5 March Madness Marketing Ideas for 2026 - Klaviyo
2026-03-10 22:52 Diff
https://www.klaviyo.com/blog/march-madness-marketing

March Madness 2025 proved the tournament's staying power, with the men’s championship game drawing in 18.1 million viewers—the most since 2019.

The 2025 women’s championship, meanwhile, attracted an average viewership of 8.6 million and a peak of 9.9 million, making it the third most-watched women’s final in history. While down from 2024’s record of 18.9 million viewers during the national championship—high because of Caitlin Clark’s star power—viewership for the 2025 women's final still demonstrated impressive growth, up 75% from just 3 years prior.

All of this is exciting news for ecommerce brands: those numbers reveal just how many people the tournament reaches.

Whether your customers are enthusiastic basketball fans or just people who like your products, March Madness marketing campaigns are a fun way for your brand to increase sales and build more loyalty.

Important note: The NCAA trademarked “March Madness” and plenty of other phrases associated with the college basketball tournament. If you want to use the sporting event to promote your products, you’ll need to get creative. (To avoid a fine, stay away from using the NCAA’s trademarked terms.)

1. Repurpose a successful minor holiday campaign for March Madness

When March Madness rolls around, you have a fairly short window to create a timely, relevant campaign before the tournament is over.

Before you start from scratch, perform an audit of past minor holiday campaigns to see what worked. Note holiday-agnostic elements that contributed to the campaign’s success, such as offer type, email subject line, and product benefits.

Once you’ve identified what worked, use an AI marketing agent to recreate elements of the campaign with a March Madness angle. For example, you might prompt: “Our 4th of July campaign last year brought in significant revenue when it highlighted our moisture-wicking technology. Create a similar March Madness campaign promoting our athletic socks to college basketball fans, but this time also highlight our team color options.”

A marketing agent can create everything from an attention-grabbing email subject line to body copy that connects team spirit with your product features.

March Madness marketing example: Naturium’s clever word play gets them on the board

Skincare brand Naturium grabs attention and complies with NCAA trademark limitations in this March Madness marketing example and its product-specific subject line, “Moisture Madness Ends Tonight⚡️⏰”.

If you wanted to extend a campaign like this beyond email, you could send a text message alert during halftime: “Final hours for 10% off 🏀 Shop now before the buzzer.” And if the option is available to you, you could also send visually rich RCS alerts showing a carousel of products with “Shop now” buttons that lead directly to product pages.

2. Gamify your March Madness campaign to collect customer data

During March Madness, people are typically looking for ways to support their favorite teams and engage with the tournament. They’re gathering in bars, placing friendly bets, and gamifying their own experience.

One of the most popular ways to make March Madness your own is to turn your campaign into a game. Brackets, polls, and competitions give customers a reason to engage with your brand during the tournament.

More importantly, these types of interactive campaigns are an opportunity to learn more about your customers’ preferences. When someone votes for their favorite scent, color, or product feature, you're gathering data you can use to personalize their experience long after March Madness ends.

March Madness marketing example: Happy Wax gathers product preference data with tournament voting

In this March Madness marketing example, home fragrance brand Happy Wax uses a tournament bracket to capture the excitement of the season. But the campaign also serves a practical purpose: to collect customer scent preferences.

Every time a customer votes, Happy Wax learns which scent they prefer. This is data they can use to personalize future product recommendations and segment customers by scent families for targeted campaigns.

3. Add March Madness visual elements to existing product photos

You may already have a lot of product shots that relate to basketball or team sports. But if you don’t, that doesn’t mean you need to invest in a photo shoot to create them for March Madness.

If you’re short on time and resources, you can adapt what you already have. If you sell activewear, for example, you can use an AI image editor to switch out an existing background for a basketball court. Or, if you sell products that have nothing to do with sports, you can switch a background color to match a certain team's colors.

These are small details that can add the bit of relevance you need to pique someone’s interest during March Madness.

March Madness marketing example: Little Sleepies uses seasonal visuals

In this March Madness marketing example, pajama brand Little Sleepies features basketball-print pajamas across multiple product categories. They’ve matched their email design accents to their March Madness collection to amplify the timeliness and relevance of the campaign, which features a “sibling match-up” set perfect for family game time.

4. Consider customer service a March Madness revenue generator

During high-volume March Madness promotions, customer service can become an extension of your marketing strategy. Agents are having conversations with customers, and those conversations can create more revenue opportunities.

Say a customer is asking about whether they’ll receive their t-shirt or jersey in time for game day. If your service agents can say their shipment is set to arrive early, they’re talking to a happy customer—one who may be open to hearing about a complementary hat or limited edition shoes.

Better yet, during high-volume periods, it’s ideal if customer support can happen in a self-service customer hub that’s also built for sales. If your customers are able to check on their orders on your website, that same place should be where they can get March Madness product suggestions from an AI customer agent.

AI customer service example: Happy Wax moves faster during a high-volume holiday

After implementing an AI customer agent, Happy Wax saw a “dramatic reduction in support tickets,” says Rachel Fagan, VP of marketing. “This is especially valuable heading into BFCM, when inquiries surge.”

In just 90 days, over half of conversations handled by the AI agent were fully resolved without any service team involvement. “Customers get instant answers, and our team gains bandwidth for high-touch moments,” Fagan explains. “That’s setting us up for success this BFCM.” (The same principle applies to other high-volume seasons and holidays.)

5. Send messages timed to everyone’s personal game

Timing is everything during March Madness. Send a message about a flash sale too early, and customers forget about it. Send it too late, and they’ve already made plans or spent their budget elsewhere.

Instead, use AI to send each customer your March Madness promotion when they're most likely to engage based on their historical patterns, on the channel they’re most likely to engage with. Someone who typically opens emails at 7 a.m. would maybe jump on your flash sale before their morning routine. Someone who clicks on texts at 8 p.m. would maybe engage when they're settling in to watch evening games.

March Madness marketing example: GhostBed drives urgency for their sale

Here, mattress brand GhostBed sends a March Madness marketing promotion with bold urgency: "BIGGEST DISCOUNT EVER!!! 60% OFF SITEWIDE" with the code MARCH60. The subject line immediately signals both the hook and the massive discount, while the preview text, “Ready to find your perfect mattress?” speaks directly to customers who've been considering a purchase.

Personalize customer relationships on a 1:1 level with Klaviyo

Minor holidays like March Madness are a good opportunity to connect with your customers through personalized moments.

The tournament runs for just 3 weeks, and customer interest peaks and fades quickly as teams get eliminated. By the time you manually create custom images, build omnichannel campaigns, and segment your audience, the moment might already be gone.

Klaviyo can help you quickly adapt your campaigns for March Madness, with:

  • K:AI (Klaviyo AI) agents: Prompt K:AI Marketing Agent to generate fresh March Madness content ideas, create on-brand campaign messaging, and adapt past successful campaigns for the holiday. K:AI Customer Agent, meanwhile, can resolve common customer questions and build confidence among shoppers.
  • Klaviyo Remix: Take your standard product image and prompt AI to add basketballs, change background colors to match March Madness themes, or add court-inspired textures—all without leaving your email editor.
  • Omnichannel campaign builder: Design multi-step campaigns across all channels in one place, and automatically reach customers where they're most likely to engage.