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Marketing agency reports higher engagement, website growth for Explore Clay
Summary
Advanced Travel & Tourism and Clay County Tourism staff reported digital campaign reach, website and app improvements, and new partnerships; staff highlighted work on neighborhood pages, CrowdRiff user‑generated content and a Visit Florida feature.
The county’s contracted marketing agency, Advanced Travel & Tourism, and Clay County tourism staff presented a combined update on Feb. 20 covering digital advertising, partnerships, website and app enhancements, and product development for 2025.
Adrienne Glass of Advanced Travel & Tourism said two paid campaigns — a leisure visitor campaign and a "Hey Neighbor" local awareness campaign — produced strong engagement. The agency reported more than 3.6 million impressions across campaigns and said about 36,000 users were driven to ExploreClay.com from paid and organic efforts. The agency also reported that targeted email campaigns reached roughly 70,000 recipients in a recent flight with a reported 48.3% open rate and high on‑site engagement.
The agency summarized several flighted campaigns aligned with local events (Scottish Games, Patriot’s Passport, Shops on Saturday, Christmas in Clay) and highlighted creative work including short "man on the street" videos and refreshed display assets. Adrienne Glass said the agency is working with Clear Channel Outdoor on regional digital billboards and has partnered with 1010XL (regional radio) and a regional outdoor influencer for sports tourism promotion.
Tourism staff reported ongoing product work and website/app improvements. Samantha Costers, product development manager, said Explore Clay app downloads increased in 2024 and the county launched new excursion experiences tied to American Cruise Lines calls into Green Cove Springs. The tourism team reported it has reviewed roughly 160 partner listings on the site for updated photos and links and plans to build neighborhood pages to highlight local attractions.
Cher Malta, marketing manager, described new content workflows using CrowdRiff to collect user‑generated photos and a media library to supply the website and paid campaigns. The office completed a Visit Florida "60 Seconds in Clay" video at no cost and has b‑roll and stills available for future promotion.
On metrics and beds tax Staff provided an overview of bed‑tax and hotel performance: tourism bed‑tax collections have stabilized after pandemic spikes, and hotel occupancy remains relatively strong although average daily rate (ADR) and RevPAR showed slight declines compared with peak years. Staff said the county’s strategic goal is to attract 20 new multi‑day tourism events over five years; the team reported 11 new events in 2024 and two already scheduled for 2025.
Questions and follow‑up Council members asked about short‑form video (vertical format/TikTok), the source and vetting of targeted email lists (third‑party list vetted by agency), and plans to promote the Explore Clay app to residents. Staff said the new grant web forms and event calendar are being published and that partners can submit events through the website.
Ending Staff said they will continue website enhancements, neighborhood page builds and marketing flights tied to events in 2025, and they flagged a forthcoming visitor guide project.
