Executive Summary: Discover customer segmentation examples for outdoor and active brands, from frequency and psychographic segments to demographics and need states, to target 181M US outdoor participants and drive growth. Outdoor and active marketers can use these frameworks to focus on their highest-value core users or convert casual participants into more frequent customers. The article also highlights emerging opportunities like eco-conscious consumers and digital nomads to inform future product and marketing strategies.
Understanding the 181 Million US Consumers Who Spend Time Outdoors
Leveraging customer segmentation examples will allow outdoor brands to cash in on both increased category spending and consumer participation. Active brands will also benefit, as the outdoor and active categories are related and have significant overlap.
Outdoor recreation participation hit another record high of 59% in 2024 or 181 million Americans ages six or older. This represents an increase of 28 million people since 2019 (pre COVID).
According to the 2025 Outdoor Industry Association Participation Report, the most popular outdoor activities in 2024 were:
- Walking for Fitness: 115 million
- Day Hiking: 63 million
- Fishing (Fly, Salt, Fresh): 58 million
- Camping (Car, Backyard, RV): 56 million
- Bicycling (Road/Mountain/BMX): 54 million
- Running, Jogging and Trail Running: 52 million
Four categories that showed increases in 2020 sales overlap with two of the popular 2024 activities (cycling and camping), and there are two other high-value categories (golf and paddle sports).
- Cycling – $697 million in 2020 sales, +63% vs. 2019
- Golf – $661 million in 2020 sales, +51% vs. 2019
- Camping – $605 million in 2020 sales, +31% vs. 2019
- Paddle Sports (kayak, paddleboards, rafts, canoes) – $172 million in 2020 sales, +56% vs. 2019
These categories provide ample opportunity to practice the different customer segmentation approaches.
Frequency-Based Customer Segmentation Examples
The first customer segmentation example we will explore in the outdoor and active space is behavioral, specifically frequency.
Frequency is a time-tested customer segmentation approach, so much so, that the famous model for direct marketing is RFM (Recency, Frequency, and Monetary).
The definition of a more frequent participant will vary by the activity. For instance, a frequent road runner runs 51 times (weekly) or more in a year, whereas a frequent trail hiker hikes 13 times or more each year (about monthly).
Aggregating across outdoor activities, the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA) identifies two high level groups:
- Core outdoor recreation participants: 93 million in 2024, or approximately half of total outdoor consumers
- Non-Core / Casual: the remaining 49% of outdoor consumers who participate less regularly.
Most of the new consumers who have entered the market fall into the casual category. Over the years, the size of core consumers hasn’t changed much. OIA’s definition of core found 99 million in 2019, 98 million in 2020 and 93 million in 2024. Core is sizable but has not increased in the past 10 years. This means that virtually all of the growth falls in the casual or non-core segment.
A different 2020 outdoor customer segmentation example of frequency separated outdoor recreation participants into three groups:
- Core (or heavy user) participants who participate in outdoor recreation at least once per week or 52 or more times per year. In 2020, there were approximately 53 million Americans in this category, about one-third of the group who participates in outdoor recreation (which represents 53% of the total population). The core group has grown smaller since 2010, when it represented 40% of the population.
- Moderate (or medium user) participants are defined as those who participate between 12 to 51 outings per year, at least once per month and less than once a week. These represented another one-third of consumers in 2020.
- Casual (or light user) participants are defined as those who participate in outdoor recreation between one to 11 times per year, or less than once a month. They represent another one-third of the population (34%). In many categories, including outdoors, most of the new consumers (who entered in 2020), fall into the casual category, and the opportunity is to trade them up to more frequent users.
The super-heavy consumer or “core” frequent user is a proven model. In addition to outdoors, super-heavy users are valuable to understand in many industries, ranging from computer and video games to cigarette smoking, to social drinking to fitness apps, and yes, even hot dogs (in hot dogs, the frequent user is the teenage boy).
While it varies from category to category, it’s common for the heavy or super-heavy users to contribute most of the category activity, and the Pareto principle often applies, with 20% of the users (the super-heavy ones) creating 80% of the activity. Similarly, these highly-involved consumers often contribute 80% of the spending in the category.
Since outdoor recreation encompasses many categories, brands will find it helpful to deep dive into a segmentation made up of the specific users of their category. Each category can be further segmented by frequency, spending, psychographics, demographics and need states.
While a heavy user customer segmentation approach is a good first step, there are often meaningful differences between the heavy users for a brand to understand. For instance, there may be a super frequent fisherman who spends most of his or her free time fishing. This individual may spend relatively little on equipment and rely on fish as a dietary staple. In contrast, another super frequent user may be more of a sport fisherman who owns a boat and views this as a hobby. The sport fisherman’s spending may be much greater on equipment.
Psychographic Customer Segmentation Examples: Outdoors
Spending time enjoying the outdoors is a very broad category frame of reference, attracting consumers with shared basic motivations or “antes,” such as getting sunshine, fresh air, relaxing, walking for enjoyment, walking for a purpose and barbecuing/picnicking.
