True Independent Holding Group was tasked with developing and executing an omnichannel media campaign for Explore Minnesota Tourism’s ‘Find Your True North’ initiative to increase the quality of new and existing audience targeting and lead to higher site engagement. We wanted to target Explore Minnesota Tourism’s many audiences at a national level with the content they wanted to see, where and when they wanted to see it — all with the ultimate goal to drive visits to Minnesota.

To complement our omnichannel approach, we incorporated an innovative, always-on SEM strategy to expand the campaign into new markets by targeting audiences that had already found their “True North.” We created and targeted three custom audience groups, ‘The Hikers,’ ‘The Bikers’, and ‘The Arts & Culture Seekers,’  identified by those with an existing passion for these specific Minnesota activities and a connection to the state. 

As travel decisions are often part of lengthy research and planning processes, campaign success measurement included both short and long-term KPIs and overall brand lift. Short term KPIs included site traffic, new users, and time-on-site, while our long term KPI assed actual state visits. To measure these visits, location-based geofence conversions were used to identify those who were exposed to an Explore Minnesota ad and subsequently entered state borders or traveled to one of the following conversion locations throughout the state — outdoor (biking + hiking trails), Arts & Culture (museums, historical monuments, etc.), and Accommodations (hotels + campgrounds), based on our specific campaign breakouts (General, Hiking, Biking, Arts & Culture). Lastly, a Brand Lift Study and third party market research study were used to measure post-campaign success. 

Utilizing an array of full-funnel tactics, our strategy aimed to build awareness for state tourism, create consideration for those traveling, and motivate people to book their trip to experience Minnesota. National ads featured specific Minnesota locations associated with passion activity, drove to custom, ‘learn more’ landing pages. Additional ads featured other activities the passion groups were interested in. For example, ‘The Bikers’ indexed high for hiking and craft breweries, so ads were run incorporating both.

Content partnerships were developed with relevant, recognizable, brands to create custom content showcasing Minnesota and encouraging consideration of the state as a destination for their passion. For example, we partnered with Pinkbike, a mountain biking site with a global audience, to reach our passion audience.  As part of the partnership, Pinkbike expert mountain bikers and a photographer traveled to Minnesota to experience biking trails and showcase Minnesota’s unique features and history. The resulting two articles, with photos and video footage, were shared on the Pinkbike YouTube Channel and distributed throughout Pinkbike’s social channels and via e-newsletters – all to drive traffic to the content.

Each custom content piece was amplified and promoted to our national niche audience, using channels aligning with the content. All content amplification drove people back to the content partners’ website to ensure the user was given a consistent experience based on click path. A retargeting strategy was deployed, where consumers who reached the partner content were retargeted with Explore Minnesota Tourism niche creative, driving back to relevant content on the Explore Minnesota Tourism website.

Campaign results showed an overall increase in ROI compared to previous years and an increase in brand lift among Minnesotians throughout the funnel. 232 million impressions delivered 2.5 million website visits to increase site traffic 5% and time on site 8%. We successfully tracked nearly 600,000 actual state visits that showed an increase in visitors from states where Explore Minnesota Tourism had not previously advertised, further proving our passion targeting strategy was successful in driving more travel from states throughout the country to Minnesota.