The Best Facebook Ads for Hiking & Trail Running Shoes

THIS WEEK’S FODDER
☀️ Good Morning

You’re reading Marketing Fodder, a newsletter dedicated to helping you improve your Facebook and Instagram ads. I’m excited to get outside and go hiking this weekend…anyone else? Here’s what we’re serving up today:

1. Merrell

2. Danner

3. KEEN

4. Flux Footwear

What do these companies have in common? They all sell shoes. We’ll examine how these companies market their shoes to an audience that loves hiking and trail running.

STARTER
Quick Bites:

• A deeper look at bounce rate and how Google measures it (Read more)

• Why ecommerce brands need content and how to move customers down your sales funnel (Read more)

• Google began enforcing its new site reputation abuse policy (Read more)

• Google responsive search ads (RSAs) in 2024, updates and best practices (Read more)

MAIN
Advice

What’s so interesting about the hiking shoe market?

According to Expert Market Research, the global market for hiking footwear was valued at 19.95 billion (USD) in 2023 and is projected to grow to 26.94 billion (USD) by 2032. That’s a projected compound annual growth rate of 3.40%.

Here’s a breakdown of the types of hiking footwear (thanks to HikingGuy):

How I Analyze Facebook Ads

A great Facebook ad communicates the benefits of the product or service, not solely the features. Features are cool, but customers really care about what those features do for them (the benefit). So, ideally, a Facebook ad communicates how the features of a product or service create a result or transformation for the customer (the benefit).

Alright, let’s see how these companies market their shoes:

#1: Merrell

The Good:

• What does this ad do well? It uses the name of a well-known song from 1985—“When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going”—but modifies it to be about the product. This is effective because it adds humor while also aligning the shoes with an identity: being tough.

• The image does a great job of showing what the shoes look like on a trail. This helps the viewer picture themselves using the product, which makes them more likely to click on the ad.

• The text on the image—“All Day. All Terrain. All Comfort.”—helps remove some common doubts that a potential customer might have.

The Bad:

• The background of the image is a bit drab. Displaying the shoes in a more scenic place, like a mountain setting, would likely make these shoes more appealing to the target customer.

The Recommendation:

• Keeping the Primary text short is not a bad thing, but I would test a longer version with a bullet point list that highlights some of the best features of these shoes, reenforcing the selling point of being tough.

• Having a person wearing the shoes is also worth testing. In my experience, the more a product is shown in-use, the better.

#2: Danner

The Good:

• What this ad does well is highlighting the features of the shoe in a clear, and uncluttered format.

• The phrase, “Built for trails that never end,” is poetic but effective because it speaks to the target customer’s identity as a hiking enthusiast.

The Bad:

• What this ad needs to improve is explaining the benefit of these shoes. The ad mentions exploring “further” with “more comfort,” but the problem these shoes solves needs to be more explicit. Something like, “Built for trails that never end so you can focus on exploring new vistas.” This ad needs to sell the experience, not the features.

The Recommendation:

• Test a longer version of the Primary text with a quote or review, ideally one that mentions never having to think about the shoes because they were so comfortable.

• Testing different background colors for the image. The green looks nice, but even different shades of green may influence click-through rate.

#3: KEEN

The Good:

• I included two images from the same ad (above) so you can get a better idea of how KEEN is using a carousel ad to showcase their bold claim: “The World’s Cleanest Shoes.”

• Using a carousel instead of a single image ad helps KEEN convey it’s message in a format that doesn’t look cluttered or crowded.

• Using a watercolor style for the images creates an artistic feel that helps the ad feel more like a public service announcement and less like an ad for shoes.

The Bad:

• Positioning the brand as having the world’s cleanest shoes is great, but this ad fails to mention that the shoes are top-of-the-line hiking shoes. There’s a danger that the potential customer views this as a downgrade in shoe effectiveness rather than a benefit.

The Recommendation:

• Test different Primary text variations and highlight the effectiveness of the shoes in conjunction with being the cleanest shoes.

• Saying “More to come” is intriguing, but viewers don’t know when more is coming, so adding a date would be helpful.

#4: Flux Footwear

The Good:

• What this ad does well is focus on the bottom of the shoe, which is the most important part of a hiking shoe.

• The Primary text starts with a question, which is a great way to hook in a reader.

• The “Earth-Link” grounded steps claim is also likely to catch a potential customer’s attention because it sounds strange.

  • According to a NIH article, grounding refers to direct skin contact with the surface of the Earth, which may yield “sustained benefits” for health, like reducing inflammation.

• Whether real or not, this ad does an effective job of differentiating itself from other shoes by highlighting a unique feature.

The Bad:

• The idea of “grounding,” which seemingly involves skin contact with the ground, is likely to create skepticism in the minds of many potential customers because shoes do not provide skin contact with the Earth typically. This ad doesn’t provide any evidence or explanation of how these shoes have grounding.

• Showing the bottom of the shoe is nice, but doesn’t explain why this shoe would have grounding and others wouldn’t.

• The ad also fails to talk about why grounding is a benefit, the customer needs more information.

The Recommendation:

• Provide a link or short explanation of how these shoes have grounding.

• Test different backgrounds for the image, this ad could feel more exciting with a nature background.

• Spell out the benefit of these shoes. If grounding is real, talk about how these shoes provide health benefits through grounding.

Meme of the Week: