The brands in this category record an average of around 70,000 hits per month (location: Germany). 14 of the 32 brands achieve approx. 80% of the traffic; the strongest brand has a 22% share of the total category traffic.
The handling of digital marketing is varies greatly in this category: there are some very professional brands with a clear digital strategy both in terms of the website and digital marketing, as well as on social networks and mobile. Other brands find digital disciplines more difficult; digital marketing does not seem to have priority.
20 of the websites run their own B2C online shops. No benchmark brand can cope with the category’s large outdoor specialised e-tailers – in relation both to traffic and aspects of marketing such as organic search.
A reason for this is that online retailers are implementing more effective content strategies, principally addressing categorical and seasonal issues, thus not only demonstrating their competence to their consumers, but also significantly better search engine placement.
Some outdoor brands also seem to underestimate the role that digital touchpoints and their own digital assets play in the purchase decision – such as spelling mistakes, missing content, dead links, or a mix of German/English with a lack of focus (e.g. on the homepage).
