Strava for Business

The challenge.

As a  PPC Agency, we first partnered with Strava for Business in July 2023, and up until that point, their advertising presence was limited, having run a handful of campaigns with minimal attributable effect on pipeline in late 2022 and early 2023. With an immediately recognisable brand, and a unique product that was in a strong position to disrupt the existing digital advertising space, we knew there was incredible Demand Generation potential.

Initially (pre mid-2024) there was one core goal - get in front of as many members of the ideal target audience as possible with engaging content, and establish Strava for Business as a known option in the advertising platform space.

Moving into 2024-25, with this baseline achieved, the focus shifted with attributable pipeline generation now the most important objective.

The approach.

The strategy was built on a three-pronged approach: smart investment across the full-funnel, sophisticated audience targeting and nurture, and disruptive creative concepts. We aimed to increase monthly media investment incrementally, scaling across a mix of platforms including LinkedIn Ads, Google Ads, and Meta Ads. This diversification was crucial to reaching our audience where they were, not just on a single platform.

Central to our strategy was the integration of our ad platforms with Strava for Business’s CRM. This integration allowed us to feed defined targeting lists and lead stage information back into our platforms, and meant we could move beyond simple platform-defined audience targeting to a far more sophisticated ABM approach that optimised our spend based on real pipeline progression, not just top-of-funnel metrics.

Bringing in extra audience enrichment through the use of additional tools allowed us to both refine and expand specific vertical and agency lists, with creative and messaging split across the funnel as we segmented further using ad engagement and CRM data. This allowed us to nurture prospects with increasingly relevant content at every stage of their engagement with the Strava for Business brand. We split our targeting to simultaneously reach those working at marketing agencies (who could propose Strava as a channel for their clients) and a selection of relevant target companies directly. 

Many of the creative and messaging concepts run across the activity were designed to challenge the status quo of B2B advertising. Our messaging has had a large focus on the unique value proposition of advertising with Strava: reaching an audience while they are actively engaged in doing what they love, as opposed to being “just another banner ad”.

We framed advertising on Strava not just as a channel, but as an enabler for the brand to be a companion, accompanying potential customers as they get fit and work on themselves. Concepts have leveraged Strava user data, highlighting the ability to specifically reach "the world’s largest active community" as a key USP - undoubtedly an appealing opportunity especially for endemic brands in fitness, apparel, and sports tech, for whom this is likely one of the highest-quality audiences possible.

We also recognised the value of reaching large companies that don’t have a specific topical link, such as race sponsors, giving them the opportunity to align their events and digital strategies further.

Nailing creative.

Creative was a key differentiator. The Creative Strategy team at Bind Media consistently researched and iterated on a diverse range of creative types, particularly on LinkedIn. This wasn’t a "set it and forget it" campaign; we have been constantly testing and refining our messaging to resonate with additional pockets of the audience. The team also collaborated with local creative agency Something Familiar to create a brand video which we’ve run worldwide across the paid media platforms, and was the first Sponsored TV ad run by Strava for Business on LinkedIn.

Beyond LinkedIn, we implemented a full-funnel nurturing strategy that included mid- and bottom-of-funnel pieces across Google Demand Gen and Meta Remarketing. Prospects who engaged with our top-of-funnel content were consistently reminded and further educated on the opportunities available.

Being a performance marketing agency, to track this complex user journey effectively, we leveraged an additional attribution tool, allowing us to go beyond simple last-click form-fill models and truly understand how many different users at each target company were being reached across the funnel - and analyse the performance, visibility and impact of each campaign tactic.

The results.

The results of our work with Strava for Business demonstrate a remarkable transformation of their demand generation strategy. And the wider effectiveness of our approach was proven through a specific incrementality test in the DACH region, which showed a clear and direct spike in both paid-media-attributed and non-attributed leads and contacts created as a result of specifically targeted paid campaigns.

2024-25 has seen a significant year-over-year increase in pipeline as we have continued to sustain the core principles of the approach while scaling our targeting horizontally and doubling down on creative strategy. For a paid media approach that, two years ago, was just getting started - Strava for Business’s demand generation setup is now a powerful pipeline engine.

Year on year results:

• Pipeline deal value - increased by 427%
   
• ROAS (Return on ad spend) - increased by 15%

Watch the video below to see what the team at Strava for Business had to say 👇