This broad frame of reference is a good starting point for outdoor brands to consider for customer segmentation examples, and may be ideal for a retailer that offers products across a broad range of outdoor categories, like REI, Big 5 or Cabela’s. A more focused category-specific segmentation will be most helpful to retailers and brands that focus on a more specific category product range.
An updated outdoor psychographic segmentation model was released in 2025, with nine outdoor market segments that are grouped into the three broad categories of casual, active and core participants (combining a frequency based approach with a more psychographic approach). The segments (that total more than 100% due to rounding) are:
- Super Casual (Casual) – 22% of outdoor consumers. They prefer walking, running and biking and are outdoors less than once a week
- Rewind & Rebalance (Casual) – 21%
- Health & Fitness (Active) – 18%
- Community Outdoors (Active) – 14%
- Budding Interest in Outdoor – (Active) – 6%
- Feels Best Outdoors (Active) – 12%
- Skill Builders for Epic Adventures (Core) -4%
- Super Core (Core) – 2%
- Support (Spend but don’t play) – 3%
In the 2017 work from the same group, 60% of the population qualified as an outdoor consumer, and there were seven psychographic segments.
More frequent and engaged outdoor consumers included Urban Athlete, Achiever and Outdoor Native segments. The first three segments are all much more regular users and spenders, representing a combined 42% of the population and 66% of the spending. Many outdoor brands will market primarily to these three segments, and secondarily to the fourth segment.
Urban Athlete Psychographic Customer Segmentation Examples
The Urban Athlete is 20% of outdoor consumers and 33% of outdoor spending, with a 165 spending index. The spending index will be 100 if the consumers account for their fair share of purchasing, so the Urban Athlete index of 165 is quite high, though not exceptional.
This segment was “raised on team sports” and seeks competition, intensity and socialization in their time outside. These are their defining psychographics differentiators. For Urban Athletes, time outside includes time in more urban outdoor areas like parks, basketball courts, and gyms in addition to more rural mountains and lakes.
Activities that they skew high on are skateboarding, outdoor yoga, mountain biking, races, basketball, CrossFit/drills/HIIT. They tend to identify more with athletic brands and don’t consider themselves “outdoorsy.”
Achiever Psychographic Customer Segmentation Examples
The Achiever represents10% of outdoor consumers and 17% of outdoor spending, with a 170 spending index. The Achiever, as the name suggests, is driven by performance and competition and seeks “professional level” gear for their chosen activity. They want the best products on the market.
Some of the activities they participate in include running, team sports, camping, climbing, mountain biking and camping. Demographically, this segment skews to younger males with children at home who live in or near a city.
Outdoor Native Psychographic Customer Segmentation Examples
The Outdoor Native comprises 12% of outdoor consumers and 16% of outdoor spending, with a 133 spending index. Outdoor Natives are motivated by the enjoyment and experience of spending time outdoors, particularly with their families. Favored activities include camping, day hiking, playing outside, running and cycling.
They prioritize versality, affordability and functionality in their product choices and mix more traditional outdoor brands with more mainstream athletic brands.
Aspirational Core Psychographic Customer Segmentation Examples
One moderately-involved and engaged outdoor psychographic segment, the Aspirational Core, presents opportunities for outdoor brands, typically as a second priority behind the first three.
Aspirational Coreis 14% of outdoor consumers and 14% of outdoor spend, resulting in a 100 index. These consumers want to be outdoorsy and seek adventure but participate less regularly. They “stick close to home” even though they aspire to go farther for their outdoor activities, and they are most likely to focus on just one or two activities.
At times, they will rent outdoor gear as they are undecided on investing and committing to the activity on an ongoing basis. Demographically, they skew to younger and single.
There are also three less involved segments: Athleisurist, Sideliner, and Complacent. Together, these three represent a combined 22% of outdoor category spending and 46% of outdoor consumers. This means that in this customer segmentation example, almost half of the segment consumers are less attractive for brands to focus on.
- Athleisurist: 20% of outdoor consumers, 12% of outdoor spend, 60 index. This segment enjoys less active outdoor pursuits like gardening, relaxing outside and walking for enjoyment. They seek sensible basics in their products and mainstream outdoor brands. Demographically, they skew to older and female consumers.
- Sideliner: 12% of outdoor consumers, 4% of outdoor spend, 33 index. This consumer enjoys barbecuing, walking outdoors and relaxing but faces physical limitations that prevent more strenuous outdoor activities.
- Complacent: 14% of outdoor consumers, 29% of outdoor spend, 29 index. This low-intensity segment prefers the creature comforts of indoors to outdoors. Their motivation for spending time outdoors is limited to getting fresh air and their backyard is “enough outdoors” for them.
In the outdoor space, an additional psychographic segmenting dimension is the desire for eco-friendly brands and sustainable choices. This is an important dimension that should be integrated into future outdoor consumer segmentations to better understand the customers and provide solutions that meet their needs.
Psychographic Customer Segmentation Examples: RV Owners
RVs appeal to a specific segment of outdoor consumers. RV owners provide a customer segmentation example in a more focused category than outdoors overall. As of 2025, there are an estimated 8.1 million RV-owning households in the United States. This is a decrease from an estimated 11.2 million in 2021. Since all of these consumers have chosen to own an RV, rather than rent, they have already demonstrated a level of commitment to spending time outdoors.
