From Profiles to Performance: How Visit OKC Boosted Campaign Results with Market-Specific Creative
As a city on the rise, Oklahoma City is no stranger to innovation. But when the team at Visit OKC wanted to increase the relevance and efficiency of their paid media efforts, they turned to Zartico’s Profile Builder and Visitor Intelligence to do something many destination marketers aren’t yet doing: developing a tailored creative strategy based on real-life travel behavior patterns.
Working in collaboration with agency partners MMGY and Jordan Advertising, Visit OKC's marketing team piloted a market-specific campaign that used Zartico audience intelligence to refine messaging, highlight the right points of interest, and increase campaign performance.
The result? A boost in creative effectiveness, a sharper audience understanding, and a framework for how data can drive better marketing outcomes - without requiring massive overhauls or months of planning.
The Challenge
Visit OKC has long prioritized understanding its audience, using traveler profiles to guide strategy and outreach. But with new tools at their fingertips and a fresh perspective on market-specific behavior, the team saw an opportunity to take their targeting to the next level. Their goal was to test strategies to improve digital advertising performance by tailoring messaging to what travelers from specific markets care about most.
“We’ve always looked at audience profiles,” said Nathan Sims, Paid Media Manager at Visit OKC. “But the data revealed even greater potential - nuances in traveler behavior that opened the door for more customized, relevant messaging.”
Going beyond broad-based campaigns like “Experience Oklahoma City,” the team was excited to test whether creative tailored to each market’s unique interests could drive even stronger results.
The Approach
Nathan Sims, who joined Visit OKC in late 2024 with a background in agency media strategy, teamed up with Maryam Kari, Senior Digital Marketing Manager, and Lindsay Vidrine, Senior VP of Destination Management, to explore how Zartico’s Visitor Intelligence suite could take their targeting to the next level. Together, they dove into Profile Builder, Strategic Planning, Movement, and Spending data to better understand:
- Where visitors were coming from
- What they were currently doing in OKC
- Which categories or attractions held untapped potential
- Audience age, demographics, and travel patterns
| This collaborative analysis led the team to pilot market-specific creative in two key drive markets - San Antonio and Northwest Arkansas - each with messaging tailored to those audiences’ unique preferences. |
San Antonio visitors skewed younger and showed high interest in culture, nightlife, and dining. Northwest Arkansas travelers prioritized outdoor recreation, music, and shopping.
With those insights in hand, the team refreshed creative assets, updated calls to action, and directed users to curated landing pages.
Visit OKC piloted market-specific creative in two key drive markets, with messaging tailored to those audiences’ unique preferences.
The Results
While full visitation attribution is still in process, early performance data from the media buy showed strong results.
| “This buy was already performing well, but once we refreshed the creative with data-informed messaging, performance skyrocketed,” said Nathan. |
With only a small contingency budget and a short runway, the team saw their targeted creative outperform historical benchmarks and created a replicable model for future campaigns.
Lessons & Looking Ahead
Now, the Visit OKC team is actively exploring how to expand this strategy across more channels. The team has already begun building master lists of POIs and audience traits by market to streamline planning for the year ahead.
So what advice does Nathan have for other DMOs? “Start with one market. Pick a high-opportunity audience, tailor a message, and try it. It doesn’t have to be a huge lift, but it could make a huge difference.”
He also credits Zartico’s training and support as essential to making it happen. “Zartico helped me get up to speed fast. The tools are powerful, but so is the team.”
The Takeaway
Zartico’s intelligence isn’t just about seeing who’s visiting, it’s about understanding how to move them. For Visit OKC, Visitor Intelligence powered a more targeted, efficient, and creative approach to destination marketing and proved that smarter inputs lead to stronger outputs.
Ready to turn guesswork into precision?
Schedule a demo and discover what’s possible with Zartico.