Making an Entrance: How Visit McKinney Launched Its New Brand with Azira and Drove 12.5K+ Destination Visits
Key Insights:
Business Challenge:
Introduce Visit McKinney’s new brand to regional drive markets and prove it drove real-world visits to the city and its attractions.
Solution:
Azira was the first to bring the destination’s new brand to market through a digital advertising campaign combining programmatic display, digital out-of-home, and custom rich media creative, with footfall attribution connecting ad exposure to real-world visitation.
“Azira helped us connect our advertising efforts to what matters most; people visiting McKinney. Measuring 12,500 visits among campaign-exposed travelers gave us a clearer picture of our marketing performance, while adding digital out-of-home opened up a new way to reach visitors in our key drive markets.”
Results at a Glance:
Situation
Visit McKinney focused its regional advertising on five key designated market areas (DMAs) across Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana. Alongside reaching prospective travelers, the team wanted to understand whether audiences exposed to its campaign went on to visit McKinney and unique points of interest.
Building on its existing partnership with Azira, Visit McKinney introduced its first digital out-of-home (DOOH) campaign, expanding its advertising approach with a new channel to reach potential visitors in these designated drive markets.
Challenge
The destination wanted to introduce the brand through new tactics, including digital out-of-home (DOOH), to expand its reach and connect with travelers in real-world settings.
Alongside building awareness of their new branding, Visit McKinney needed to understand whether people exposed to its advertising actually visited the city and selected points of interest. Connecting ad exposure to measurable visitation would help the destination assess its marketing investment and inform future campaigns aimed at driving visits and supporting spending at local hotels, restaurants, shops, and attractions.
Solution
Azira activated a digital advertising campaign combining programmatic display and DOOH to put McKinney in front of prospective travelers across its five target markets. Custom rich media creative complemented the campaign, giving audiences additional opportunities to engage with the destination.
The addition of DOOH broadened Visit McKinney’s campaign beyond its existing digital approach, creating another touchpoint for reaching travelers as they considered where to visit.
Azira then applied footfall attribution to connect campaign exposure with subsequent visits. Reporting captured both the number of campaign-exposed visitors who came to McKinney and the total visits they made, giving the team measurable evidence of destination visitation to help assess the value of its advertising investment.
Results
The campaign successfully connected advertising exposure to measurable visitation across McKinney:
- 12,500 total visits to McKinney among people exposed to the campaign.
- 4,957 unique visitors driven to the city.
- 1.07% overall click-through rate across the campaign.
By pairing digital advertising with footfall attribution, Visit McKinney gained visibility into the connection between campaign exposure and real-world visits. The results gave the team a tangible way to evaluate its regional marketing efforts and inform future campaigns to attract visitors from key drive markets.
Visit McKinney will continue working with Azira, with another campaign planned to encourage visitation throughout the fall and winter months.
