As an ecommerce native business, digital marketing has long been fundamental to Fabletics’ success.

However, retail’s tectonic plates are shifting once again. With the penetration of ecommerce stabilising across mature markets, acquiring new customers is more difficult and more expensive. AI, meanwhile, is transforming how consumers browse, discover and buy.

The activewear retailer is adapting to this new reality, as it eyes ambitious growth targets to reach $2bn revenue within five years. That involved expanding its product categories, exploring emerging marketing channels, and investing heavily in influencer partnerships.

Daniel Klarkowski, VP of Media & Growth Europe at Fabletics, tells James Knowles that digital will remain central to the retailer’s expansion, alongside a growing focus on physical retail and wholesale.

“It’s our natural habitat, I would say, as a D2C brand,” he explains. “That’s how we were born, raised, and it’s also a base of our success.”

He adds that while established platforms such as Meta and Google continue to offer opportunities to reach new customers, Fabletics is also looking towards emerging advertising formats, including those being developed by OpenAI.

Extensions to its product offering are designed to attract new audiences, including through Fabletics Scrubs (its medical apparel that utilises activewear technology), while its recent launch into denim in the US demonstrates the potential to reach different customer segments.

The challenge facing digital marketers, says Klarkowski, is understanding which investments genuinely generate sales.

Attribution and the real growth drivers

“I think there are two words probably a lot of the media and growth managers have in their head, and one is probably the word attribution. The other is incrementality,” he says.

In the modern context this is challenging. Consumers engage with retailers and brands across multiple platforms in various combinations, which means attributing sales to individual channels has become increasingly complex.

Klarkowski points to promotional discounting as an example of where retailers risk sacrificing profitability without necessarily generating additional demand.

“If you would do a coupon campaign and give a 10 per cent discount, sometimes you could reach customers who were planning to buy anyway. So you basically give a discount on a transaction that would have happened anyway.”

Fabletics uses a multi-touch attribution model to assess how different marketing channels contribute to purchases, rather than simply crediting the final advertisement a customer clicks.

Its US-based data science team continually refines this approach, although privacy regulations and restrictions on tracking present challenges.

The growing power of smaller influencers

One of the biggest shifts in Fabletics’ marketing strategy has been its growing investment in influencer partnerships, particularly smaller content creators.

The retailer works with more than 1,500 influencers across Europe who post about the brand every month.

While high-profile ambassadors such as Khloé Kardashian and Kevin Hart remain important, Klarkowski believes smaller influencers offer something increasingly important in an age where consumers crave authenticity – relatability and trust.

“When you’re still a beginner creator, a lot of your followers will still be friends, family or people you somehow know personally,” he explains. “That’s a more trusting and closer relationship.”

Changes to social media algorithms have also made follower counts a less reliable indicator of reach, he says.

“You can have an influencer who has 500 followers who can suddenly get a post with 10 million views just because it’s awesome and it goes viral.”

Equally, he says, having hundreds of thousands of followers no longer guarantees that content will achieve significant visibility.

Let AI power analytics, not creative direction

Fabletics is experimenting with AI in its marketing operations, particularly to adapt content for different European markets.

Operating across seven countries with different languages and currencies, the retailer sees opportunities to use AI to localise influencer videos, for example through translation and subtitles.

However, Klarkowski advises caution about relying too heavily on AI-generated advertising, particularly in light of younger consumers’ appetite for authentic content.

“I’m not sure if AI videos are really the best way to build a brand,” he says.

Instead, he sees the greatest commercial potential in using AI to analyse marketing performance.

By processing data from advertising platforms and internal systems, AI can help identify correlations between campaigns, uncover performance drivers and reveal opportunities that might otherwise go unnoticed.

“That’s where AI can help you, and there I see the most commercial benefit,” he says, adding that otherwise that kind of analysis could take hours of manual spreadsheet work.

The advantage of membership

Fabletics’ VIP membership model – a flexible, subscription-based rewards programme – also shapes its approach to customer acquisition.

Klarkowski acknowledges that subscriptions can create an initial barrier, particularly as some shoppers are unaware they can purchase without becoming members.

However, the model offers significant advantages once customers sign up.

“Compared to other brands, we usually do not need to invest additional media dollars into these further purchases because they are members,” he explains.

This potentially allows Fabletics to invest more in acquiring customers in the first instance, knowing that membership benefits can encourage repeat purchases without the same ongoing investment pressures other retailers might face.

Digital alone won’t be enough

Looking ahead, Klarkowski expects AI-powered product discovery and agentic commerce, where AI systems can facilitate purchases on consumers’ behalf, to reshape retail marketing.

However, he is doubtful of predictions that AI will completely replace tradition ecommerce websites.

Successful brands, he says, will need to combine emerging digital technologies with stronger real-world customer relationships.

“You need to create emotions and a bonding to the audience in the category where you’re active,” he says.

“If you’re trying to rely on a pure digital play, that’s probably not going to be enough in the long term.”

For Fabletics, that means complementing its digital expertise with physical experiences, brand activations and opportunities for customers to interact with products.

The popularity of activities such as running clubs demonstrates that consumers increasingly want meaningful connections beyond their screens, observes Klarkowski.

“I think we’re already seeing an offline trend where people are hungry to experience thigs in the real world again.”

With multiple data studies now showing that younger consumers are craving exactly that, Klarkowski and Fabletics have a robust strategy in place to not only acquire new customers, but keep and drive spend from the ones they already have.

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