The Best Facebook Ads for Yoga Mats

THIS WEEK’S FODDER
☀️ Good Morning

You’re reading Marketing Fodder, a newsletter dedicated to helping you improve your Facebook and Instagram ads. Here’s what we’re serving up today:

1. Manduka

2. Stakt

3. Ma Wovens

4. Yoloha Yoga

What do these companies have in common? They all sell yoga mats. We’ll examine how these companies market their mats to an audience that practices yoga.

STARTER
Quick Bites:

• How to strategically use long-tail keywords in your content (Read more)

• Instagram is testing unskippable video ads (Read more)

• Brave Search, which doesn’t rely on Google or Microsoft to serve it’s results, launches search ads for eligible brands (Read more)

• Ad strategies for 2024, a discussion (Watch the video)

MAIN
Relax

What’s so interesting about the yoga mat market?

According to Skyquest, the global market for yoga mats was valued at 14.4 billion (USD) in 2023 and is projected to grow to 23.32 billion (USD) by 2031. That’s a projected compound annual growth rate of 5.5%.

Yoga mats made from Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) are dominant in the market due to their low cost and availability. But, the market for yoga mats made from cotton, jute, and other natural fibers is experiencing the greatest growth because consumers are increasingly seeking out eco-friendly products.

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 yoga mats:

#1: Manduka

The Good:

• Three things stand out to me.

  1. The Primary text starts with a bold statement about the Manduka mat being the “only mat” with a “Lifetime Guarantee.” Bold statements are great for catching the attention of people scrolling through their feeds.

  2. The image is a comparison between the Manduka mat and a “Generic Yoga Mat,” and effectively uses colors (green for good and red for bad) as well as check marks and X’s to highlight the superiority of the Manduka mat.

  3. The description mentions “soulfully engineered,” which is both a lighthearted and on-brand.

The Bad:

• The mats pictured in the image are rolled up, making it hard to recognize what is being depicted in the image, initially.

The Recommendation:

• I would test another sentence in the Primary text that spells out the benefit of the product, something like, “Maintain inner peace. The only mat in the market with a Lifetime Guarantee.”

• Test images of mats rolled out.

#2: Stakt

The Good:

• Using emojis as bullet points helps communicate the features of the product in a light-hearted way.

• Using a pink circle to highlight that this mat was featured on Shark Tank is a great way to catch the viewer’s attention. If your product gets featured in a video or piece of media, putting that into your ad is an effective way to differentiate your product from the competition.

• The image helps communicate what makes this mat different from a standard yoga mat.

The Bad:

• This ad has all the ingredients for being great but fails to clearly communicate the benefit to the customer. The mat’s ability to double as a block is a feature, but the ad needs to explain how that’s a benefit. Something like, “Stakt mat doubles as a block, which means you can carry less and find inner peace faster.”

• The standard mat and the Stakt mat in the image need more separation and differentiation. A list of what one has that the other doesn’t (like the previous ad) would likely be more effective.

• Having one consistent emoji for the bullet point list may be more effective than having a variety. Testing can confirm that.

The Recommendation:

• A customer quote or review could really boost this ad’s effectiveness. When you have a product that is new or different, a quote that talks about how the product unlocks a new benefit is very helpful.

• Test an image that provides a side-by-side comparison of the Stakt mat with bullet points.

#3: Ma Wovens

The Good:

• This ad does an excellent job of highlighting benefits and using the image to reenforce the message of the ad.

• Introducing the idea of elevating the customer’s yoga practice with this mat is smart because it plays off our human desire to look for quick solutions.

• Calling out the limited availability of this product is also smart because it creates a sense of urgency, which can significantly increase conversions.

• And, providing a “No questions asked” return 30 day return policy creates trust.

• The image is engaging; having some kind of action, or unusual pose, can often boost CTR in my experience.

The Bad:

• The ad uses a quote at the bottom of the image, which I like, but the location of the quote might be better in the Primary text. It’s obscuring the mat within the image and the text is a little small.

The Recommendation:

• Test the customer quote from Sarah B in the Primary text, or test a short quote with larger text.

#4: Yoloha Yoga

The Good:

• This ad does an excellent job of telling the potential customer how features become benefits.

• The Primary text connects the features of “grounding support and natural grip” to the benefit of focusing on a yoga practice. In essence, the mat is being marketed as a way for the customer to go from unfocused to focused.

The Bad:

• Again, I like the quote embedded in the image, but it does take away from the image of the woman balancing on the mat. I would try to find a shorter quote to test so more of the image is visible.

The Recommendation:

• Test having the quote in the Primary text and also test having a shorter quote, both within the image and in the Primary text.

Meme of the Week: