Inside the Gun Industry’s Digital Marketing Playbook

As gun sales have dropped over the last four years, the firearms industry has experimented with behavior-inciting digital tools to lure and hook customers, according to an industry presentation obtained by The Trace and Rolling Stone.

In May 2024, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the gun industry’s trade group, hosted a webinar featuring the presentation for the thousands of gun sellers who belong to the NSSF. As the industry’s primary representative, the NSSF navigates political and cultural headwinds to help ensure the profitability of its members. Its research suggests customers are increasingly purchasing firearms on the internet.

The presentation, delivered by Will Altherr, the digital marketing director of Guns.com, a popular online platform that sells guns and accessories, emphasized the role of email in steering consumer behavior through the “sales funnel.” 

In Altherr’s analogy, shoppers move through a funnel, heading down as they get closer to a purchase. “If you sell products on your website, and you get to a point — or a customer gets to a point — where they put something in their cart, they’re essentially one step away from a checkout,” Alther said. “That is extremely lower funnel activity.”

Altherr asked: “So how can we get them to cross that barrier from cart to making a purchase?”

His presentation, consisting of 13 slides, recommended tools for tracking, customization, and behavior-inducing prompts. Altherr discussed the strategies at length in his remarks, a recording of which was reviewed by The Trace and Rolling Stone. The tactics he described are familiar in the world of online commerce, from food orders to clothes. But the presentation betrayed no consideration of the consequences that may arise if the tactics are applied in a widespread way to the selling of firearms and ammunition.

As The Trace and Rolling Stone have reported in the series “The Secret Files of the Gun Industry,” first-time gun-buyers do not account for the bulk of the industry’s profits. Instead, gun merchants are heavily reliant on customers who continually purchase firearms, ammunition, and accessories, leading individuals to build mini arsenals. Large numbers of gun retailers investing in customized digital marketing, combined with the ease of online commerce, could exacerbate this trend.

NSSF retailer surveys, obtained by The Trace and Rolling Stone, show that between 2018 and 2022, internet sales increased from 26 percent to 33.5 percent.

The surveys are a glimpse into the market, but they nonetheless provide valuable intelligence to the gun industry. In this case, they seem to suggest plenty of room for digital growth, and that customers, increasingly migrating to the internet to buy guns, are primed for Altherr’s recommendations.

Altherr did not respond to a request for comment, and the NSSF declined the opportunity.

During the webinar, when Altherr discussed what to do when a customer puts items in their cart and then exits the site, he advised setting up an automated “cart abandonment email.” A tried-and-true method of e-commerce, this would automatically go out to the customer within a few hours, reminding them of their unfinished business. Depending on whether they made a purchase, they could receive another email a short while later.

“Same thing with browse abandonment,” Altherr said in the presentation. “If someone searches a product page one step before adding to the cart, you would want to target them.”

Altherr explained that automated emails are a core component of an email marketing strategy, involving, the presentation says, “Programs that automatically send emails based off customers [sic] experiences on your website.” Besides nudging a shopper to go through with a purchase, the emails can be effectively used as a “win-back,” reeling in an inactive customer.

The presentation includes three examples of automated emails, all playing up the notion of scarcity, which taps into a gun industry-stoked phenomenon referred to by industry officials as “panic buying.”

One example, designed to address cart abandonment, features a man in a baseball cap peering through the scope of a military-style rifle. “Still Thinking it Over?” it says. “We are holding the contents of your cart as long as we can! Order now before it’s gone!”

Another example depicts a man in an orange winter hat aiming a handgun at a target outside of the frame. “PRICE DROP ALERT,” it says. “We just wanted to let you know the TAURUS G3C you’re interested in is now on sale.” It adds, “Act now before it’s gone…”

A third email refers to a weapon that is “BACK IN STOCK” and includes images of handguns and men holding rifles in the wilderness. “Once sold-out, this customer favorite has returned,” the email says. “Time to get what you’ve been waiting for!”

Altherr told his audience that mass marketing emails were another tool that could be effectively deployed, but should be used sparingly, since they are sent to every customer and cannot be personalized. The presentation says, “Metrics around these emails, such as open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, are usually not the strongest unless it’s a big holiday promotion,” such as a Black Friday sale. In that event, an enticing email might say, “SCORE BIG, SAVE BIG! ALL GUNS SHIP FREE!”

For a personalized email marketing experience, Altherr recommended “segmented emails,” which divide customers into buckets according to data compiled by the seller.

On this subject, Altherr grew animated when he discussed 1911 handguns — powerful, steel-framed framed firearms that are easy to conceal.

“I know for a fact if I go to our Guns.com — I know that people at the top of the site are typing the word, the search query, ‘1911’ on a regular basis, because that’s a high demanded search product that our customers love to shop,” Altherr said. “So if I want to make an email that is going to perform very well, what I can do is say, ‘OK, anyone that has shown an interest in 1911s, I’m going to send them an email that’s all about 1911s.” Taking this approach, Altherr elaborated, will cause “your open rates” to “shoot through the roof” because “now you’re giving customers exactly what they want.”

Altherr said that another “great segmented email” for Guns.com concerned “military classics.” The presentation shows an example, with an image of a handgun leaning against a brown leather holster. “From collector’s pieces to pistols with antique flair, our MILITARY CLASSICS collection offers something for every gun enthusiast,” it says. “With clear and precise descriptions, you know exactly what to expect when you pick up your gun — all at a competitive price!”

The presentation also touches on “digital display media” and third-party marketing. It points to a highly specialized advertising firm called Armanet, which bills itself as the company that “built the transparent, performant, trustworthy ad platform the firearms industry deserved.” The presentation says Armanet should be used to “drive immediate, measurable, consumer demand.” This involves “Retargeting Ads” that home in on previous website visitors, and “Geo Targeting,” which markets according to location.

Depending on the political tenor of the moment, and whether a mass shooting has captured the attention of the country, social media compliance can be an issue for the gun business. Content promoting firearms is almost inherently provocative, and raises questions for many about the glorification of violence, at times leading to account suspensions or bans.  Should either situation occur, the presentation recommends contacting the company Open Source Defense, which focuses on digital gun rights advocacy and investing in “civilian defense.” Altherr said the best person to reach out to there is Chuck Rossi, who did not respond to a request for comment. According to Open Source Defense’s website, he was an engineering director at Facebook from 2008 to 2018. Toward the end of that period, he also “worked on making the company’s firearms policy more transparent to users, advertisers, and content creators.”  

The Open Source website says, “if you’re not working for gun rights online, you’re not working for gun rights,” adding that the “issue boils down to building culture, and culture starts and spreads online. So that’s the highest-leverage place to work.”