extra cash back on every purchase.

The experiential marketing campaign paid off: Mejuri boosted sales on Shop by 5.7 times compared to the previous four weeks. They also drew thousands of visitors to their New York store, half of which were new to the brand.

“Shop helped amplify PLAY with bold out-of-home and in-person moments that made the retail experience feel bigger and more dynamic,” says Cofounder Noura Sakkijha.

Barbie Selfie Generator: AI-personalized poster art

The website BarbieSelfie.ai invites users to upload a selfie and find themselves in Barbie’s world, slotted into scenes next to actress Margot Robbie’s character from the Barbie movie singing in her iconic pink Corvette.

This immersive, lighthearted campaign employs the novelty of AI to generate social media–tailored content. It had reportedly generated 13 million social shares as of April 2026.

Bandit Running: First pop-up run on a small budget

Bandit Running used pop-ups events to validate their in-person presence. Their first had a range of interactive elements including a live podcast, programming throughout the pop-up weekend, and a Shakeout run.

Cofounder Nick West tells Shopify Masters: “We put some goals on paper in terms of what we knew would be a good return on that weekend, on a really scrappy budget, so we had a case study to start.”

Endorphins: Pop-up inside an owned-channel campaign

Running brand Endorphins hosted an experiential marketing campaign inside their New York store to coincide with the city’s marathon. A “Pay With Their Pace” feature meant runners could use a treadmill to convert athletic performance into store credit.

“When we connected a treadmill to Shopify POS and integrated our Flash Score training algorithm, it became more than just shopping,” says Founder Tyler Swartz. “It was a first-of-its-kind retail experience that merged performance, technology, and community.”

More than 640 participants earned store credit and joined the brand’s mailing list through this campaign. Around two-thirds of treadmill sessions led to an in-store purchase immediately after.

How to create an experiential marketing campaign

1. Define your audience and the behavior you want
2. Determine your goals and brand values
3. Set your approximate budget
4. Encourage audience participation
5. Choose a compatible agency partner
6. Promote the activation before and after

An experiential marketing campaign starts by defining your audience, goals, and budget. Encourage audience participation at the event, then build a measurement framework to determine whether it met your objectives. Follow these steps to create a memorable experience:

1. Define your audience and the behavior you want

First think about who your audience is and what would drive them toward your event. In Endorphin’s case, it was leaning into the buzz of the New York marathon. They incentivized shopping behavior with a running competition that translated into store credit.

This doesn’t have to tie into a permanent location. Among US consumers who are open to attending a pop-up, Gen Z shows the strongest interest in clothing and fashion retail pop-ups. People aged 65 and over are by far the most interested in craft and artisan markets.

2. Determine your goals and brand values

Land on a concrete purpose for your campaign. “Objectives can vary from client to client, but remember what’s most important in experiential is bringing the brand to life for consumers,” Naomi says. “When consumers walk away, they should have a deep understanding of what the brand stands for and feel that their experience was impactful.”

Any experiential campaign should align closely with your brand identity and core values—like sustainability, social responsibility, ethical sourcing, and inclusivity. About half of US consumers in 2025 said they want companies to say where they stand, up from 38% the year before.

For example, an environmentally minded company should offer product samples in biodegradable material, not single-use plastic.

3. Set your approximate budget

Event marketing agencies typically charge $10,000 to $50,000—and that’s before any extra costs associated with hiring a space and training staff. But impactful experiences need not always be costly.

“You can have a great effect with a limited budget,” Naomi says. “It’s a matter of the creative process and determining what makes an activation a success for you.”

Bandit Running cofounder Nick West advises keeping your first activation cheap: “We’ve done crazy stuff to find spaces. Everything we do is super scrappy; negotiate the crud out of everything. That’s what it takes early on. You want to learn without betting the farm.”

4. Encourage audience participation

By inviting your customers to participate, you transform them from spectators into part of a community doing something together. Make sure that participation is accessible to every visitor.

Tap into interactive experiences that engage the senses, such as:

• Scavenger hunts
• Taste tests
• Virtual experiences
• Free samples
• Contests for the best user-generated content

Rare Beauty put this concept into practice with their shoppable billboards for the launch of their new fragrance. The goal was to let customers smell the new scent, then scan a code to purchase through the Shop app.

“Sampling is key to purchase, and we were able to seamlessly drive trials before the fragrance hit shelves, all while maintaining the immersive experience we were providing exclusively to the NYC community,” says VP of Consumer Marketing Ashley Murphy.

5. Choose a compatible agency partner

Agency partners manage the logistics of event planning and help make sure the experience runs smoothly. Clutch’s 2026 data shows experiential marketing services average at $100 to $149 per hour.

Write up a request for proposal (RFP) that includes your brand overview, what you hope to achieve through an experiential marketing event, and your budget. Send your RFP to experiential marketing or event agencies you’re interested in. Agencies can then submit responses detailing how they would fulfill your request.

A great RFP response doesn’t necessarily mean the agency is a good fit. “Meet with agencies and find someone you vibe with, because personalities are important in this work,” Naomi says. “An agency may provide great ideas, but if they don’t feel like a good fit for a long-term relationship, it might make sense to find someone else.”

6. Promote the activation before and after

Treat your experiences as an opportunity to gather customer data. Gather their email address or phone numbers to build a relationship with attendees post-event.

Shopify has a range of tools to help:

• Shopify Forms and POS email capture for collecting customer data at the event
• Shopify Messaging for sending email marketing campaigns to attendees
• Shopify Sidekick for segmenting attendees for personalized outreach
• Shopify Flow for automating the entire process

“When we were doing pop-ups and in-person events, we realized we were making sales for all the month after because we would meet people in person,” says Myriam Belzile-Maguire, founder of Maguire Shoes.

How to measure experiential marketing

Define success before your activation and gather marketing KPIs to measure against. This might be social engagement, sales, or changes to brand sentiment.

Don’t look at the event in isolation. Nielsen’s 2025 report found 60% of marketers now build both reach and frequency and ROI into cross-media measurement, and only 27% still measure sponsorship in isolation.

Leading and lagging metrics show the bigger picture:

Bandit Running analyzes how many leads each Shakeout event attracts (leading metric). They combine this with unified analytics inside Shopify to track the impact on sales after each run (lagging metric).

“We see general ecommerce sales spike during those weekends from other cities, and so you start to understand the halo effect,” says Nick. “You’re getting the direct sales at that pop-up but there’s obviously audience engagement where people are watching what’s happening at the NYC marathon.”

Nick’s team uses all of this data to inform future pop-ups, including their budgets, how many events they should be doing, and how many resources they have to allocate to each one.

*Based on a 2025 survey of 500 Shopify merchants conducted in English across Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, and the United States. Respondents were established merchants with more than two years on the platform. Results reflect the experiences of this specific sample and may not be representative of all merchants.