Inside SaltStick’s Strava Strategy for Growth

For SaltStick, a fast-growing electrolyte brand with roots in long-distance running, reaching active consumers where they already move was key. The team needed a way to connect with health-minded athletes in a space that felt authentic, measurable, and community-driven. Strava offered exactly that. It was a natural fit for getting SaltStick products into the hands of people who would benefit most. 

In July 2025, the brand launched the SaltStick “Salty Runner Sweepstakes” Challenge, inviting runners to hit the pavement for rewards that combined sampling, discovery, and fun. The campaign transformed everyday runs into a powerful marketing engine, blending participation, product trial, and brand awareness into one seamless experience. 

We spoke with Noah McDermott, Senior Brand Marketing Manager at SaltStick, to learn how SaltStick approaches its marketing strategy and how Strava became a key part of the brand’s playbook.

Discovering the Strava Opportunity

Noah had been an avid Strava user for nearly a decade. Watching the growing popularity of Strava Challenges among athletes and brands, he recognized the platform offered something special: authentic engagement with a highly motivated audience.

For him, Strava represented an organic way to meet customers in their element. “Anyone who breaks a sweat is our ideal target customer,” he explained. “Strava’s audience was a natural fit.”

That alignment between audience and mission laid the groundwork for a campaign that felt natural, community-driven, and purposeful from the start.

Challenge Objectives: Awareness and Sampling

SaltStick’s Strava Challenge, the Salty Runner Sweepstakes, invited participants to complete a 5K run outdoors between July 7 - 20, 2025. Completing the challenge earned runners a free SaltStick sample pack and an entry for a $5,000 Fleet Feet shopping spree.

The campaign had two clear goals: build top-of-funnel brand awareness and drive product sampling. Noah explained it simply: “It was definitely a top-of-funnel play to get awareness out there. At the same time, our chewable electrolyte tablets, called “FastChews”, are different from other electrolytes, and a huge portion of our goal is getting samples in hand and creating a nice incentive for people who maybe have heard of SaltStick but aren’t sure about its product.”

The Challenge quickly exceeded expectations. More than 103,000 participants joined globally, with over 91,000 in the U.S. alone. Nearly half of participants (47%) identified as female, an especially strong showing given many Strava Challenges attract a majority of male participants. The accessible 5K distance and compelling grand prize helped encourage a broad mix of fitness levels, reflected in an impressive 86% completion rate.

Noah was quick to note the strong performance: “Top of funnel was surprising in terms of the estimated number of completions and entries. This was a huge positive indicator that people are interested and that they genuinely want to try our product. That stood out right away."

Results That Go the Distance

All the numbers from the Challenge paint a clear picture of engagement. Participants collectively ran more than 370,000 miles across 73,000 activities – that’s roughly the distance from Earth to the moon and halfway back. That kind of participation reflects genuine enthusiasm within the Strava community.

These metrics confirmed the Challenge achieved exactly what it set out to do: drive brand awareness and encourage product trial.

Noah recalled how quickly interest translated into action. “Another thing that stood out on our end was the redemption rates,” he said. “We actually sold out of our allotment relatively quickly and had to get more. Seeing that many people complete the Challenge, get the redemption, and take advantage of the sample packs was quite encouraging.”

From Challenge to Conversion

Beyond participation numbers, the downstream effects were equally powerful. Nearly half of users who clicked on the reward went on to sign up for SaltStick’s email list. “That conversion rate is really, really strong,” Noah said. “I would not expect anywhere near that on any other marketing channel we’ve used.” 

These results gave Noah’s team valuable new audiences for remarketing, nurturing, and future product launches. By combining Strava’s activity-based motivation with easy digital redemption flows, SaltStick shortened the gap between awareness and conversion.

Why Strava Was the Perfect Fit

For Noah and his team, Strava's Sponsored Challenges offered the rare combination of audience alignment, creative flexibility, and measurable outcomes. The platform made it easy to design a Challenge that reflected SaltStick’s brand values while giving participants a clear, motivating goal.

“Strava is a perfect playbook on our end because we combine everything through it as a marketing tool,” Noah said. ”The CPMs of this Challenge were very competitive with our other top of funnel investments, so we were getting the benefit of reaching our target consumer in an actionable way at a similar cost-effectiveness of other platforms.”

“We plan on doing at least one, if not multiple, Challenges next year and tying that in with new products or new partners,” Noah added. “It’s a good all-in-one solution for us.”