Case Study: Patagonia M10 Digital Advertising Strategy

How we helped the outdoor brand relaunch their technical climbing collection, delivering around 100 million impressions and a ROAS well-above target

To run a successful campaign for technical alpine gear, you need to speak the language and know your audience. For its AW24 relaunch, Patagonia asked us to develop the digital advertising strategy for a cult classic — the M10. Consisting of the 3-layer alpine shell, anorak and pants, these are technical pieces built for the most serious mountain objectives.

With a decade supporting Patagonia’s marketing campaigns under our belt, we’ve learnt a thing or two about how to reach the outdoor brand’s ideal audiences, even at their most niche. Since their boycott of Meta in 2020, we’ve also got the hang of adapting assets and messaging for the advertising platforms that align with the brand’s ethics.

For the M10 campaign, the goal was to build awareness, drive traffic, and, obviously, sell some jackets and pants. We set out to build a multi-phase, full-funnel strategy across a bunch of channels: YouTube, Pinterest, Snapchat, Reddit, and Google. The idea was to hit the right people with the right message at the right time.

Top of the Funnel Awareness

For the awareness phase, our goal was to get the M10 family back on Patagonia customers’ radar before going in for the hard sell. For the top of the funnel, we started with engaging 15- and 30-second videos that explained the M10 family’s redesign and ethos. 

The M10 redesign was a big project, with each piece extensively wear-tested by elite climbers in challenging conditions, and the design team continuously tweaked the designs to make sure they had optimal movement and functionality. The videos gave their audience an inside look at this process and linked to the collection page where they could have a better look at the individual products.

The main objective here was to get the word out and make sure people knew what the M10 family was. We weren’t necessarily encouraging people to buy, just letting them know what it’s all about. 

The results were strong across Reddit, Snapchat, Pinterest and YouTube, with good results, even on metrics we weren’t optimising for — like clicks and click-through-rate. Good numbers in this phase are a great sign for brand and product positioning.

Traffic Phase Strategy

Next, we went for clicks and page views. We used a social cut of the video, a single image banner, and a carousel. The creative was classic Patagonia. Direct and snappy, the copy described the M10 as “the dopest, flyest sh*t you’ll ever put on your body”. Certainly attention-grabbing.

We hit plenty of clicks while keeping the cost-per-click low. We also saw that some of the more expensive platforms actually delivered high-quality traffic and with a higher ROAS than the less expensive platforms, a reminder that cheaper isn’t always better.

Results: 11.65 ROAS Without Discounting

Finally, we went for the close. We used a carousel and a single-image banner on Pinterest, Snapchat and YouTube. This phase pulled a strong ROAS of 11.65, well above industry standards.

We also saw a massive spike in purchases on Black Friday despite Patagonia not participating in traditional retail sales or promotions for BFCM.

We’ve not just seen this with Patagonia, either. Across clients, we’ve seen an uptick in purchases whether the brand has had direct messaging about the consumer weekend or not. Customers are still in a ‘shopping mood’ and more likely to spend despite increased competition in the ad space. 

Overall, the campaign was a success with all three phases pulling strong results. The numbers were in line with our predictions for this type of campaign, with a whopping 99 million impressions on the ads. We’re well-placed to build on the success of this campaign for Patagonia’s next pinnacle climbing campaign.

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