On Running Marketing Strategy (2026)

On Running has built a multibillion-dollar premium footwear brand while maintaining a strong focus on full-price sales and disciplined discounting. For DTC marketers looking to scale without sacrificing margins, its playbook offers a masterclass in community-driven growth, identity resolution, and premium positioning. In 2023, On achieved record net sales of CHF 1.79 billion, representing 46.6% year-over-year growth, while maintaining a 59.6% gross margin that exceeded several larger sportswear competitors. The brand's success demonstrates how data infrastructure that supports personalization and clean conversion signals can drive sustainable growth. Tools like Opensend provide the identity resolution and signal quality that enable this type of premium positioning at scale.

Key Takeaways

• In 2023, On achieved CHF 1.79 billion in net sales with 46.6% year-over-year growth while maintaining a 59.6% gross margin, approximately 16 percentage points above Nike's fiscal 2023 margin
• The "Run On Clouds" brand identity organizes products around four sensations: Soft, Support, Energy, and Speed, rather than fragmented product drops
• Community run clubs function as customer acquisition engines with lower CAC than paid advertising
• The DTC channel represented approximately 37.5% of 2023 net sales, enabling greater control over brand presentation, customer relationships, and margins
• On still has significant brand-awareness growth opportunities in many markets despite reaching multibillion-franc scale
• Premium positioning requires data infrastructure that supports personalization, identity stitching, and clean conversion signals

Dominating the Running Footwear Market: Strategic Positioning for 2026

On Running's rise from a niche Swiss startup to a global challenger proves that premium positioning and rapid growth are not mutually exclusive. In 2025, the company surpassed CHF 3.0 billion in annual net sales and reached a 62.8% gross margin, establishing a more current financial foundation for its 2026 strategy. Its 59.6% full-year 2023 gross margin significantly exceeded Nike's 43.5% and Adidas's approximately 47.5%, supported by a high share of full-price sales and an expanding DTC channel.

Analyzing Competitors: Nike, Adidas, and the Premium Gap

While Nike dominates through scale and Adidas competes on heritage, On carved out a different position entirely. The brand limits its dependence on the promotional cycles that affect larger competitors, with wholesale partners selected carefully and given strict expectations for presentation, pricing, and environment.

The financial results demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach:

• Revenue growth: 46.6% YoY at more than CHF 1.7 billion in 2023 net sales
• Gross margin advantage: Approximately 16 percentage points above Nike and 12 percentage points above Adidas based on their respective fiscal 2023 results
• DTC mix: Approximately 37.5% of 2023 net sales, up from approximately 25% in 2019
• Apparel growth: 45.5% YoY expansion into higher-margin categories

Nike's fiscal 2023 performance showed gross margins of 43.5%, while Adidas reported approximately 47.5% for the same period, confirming On's significant margin advantage.

On Running's Unique Selling Proposition

The brand's CloudTec technology provides the technical foundation, but the real differentiation lies in positioning. On treats premium as an operating principle, not just messaging. This requires first-party data infrastructure that enables personalization without relying on promotional triggers.

Elevating Brand Marketing: Crafting On's 2026 Narrative

On's brand identity refresh, "Run On Clouds," organizes its entire portfolio around four sensations: Soft, Support, Energy, and Speed. This moves away from the fragmented product-drop approach dominating running. The identity explicitly rejects high-pressure running culture dominated by data, metrics, and endless shoe drops in favor of an emotion-first philosophy.

The "Soft Wins" Creative Strategy

On's "Soft Wins" campaign featuring Sesame Street's Elmo went viral by challenging "no pain, no gain" culture. CMO Alex Griffin explained in Marketing Dive that the campaign challenged the belief that success in running must involve suffering or chasing records.

The campaign generated substantial participation and positioned On as inclusive without undercutting technical credibility, a stark contrast to Nike's intensity-focused messaging.

Athlete Partnerships Across Three Tiers

On operates a multi-tier athlete strategy that balances performance credibility with cultural relevance:

• Elite tier: On Athletics Club athletes, including professional marathoners and Olympic competitors
• Cultural tier: Roger Federer, Zendaya, and Burna Boy targeting broader and younger audiences
• Grassroots tier: Micro-influencers and community run club leaders

This approach allows On to build credibility in ways competitors cannot easily replicate. The strategy delivers both technical authority and cultural resonance.

