×· Q4 2026
— days to Black Friday (27 Nov 2026), the start of Tracksmith's two biggest months

What winning back category searches is worth in Tracksmith online sales

Since September 2025, Tracksmith's organic search traffic has halved (Ahrefs: 63.8K to 30.2K visits a month), and the loss is category searches like "running shorts", the way new runners find the brand. Google now sees 98 country copies of the store and ranks pages like /nu (Niue) and /tg (Togo) for US searches, so the category pages sit on page two. Brand searches held up. Pick a tier, then replace our placeholder rates with Tracksmith's own.

Category searches and AI answers
15,000
Once Google sees one US store and the category pages are rebuilt. Ahrefs puts the loss since September 2025 at ~30,000 visits a month; pages take 2–4 months to recover.
0
Kept at 0 in the headline. AI assistants sent ~3,200 visits in June and ~900 in September (Similarweb); 42% of US long-distance running fans used ChatGPT last month (GWI USA, Q3 2025–Q2 2026).
From visit to order
1.5%
Placeholder until Tracksmith shares its own. Apparel ecommerce converts ~1–2.5%; category visits convert below brand visits.
$150
Placeholder. Men's shorts list at $65–$145, tees at $65–$125, the Eliot Runner at $198; free shipping starts at $200.
The paid comparison
$1.71
For the paid comparison only. Click-weighted CPC on Tracksmith's non-branded keywords (Similarweb, Jun–Aug 2026); "running shorts" is $1.96.
Online sales a year from category searches won back
$405,000
2,700
new orders a year
$2.25
in sales per category visit
$25,650
a month to buy these clicks in Google Ads
Organic search visits a month (Ahrefs)
Sep 2025 peak
63,800
Today (Sep 2026)
30,200
With the plan
45,200
Year one, and why ads don't carry the plan
$320,625
in year one, pages ramping
1.32×
first-order sales per $1 of category ads
50%
of the ~30K lost category visits
If category visits convert atOrders / yrSales / yr

What waiting costs

At these rates, every month without the fix defers about $33,750 of online sales, and the whole ~30,000-visit gap is worth $67,500 a month. November and December were Tracksmith's two biggest months of the past year (395K and 372K US visits), and it goes into them ~30,000 category visits a month below its 2025 peak. AI assistants sent 71% fewer visits in September than in June, while 42% of US long-distance running fans use ChatGPT. And an estimated ~$17.6K a month goes on Google Ads for Tracksmith's own name, where it already ranks #1 (Similarweb; a brand holdout test would show how much of that is needed).

Traffic: Ahrefs, 30 Sep 2026 (organic visits, all countries; category keywords and pages); Similarweb, US, Jun–Sep 2026 (marketing channels, search performance, website keywords, rank distribution, organic landing pages, search ads, geography; pulled 5 Oct 2026). The two tools disagree on the level of organic traffic (Similarweb's US panel counts ~3x Ahrefs' visits, mostly brand) and on paid search (Ahrefs sees almost none); the gap here is Ahrefs' figure, to be checked in Search Console. Buyer context: GWI Core and GWI USA, Q3 2025–Q2 2026 (proxy audiences; licensed with attribution). Prices: tracksmith.com, 5 Oct 2026.
Formula: (category-search visits won back + AI visits) × conversion rate = orders a month; × 12 × average order value = online sales a year. Paid comparison: visits × cost per click = what the same clicks would cost in Google Ads, shown for context and never added to sales. Year one: pages ramp over six months. Sales are revenue before margin and returns, at placeholder rates until Tracksmith shares its own.
Part of the ROAST × Tracksmith search and AI visibility analysis, October 2026. Companion to the Citizens Search-Value Calculator and the Industrious Membership-Value Calculator.