Gray Media presents marketing results; board agrees to try paid social pilot for February

Gray Media presented a yearlong review of the tourism campaign and recommended a short paid-social pilot for February to support Mardi Gras, Valentine’s Weekend and a local theater production.

Trey, Gray Media’s digital specialist, told the board the website saw about 67,000 sessions in the most recent fiscal year compared with below 58,000 the prior year — figures the agency summarized as a roughly 14% increase in total sessions and a 25% increase in engaged sessions. “One of the coolest parts…is the 14% increase in total sessions,” Trey said while walking through Google Analytics slides. The agency also reported roughly 5.15 million ad impressions for the year and about 19,440 clicks to the website.

Trey described the email program that ran three seasonal sends and said the vendor guarantees a 10% open rate and a minimum 2% click-through; he reported a holiday send achieved roughly a 21% open rate and a 2.85% click-through. On paid search, Trey said slides showed ~168,900 search impressions and about 11,300 clicks, and that the board’s current Google impression share for targeted keywords was roughly 16%.

The agency explained tactics the campaign uses — paid search, connected/streaming TV, targeted display and paid social — and recommended using paid social regularly to maintain reach and retarget interested users. Trey summarized retargeting cadence as averaging four to five exposures (with a stated range of about two to nine) and said connected-TV impressions can reach multiple household viewers per impression.

On creative, Gray Media suggested testing a mix of formats (static images, carousels and short video) and noted Meta’s platform can run many ad variants and optimize delivery to likely audiences. The agency also discussed influencer-style or ‘clickbait’ creative as an experimental option to drive attention.

Board members and the agency discussed budget and timing. Gray Media proposed a baseline pilot for February; board members talked through a $2,000 monthly baseline for a social campaign as a starting point and agreed to run a short test in February and then consider reallocating budget and voting formally at the next meeting if results justify continued spend. Agency staff said a three-day turnaround is typical for launching a campaign once creative and targeting parameters are provided.

Next steps: Gray Media will prepare the creative and targeting parameters for a February baseline and the board will revisit formal budget approval at the next meeting based on pilot performance.