Optimizing Digital Reach: From Anonymous Visitors to Loyal Customers

Many ecommerce sites identify only a limited share of their visitors through logins, purchases, or form submissions, with roughly 10% often used as an illustrative benchmark. For a brand like On, which still has substantial awareness growth opportunities across several markets, converting more high-intent traffic into addressable customer profiles can support continued expansion.

Community Run Clubs as Growth Engines

On's global network of run clubs functions as cultural hubs rather than traditional sponsorship activities. These clubs blend digital, physical, and emotional connection points:

• Weekly sessions hosted from flagship stores
• Staff-led pacing and live product try-ons
• Content capture across Strava, TikTok, and Instagram
• CRM data collection for personalized follow-up

The approach transforms casual customers into loyal members through shared rituals at significantly lower CAC than paid advertising channels.

Personalized Experiences for Footwear Buyers

For footwear marketing personalization, On demonstrates how premium brands can segment without discounting:

• Behavioral segmentation based on browsing patterns, such as trail versus road and recovery versus performance
• Geographic personalization with weather-based recommendations
• Lifecycle targeting that respects the customer's relationship stage

Enhancing Data Accuracy: Server-Side Tracking for Smarter Campaigns

When pixel-based tracking loses 30-40% of conversions to ad blockers and Safari ITP, premium brands cannot afford the signal loss. On's digital infrastructure requires clean conversion data to optimize toward high-value customers rather than discount-seekers.

Capturing Missed Conversion Events

Server-side tracking sends conversion events directly to platforms through APIs such as Meta CAPI and Google Enhanced Conversions, where ad blockers cannot intercept them. For DTC brands, this can improve the completeness and matchability of the signals supplied to advertising platforms.

The principle matters especially for premium positioning. If advertising platforms receive an incomplete or distorted sample of conversions, their optimization models may learn from the wrong customer behaviors. Cleaner event capture gives those platforms a more representative view of the customers a brand values most.

Improving ROI Through Data Quality

Key metrics to monitor for optimal campaign performance:

• Event Match Quality scores in Meta Events Manager
• Conversion coverage across devices and browsers
• Deduplication to prevent double-counting between pixel and server events

AI-Powered Personalization: Segmenting On's Customer Base

On's customer base spans elite marathoners, casual joggers, and lifestyle buyers attracted by cultural ambassadors. Serving each segment requires AI-driven segmentation that goes beyond basic demographics.

Creating Tailored Experiences for Runner Personas

Gen Z's share of On's customer base increased from 24% to 29% between 2021 and 2023, demonstrating successful youth acquisition. However, these customers have different needs than performance-focused buyers.

Effective segmentation for footwear brands includes:

• Activity-based cohorts: Trail runners, road racers, and gym-to-street crossovers
• Purchase pattern analysis: One-time buyers versus multi-category collectors
• Engagement signals: Run club participation, content interaction, and review submission

This customer segmentation enables tailored messaging without relying on blanket discounts.

Strategic Partnerships and Distribution: Expanding On's Footprint

As of early 2024, On operated 32 stores globally, with 22 located in China, alongside approximately 10,500 wholesale partners. The brand was present in roughly 40% of key partner doors at major retailers, representing significant expansion opportunity.

The DTC Margin Advantage

With approximately 37.5% of its 2023 net sales coming through DTC, On captured higher margins while maintaining full control over brand expression. Apparel represented approximately 20% of DTC revenue versus a smaller wholesale mix, making direct channels critical for category expansion.

Asia-Pacific Expansion

The Asia-Pacific region delivered 75.9% year-over-year growth, or approximately 96% in constant currency, in 2023, signaling substantial regional expansion potential. China remains in the early stages of development, requiring localized visitor identification and engagement strategies for platforms such as WeChat and Douyin.

