That depends entirely on how effective those marketing campaigns are. Good marketing pays you back.
it is also extremely hard to measure their success, I’m not sure how Zwift knows that someone signed up because they saw a Zwift logo during the TdF or because Lance’s podcast is sponsored by Zwift, etc… how are they able to quantify that? Or is that why I haven’t canceled my account, because they sponsored the TdF Femmes? Would hiring more developers and artists be a better ROI than expensive sponsorships if they are able to deliver on actual features that users want?
However they quantify it is beyond our ability to measure, which makes the speculation pretty pointless. From a customer perspective, it is simply unknown.
I know this overly simplifies it but…
2024: 42.5k x $14.99 = $637k
2025: 37.2k x $19.99 = $744k
True, but it certainly appears from the outside that those campaigns are not growing the number of users. At least not in proportion to the amount that is likely being spent.
well then shut down the forums, because all we do here is speculate
You have a guesstimate of the peak number but you don’t know how much of the churn was made up by new users or what the effect on subscriptions would be if they spent the money on something else.
I saw a Zwift number of 37,539 yesterday. It seems to be going up every Tuesday which would be an interesting development for Zwift.
Considering the considerable volatility in zwift use over the week, it’s truly remarkable how consistent the peak zwift number has been over these past three weeks.
In the spirit of horrid abuse of statistics, I was in the gym last night and all of the leg machines were occupied, so I conclude New Years Resolution season is not yet over.
Technically, you are correct. And, truly, Zwift isn’t concerned with the ‘Peak Zwift’ number, they only care about the number of paying customers, regardless of whether they use the platform, or not.
But, realistically speaking, if Zwift is investing the amount of money I’m guessing they are in event/team/classification sponsorships, and are still seeing a decline in Peak Zwift numbers (using this as a proxy for paying customers, which may not be perfect, as noted), but many of these users are on Zwift because of the sponsorships, that would indicate a fair amount of churn, which isn’t good. The goal of the sponsorships should be to grow the platform, not to keep it the same, or shrink it. That’s why my feeling is that these sponsorships are not the wisest investment. I mean, imagine if that money was channeled into the platform, introducing some of the oft requested changes? Or if customer service was improved? My feeling is that the word of mouth advertising received from those changes would exceed whatever they are getting from the sponsorships.
All of the major platforms sponsor things: MyWhoosh sponsors Team UAE, Rouvy sponsors La Vuelta, Zwift sponsors Le Tour Femme avec Zwift. Of these, I think Zwift probably gains the most goodwill, as a lot of people credit them for the associated benefits to women’s cycling.
They are all fighting for pieces of a shrunken pie. The Peloton revenues posted earlier in this thread show a similar trend.
And I suppose that’s my point: If the pie is shrinking, is it really worthwhile to invest those (probably) millions of dollars into the sponsorships, when that money could be invested into the product itself, and generate word of mouth advertising? I mean, no amount of advertising or goodwill can sustain a product that frustrates users. (And I’m not saying that Zwift is doing this; just stating it as a general thought. Personally, Zwift seems to meet all of my needs, but there definitely seem to be a number of things that users feel could be improved that don’t seem to be getting much, if any, attention.)
Wait until the next discretionary spending, recession (the last true one was in 2008-2009), and let’s see how many TDF ads you’ll see…