District defends $473,000 digital-media contract as specialized, hard-to-staff work
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Summary
The board questioned a $473,000 contract for digital media services after the district created an enrollment and marketing team; staff said the outside firm provides highly targeted ad buying, software and daily campaign optimization the district lacks and that the management fee equals roughly 60% of a full-time position.
Board members asked why Duval County Public Schools contracts for $473,000 in digital advertising and management when the district recently created an enrollment and marketing team.
Vice chair Carney said she pulled the item because of the dollar amount and the existence of a new internal enrollment and marketing department. "Why we're paying an outside source $473,000 to do it for us? Because I thought the whole reason why we were creating this team was so that we could manage this in house," she asked.
Dr. Pierce (staff) and digital services staff defended the contract as a continuation of a multi-year program and as specialized work the department had not yet built internally. "This is a project that we began, I think, about five years ago when it was all in the communications department. We consider it kind of like an extension of our team," a staff member said, noting the district lacks the software, daily campaign management capacity and procurement flexibility required for targeted digital ad buys. The staff member said management fees are roughly $60,000 — about 60% of a full-time salary — while campaign media buys comprise the larger share of the budget.
Staff said last year the campaigns produced roughly 300,000 clicks to the district website and that the district plans roughly 108 school-level campaigns this year. Staff described campaign budgets of $2,500 to $3,500 for many elementary school campaigns and larger budgets for middle-school outreach. Staff also said the district plans to use interstitial pop-up forms to capture prospective families' contact information and that, in time, the district hopes to pivot some work to internships with local CTE programs and to in-house support for creative production.
Board members asked for examples and performance metrics. Procurement and digital staff agreed to supply sample ads — both high-performing and less successful — and corresponding results so the board can review creative and performance metrics.
No formal vote was recorded on the contract during this discussion; staff said the contract is intended as a continuing extension of existing enrollment-marketing work with an outside vendor.