Experience Fayetteville staff reported June 23 that their 2025 paid-ad campaign is delivering strong early performance and that a new suite of data tools will make it easier to link ads to visits. Marketing lead Sarah Key and agency partners described programmatic delivery, Arrivalist attribution and a pilot of Placer AI with the City of Fayetteville.

Anne Davis, an Outright representative working on media, said the campaign delivered about 6.5 million impressions through May and that video completion rates for 30‑second spots were unusually high. "95% is, like, really outstanding and just indicates really strong audience and creative alignment," Davis said. Ryan McGregor, the campaign strategist from SMT/Trader, reported May media spend of about $35,000, roughly doubling April spend, with about 4 million impressions in May and a site engagement increase that he described as "a really nice story." "The video completion rate came in really, really strong, almost 96%," McGregor said.

Staff described a new media-attribution module purchased as an add-on to Arrivalist, which places tracking pixels on ads to measure whether exposed users later visited Fayetteville. Key said the early Arrivalist panel data — a 50‑day window through May — showed that closer drive markets produced most of the arrivals in that sample, which staff said is expected given the short measurement window. "Our drive markets definitely have the strongest arrival rate," Key said, and staff said connected TV was the channel driving a disproportionate share of early attributed arrivals.

Jennifer Walker told the commission the organization entered a memorandum of understanding with the City of Fayetteville and the Downtown Fayetteville Coalition to pilot Placer AI software for one year. The software will estimate attendance at downtown events within a roughly five‑mile radius of the square; Walker said the city will fund the one‑year test and staff will share reports with the Downtown Fayetteville Coalition and the university. "The software allows us to track attendance at downtown events. This is a very limited scope," Walker said.

Staff also reviewed earned-media placements (Outside magazine and others) and influencer visits that have generated high views and assets for Experience Fayetteville’s channels. Staff said hotel occupancy data for April showed occupancy down about 10% year over year but that statewide declines suggested the trend was not unique to Fayetteville; HMR tax revenue remained broadly stable and staff noted HMR comprised roughly 15% of the organization's revenue while restaurants accounted for the remainder.

Commissioners asked operational questions about how Arrivalist’s panel works, how the ad-to-arrival attribution will be interpreted over a longer timeframe, and whether staff would pursue advertising for markets served by new air routes. Staff said Arrivalist provides sample-panel arrivals (not a census) and that the attribution module will allow them to report arrival rates and channel-level results as more data accumulate. No formal actions were taken on these items at the June 23 meeting.