Competitive Advantage: Compliance and Data Quality in Ecommerce Marketing

Premium positioning requires data practices that match the brand's values. On's commitment to full-price sales extends to how it handles customer data, building trust through transparency rather than aggressive retargeting.

Navigating Data Privacy Regulations

For brands operating across US, EU, and UK markets, compliance considerations include:

• CAN-SPAM and CCPA compliance for US operations
• GDPR compatibility for European expansion
• First-party data models as browser privacy restrictions reduce access to third-party signals

Research from Google and Boston Consulting Group has reported that companies connecting first-party data across their marketing functions may generate substantially stronger results than companies with limited data integration.

Why Opensend Powers Premium Footwear Growth

On Running's playbook of premium positioning, community-driven acquisition, and data-quality focus requires infrastructure that strengthens the invisible marketing layer behind growth. Opensend supports this function for ecommerce brands pursuing similar strategies.

The brand's success demonstrates that sustainable growth at premium price points demands more than great products. It requires identifying anonymous visitors, reconnecting fragmented customer identities, improving audience addressability, and supplying marketing platforms with stronger customer signals. These capabilities form the foundation that enables community-building, personalization, retargeting, and profitable scaling.

Strengthening the Identity and Signal Foundation

Opensend improves the data inputs that determine how well marketing channels perform:

• Connect identifies 25-35% of anonymous visitors through a network of 180 million US shoppers with a 73% US shopper match rate
• Reconnect unifies fragmented customer identities across sessions, devices, and browsers, creating stronger first-party profiles for personalized engagement
• Revive replaces bounced or inactive email addresses with active addresses for the same users, helping brands restore lost customer connections
• Personas uses purchase, demographic, lifestyle, and behavioral data to create audience cohorts for more precise targeting

Together, these capabilities strengthen identity resolution, audience addressability, match rates, and the quality of the customer data synced into marketing platforms. Opensend does not replace a brand's event-tracking or attribution systems. It improves the identity foundation those systems depend on, supporting stronger retargeting, platform learning, and measurement.

Proven Results for Footwear and Apparel Brands

Opensend's apparel and fashion clients demonstrate measurable ROI:

• Kut from the Kloth: $107,000 in revenue over 30 days with 48x ROI
• Jordan Craig Apparel: 29,268 leads captured in 14 days with 35% higher click rates
• Felina Lingerie: 45,113 visitors captured, generating $53,718 in attributed revenue

For brands pursuing On Running's premium positioning model, Opensend provides an identity and signal layer that supports personalization at scale without depending on constant promotional tactics. The platform helps footwear brands identify more high-intent visitors, strengthen first-party profiles, build addressable audiences, and improve the data inputs used across retargeting and other marketing channels.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does Opensend help footwear brands identify anonymous visitors?

Opensend's Connect feature identifies 25-35% of anonymous website visitors through a proprietary network of 180 million US shoppers with a 73% US shopper match rate. This turns a larger share of unknown traffic into addressable audiences that brands can activate through email, advertising, SMS, and direct mail.

What makes Opensend different for premium footwear brands?

Opensend focuses on identity resolution, audience addressability, match rates, and the quality of customer data sent into marketing platforms. By identifying more visitors and enriching first-party profiles, it helps brands provide stronger identity signals for retargeting, audience matching, personalization, and campaign optimization.

Can Opensend integrate with existing footwear brand tech stacks?

Yes. Opensend integrates with major ecommerce platforms, including Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce, as well as marketing platforms such as Klaviyo, Mailchimp, Attentive, Google, and Meta. These integrations allow brands to sync identified and enriched customer profiles into the tools they already use.

How quickly can footwear brands see results with Opensend?

Results depend on traffic volume, implementation, campaign strategy, and audience quality. Opensend begins identifying eligible visitors after installation, and published customer stories show that some apparel brands generated measurable revenue and list growth during their first 30 to 60 days.

What kind of support does Opensend provide for footwear marketing strategies?

Opensend provides implementation assistance, integration support, and guidance for activating identified visitors and customer audiences. Its product suite also supports cross-device identity resolution, contact recovery, and AI-powered audience segmentation, helping footwear brands strengthen the data foundation behind their existing marketing programs.