Promotional items or promotional products refers to articles of merchandise that are used in marketing and communication programs.

These items are usually imprinted with a company's name, logo or slogan, and given away at trade shows, conferences, and as part of guerrilla marketing campaigns. Almost anything can be branded with a company’s name or logo and used for promotion. Common items include t-shirts, caps, keychains, bumper stickers, pens, mugs or mouse pads.

The largest product category for promotional products is wearable items, which make up more than 30% of the total. Most promotional items are relatively small and inexpensive, but can range to higher-end items; for example celebrities at film festivals and award shows are often given expensive promotional items such as expensive perfumes, leather goods, and electronics items. Companies that provide expensive gifts for celebrity attendees often ask that the celebrities allow a photo to be taken of them with the gift item, which can be used by the company for promotional purposes. Other companies provide luxury gifts such as handbags or scarves to celebrity attendees in the hopes that the celebrities will wear these items in public, thus garnering publicity for the company's brand name and product. Business gifts used to foster customer goodwill and retention are the most common use for promotional items at 18.5%.

Other objectives that marketers use promotional items to facilitate include tradeshow traffic-building, brand awareness, public relations, employee relations and events, dealer and distributor programs, new customer generation, not-for-profit programs, employee service awards, new product introductions, internal incentive programs, safety education, customer referrals and marketing research.[citation needed] Promotional items are also used in politics to promote candidates and causes. Promotional items as a tool for non-commercial organizations, such as schools and charities are often used as a part of fund raising and awareness-raising campaigns.

A prominent example was the livestrong wristband, used to promote cancer awareness and raise funds to support cancer survivorship programs and research. Collecting certain types of promotional items is also a popular hobby.