Madden Media reports strong mid‑year results; staff to send $1.8M 2026 media plan to commission

Leslie Robowell, director of destination strategy at Madden, told Grand County commissioners that Madden’s paid campaigns from July through December 2025 produced broad reach and measurable lower‑funnel activity and that staff intend to submit the 2026 media plan to the commission for approval.

Robowell said the agency ran a full‑funnel approach—discovery through conversion—across search, Performance Max, Meta, programmatic buys and connected TV. “We have just under 1,800,000.0 that we have spent on media,” Robowell said, describing that sum as a pass‑through paid‑media investment. She reported roughly 175,000,000 impressions, more than 1,200,000 clicks and vendor‑attributed results that include more than 30,000 room nights tied to the campaign.

Caitlin, the media director on the Madden team, reviewed channel specifics and attribution. She said Meta drove the largest sessions (about 335,000 sessions), Performance Max drove planner‑guide downloads and search produced longer time‑on‑site for highly intentful queries. Caitlin also reported more than 12,000 leads at a $1.55 cost per lead, and that 78 percent of leads skewed to adults 55 and older.

Madden provided examples of vendor‑matched revenue: Expedia was reported as producing a 66:1 return‑on‑ad‑spend with tens of thousands of attributed room nights and Hopper tests produced an incremental hotel revenue estimate (Madden said Hopper showed $224,000 in hotel revenue, 628 hotel bookings and roughly 1,200 room nights in the tested placements). Madden cautioned that some figures are vendor‑attributed (for example Expedia’s 1:1 booking match) while other channels are treated as awareness plays with different measurement windows.

Board members pressed Madden on measurement, creative and optimization cadence. Madden described weekly monitoring and monthly optimization cycles during which the media team reallocated spend between ad sets, shifted toward video when it outperformed static creative, and worked with the county’s creative reviewers (named internally as Mick and Ally) before launch. Madden also explained the site’s chatbot and programmatic chat units produced hundreds of thousands of impressions and thousands of clicks, yielding about 1,200 travel queries that staff plan to use to inform SEO and content gaps.

The workshop also reviewed a proposed brand/strategic partnership budget line. Madden presented two partnership concepts: one tied to Outside (the outdoor media brand) and Jeep around the Easter Jeep Safari (a paid idea that Madden described as social‑first short‑form content and creator activations, including a themed giveaway concept), and another tied to Topo (product co‑branded retail integration, influencer backpacks and a Denver launch to amplify the new brand rollout). Staff and commissioners supported further negotiation; Madden said it had reduced the Outside/Jeep proposal price and would return with clarified deliverables and distribution commitments before any final purchase.

Commissioners asked staff to clarify website internationalization (a multi‑language widget used previously was removed during site migration), and Madden agreed international buys will need site translation or other product fixes to convert non‑English traffic. Commissioners also raised public confusion over Arches National Park reservation messaging; staff confirmed the park had not published 2026 reservation details and agreed to coordinate external messaging so ads do not drive frustrated users to pages that read as “sold out” or otherwise unclear.

Next procedural step: staff said they will present the media plan and recommended budget to the larger board and then submit it to the commission for purchase‑policy approval. No formal commission vote occurred during the workshop; staff framed this meeting as the data and staff recommendation presentation ahead of the commission’s vote.

Why it matters: the campaign’s measured reach and vendor‑attributed conversions support the county’s stated objectives—driving longer stays and lodging tax collections—while the brand partnership debate will determine how much of the 2026 budget is invested in co‑ops and paid partnerships vs. owned content and targeted short‑form video.