Industry sources note that the RV market has evolved considerably and an updated psychographic segmentation would be helpful. Trends that are impacting the market include:
“Younger buyers in the RV market are reshaping demand with smaller, smarter rigs, Retirees are trading large Class A motorhomes for compact RVs with low ownership costs, reflecting a significant demographic shift within the industry …Digital Nomad Lifestyle is gaining momentum with many individuals and families embracing the freedom and flexibility that remote work offers.”
In 2020, there were five segments of frequent users of RVs: Happy Campers, Adventure Seekers, Full Timers, Avid RVers and Escapist, who spent between 55 to 365 days a year in their RV. Within the frequent user segments, the motivations or psychographics create the five groups:
- Happy Campers: (3% of RV owners, 75% of vacation time in RV)
- Adventure Seekers: (1% of RV owners, 71% of vacation time in RV)
- Full Timers: (1.5% of RV owners, 90% of vacation time in RV)
- Avid RVers (6% of RV owners, 75% of vacation time in RV)
- Escapists (16% of RV owners, 67% of vacation time in RV)
An RV brand targeting Digital Nomads or Escapists will focus on a different marketing message and approach than one targeting Happy Campers, for example. The RV brand will likely be interested in the overall outdoor segments to provide a broader context for their owner’s outdoor preferences.
In this customer segmentation example, we can’t directly and precisely compare the outdoor and RV psychographic segmentations in the way that we would with a proprietary study. Still, it appears that the Escapist RV segment shares common ground and overlaps with the Outdoor Native outdoor segment. This type of matrixed understanding can be quite helpful for the brand’s innovation and marketing team.
Beyond qualitative mapping from judgment, we more precisely map segmentations by using typing algorithms made up of predictor questions and/or proxy variables. The most actionable segmentation for your brand will likely integrate multiple approaches with behavioral, psychographic and demographic variables.
Psychographic Customer Segmentation Examples: Active Consumers
A third psychographic customer segmentation example is active consumers. Around 60% of US adults ages 13-59 qualify as “active” in that they play sports, exercise or do some type of activity that requires physical exertion around two days a week or more often. This activity can be done either indoors or outdoors.
There are a range of motivations and related behaviors among consumers, creating different psychographic segments in the 13-59 age range including three more involved segments:
- Committed Exercisers – 32% (exercise for fitness)
- Competitors – 21% (competitive sports, including high school and college)
- Hard Workers – 8% (work physically demanding jobs)
As an example of how two different brands target the different active segments, the Sqwincher brand provides hydrating primarily for Hard Workers in workplace settings, while the Gatorade brand offers hydration based on “sports science to fuel athletes,” i.e., Competitors. Of course, Gatorade is highly popular with aspirational athletes of all ages, but its core target is a more serious athlete.
Demographic Customer Segmentation Example: Women’s Outdoor and Active Brands
A third customer segmentation approach and example is demographic. Some of the most common variables in segmenting customers based on demographics for the outdoor market include gender, presence of children and marital status, age, urban vs. rural (population density), geographic region of the country and household income. In some cases, the first segmentation decision is a demographic classification.
Women’s outdoor apparel provides a good customer segmentation example. There are many brands specifically focused on designing outdoor and active clothing for women, often with empowerment and sustainability as part of their core values. Example brands are:
Athleta— We’re here to empower women and girls. Our core values: movement matters, performance empowers, design for life, sisterhood elevates, sustainability sustains us
Title Nine— Who we are: We are a small, Northern California company, woman-run and owned since 1989. No larger corporation, no outside investors -with the help of our community and our customers we’ve boot-strapped our way to a band of 300 or so – all committed to the idea of women owning and risking and leading. We believe that the outdoors and a good workout can be an antidote to many of life’s problems. Above all, we believe in women. We are fit to run, we are fit to lead, we are fit to win.
Wild Rye— What we’re here for: To create a welcoming and inclusive access point to the outdoors, to build confidence and community, to protect the places we play, to celebrate fresh air and fun, to empower women-identifying individuals from the backcountry to the boardroom
Need State or Consumption Occasion Customer Segmentation Beverage Example
A fourth customer segmentation approach focuses on need states or consumption occasions.
The definition of the need state is “why people use the product or do the task in the moment.”
Taking the hydration beverage example a step further, it turns out an important customer segmentation approach is the consumption occasion or need state.
Looking at active consumers for the Gatorade brand, we found six consumption occasions including:
- Sports/exercise performance improvement
- Basic quench (hydration)
- Energy boost
The beverage consumption occasions were used to identify opportunities for innovation.
A second need state-based customer segmentation example comes from convenience store prepared foods. This client identified strategic growth opportunity areas from the most important intersections of the customer segment and need state targets.
It’s impossible to appeal to all 181 million Americans who spend time outdoors, so carefully-considered segmentation is especially crucial for outdoor and active brands. Use these customer segmentation examples as a launching point for your brand’s approach.
For more customer segmentation examples, including back to school, business to business, marketing to moms and non-profits, visits our resources page.
