CamelBak, a pioneer in hydration innovation since 1989, is synonymous with performance, durability, and outdoor endurance.
With a fiercely loyal audience of runners, cyclists, hikers, and elite military personnel, the brand had a thriving organic presence—but their influencer and affiliate marketing program lacked scalability, consistent output, and strategic depth.
CamelBak needed a partner to help evolve their fragmented influencer efforts into a high-performing, repeatable growth channel.
The Challenge
Despite strong brand equity and widespread use of branded hashtags, CamelBak’s influencer marketing program was reactive, not proactive. As a result, influencer marketing was neither a dependable source of traffic nor revenue—and lacked attribution infrastructure to scale intelligently.
The brand was:
- Relying on one-off organic reposts rather than long-term creator partnerships
- Under-leveraging highly engaged creators already posting about the brand
- Failing to turn contests and giveaways into actionable UGC or affiliate recruitment
- Partnering with influencers who posted infrequently or lacked contract incentives to drive performance
Strategies
- Adspace built a database of past creators who had posted about CamelBak organically, then launched targeted outreach to convert them into active affiliates with usage rights, repost scheduling, and revenue share incentives.
- Giveaways were restructured to not only drive entries but capture email, product preference, and opt-in for affiliate offers—tripling the long-term value of each contest.
- Creators were enrolled into a 30/60/90-day content pipeline, with incentives tied to consistency. This drastically improved evergreen brand presence.
- Top-performing creators were boosted via paid social, backed by strict performance thresholds. This bridged the gap between organic trust and paid performance at scale.
