Explore Minnesota Tourism needed to drive tourism ROI. With ad-influenced trips and visitor spending each playing a role in generating returns for Minnesota’s tourism economy, we knew there was only one way to produce incremental trip growth.

Audience segmentation and personalization.

Continuing to refine a niche audience targeting model we initially introduced to Explore Minnesota five years ago, we built and leveraged a robust tech stack and data modeling through world-class data partnerships, conducted expert correlation of millions upon millions of audience data points, and applied insights to strategic channel plans – all backed by advanced analytics to optimize future campaign performance – and we identified our highest potential audiences.

Nationally, we showcased the best Minnesota has to offer visitors in Spring/Summer, Fall, and Winter – all distinctly different seasons in Minnesota. With niche activity-driven audiences identified, we highlighted golfing, paddling, hiking, food & drink, winter recreation and shopping through a 360 holistic channel plan with tactics like video, content partnerships with TripAdvisor, paid social, influencer marketing and more.

Our personalization and relevance driven campaigns focusing on core Minnesota activity-based niche audience groups far outperformed the general campaign, despite having a lower budget.

The niche strategy successfully expanded Minnesota’s reach, while also driving meaningful visits to the state and impressive visitor spending, all leading to what Explore Minnesota needed to demonstrate – ROI.

In 2022, there were 305,540 total ad-influenced trips, leading to an outstanding ROI of $207 for our niche segments (SMARi).

True Media Canada submitted this case study in the 2023 Globeys: https://youtu.be/0dUwt0dWDLw