On January 2, over 50,000 college football fans descended onto Jacksonville to witness the University of Georgia take on Penn State in the TaxSlayer Bowl (formerly the Gator Bowl). To capitalize on this special, we worked with the Amelia Island Convention TDC to create a geo-targeted TaxSlayer Bowl giveaway. The winner of the giveaway received a two-night stay at the Omni Amelia Island Plantation, tickets to the game, two passes to the Touchdown Party and a $500 travel voucher.
The TaxSlayer Bowl campaign targeted people living in the states of Georgia and Pennsylvania, narrowing that targeting further to fans of the competing football teams. By targeting these groups, we increased awareness for Amelia Island and captured fans’ email addresses, adding them to Amelia Island’s marketing segments for future retargeting campaigns.
Our Solution
The teams competing in the TaxSlayer Bowl were announced Dec. 6, less than one month prior to the game. In preparation for the announcement, we created a TaxSlayer giveaway landing page. The page went live as soon as the announcement was made.
The landing page housed a countdown clock that displayed how much time was left before the end of the giveaway, creating a sense of urgency. The landing page also displayed lodging offers and a schedule of weekend events, so even if participants didn’t win the getaway, they could still plan their trip to Amelia Island for the bowl game.
As soon as the announcement of the teams was made, we began running display, search and Facebook campaigns, targeting residents of the states of Pennsylvania and Georgia, general college sports fans and more specifically, fans of Georgia and Penn State football.
The Results
Overall, 2,907 people entered their emails in order to win the TaxSlayer Bowl giveaway. Of the 2,907 entries, 1,585 (over 54%) came from the Facebook ad. Here is the breakdown of where entries came from:
The TaxSlayer Facebook ad yielded the following results:
Through our social media ads, we effectively targeted the people who would be the most interested in the TaxSlayer campaign. The ads created easy shareability among the target audience’s network of followers, which extended reach and conversions.
Through our display and search campaigns, we targeted a combination of very specific sites with a lower reach and a higher conversion rate. Later, we expanded the campaign to include more general sites that had a much larger reach. This increased awareness for Amelia Island and the TaxSlayer giveaway.
Through our targeted approach, we increased reach, email signups and the size of Amelia Island’s email list. We also grew awareness for the destination, not only as a place to stay during the game, but as a place to visit outside of the TaxSlayer Bowl.
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