Three Ad Campaigns That Crushed It (And How They Did It)

What happens when you stop trying to reach everyone and start focusing on the right travelers? Real results. That's right, proof.

These three 2025 campaigns show how smart, behavior-based audience building translates into visitation, room nights, and serious ROI.

$3.9 Million in Impact: Audience Building in Beverly Hills

First up — we looove Beverly Hills. And with this campaign, so did their visitors.

The Beverly Hills Convention and Visitors Bureau (BHCVB) Spring 2025 campaign worked because it didn’t try to reach everyone - it focused on the right travelers through smart, behavior-based audience building.

BHCVB started by creating a highly-qualified luxury audience grounded in real-world actions, including past Beverly Hills visitors and high-income travelers with demonstrated interest in luxury experiences. One of the most strategic moves was compiling a list of the top 50 luxury hotels in America and targeting individuals who had been observed at those properties within the past year - a textbook example of geo-conquesting and real-life behavioral targeting.

By reaching people already proven to seek out premium hotels and high-end travel, Beverly Hills turned its global brand into measurable results, driving a 38% year-over-year increase in lodging visitation, more than 10,000 attributable trips to the destination, over 1,500 room nights observed, and nearly $4 million in economic impact with an exceptional 31.5:1 ROAS. 

A Summer Comeback  in Haywood, NC 

Six months after Hurricane Helene, Visit Haywood, NC entered Summer 2025 with a clear mission:

1. reassure travelers the destination was open
2. drive immediate drive-market trips
3. boost overnight stays

To do that, the team leaned heavily on strong audience building to ensure they were reaching the right people: past overnight summer visitors from the destination’s top eight DMAs within a 50–500 mile radius (Charlotte, Knoxville, Greenville, Atlanta, Nashville, Raleigh, Greensboro, and Columbia), all matching key demographics (age 35+, $75K+ household income, household size 1–4). They also created a look-alike audience of this group to expand reach without sacrificing quality.

By focusing on travelers with real behavioral signals of interest and the means to return, the campaign did its job, delivering: an estimated 1,799 attributable trips, more than $325,000 in estimated visitor spending, and an exceptional 32.5:1 ROAS.

When you know who’s most likely to come back, you don’t have to shout. You just have to show up.

Finding the Right Travelers for Bend

Visit Bend’s annual drive campaign set its sights on high-value travelers who prioritize sustainability and are likely to book overnight stays in hotels or short-term rentals.

To reach the visitors most likely to convert, the team built an exceptionally niche audience strategy grounded in real-world behavior. They targeted past visitors in three high-intent groups:

• Gen X travelers (ages 45 - 64 with real-life interest in the outdoors, skiing/snowboarding, or dining)
• Adventure-minded millennials (ages 25 - 44 with demonstrated outdoor or dining behaviors)
• Millennial families (ages 35 - 44 with households of 3+)

These audiences were drawn from key DMAs 100+ miles from Bend  (Portland, Seattle-Tacoma, Spokane, Boise, Eugene, and Medford) and expanded with look-alike modeling.

Each segment received a strategic mix of blended video, native, prospecting display, retargeting display, and audio ads designed to drive both awareness and conversion. The campaign is still underway, but early performance indicators are already strong - we'll keep you posted! 

Want to see what behavior-based audience building can do for your destination? Reach out to Datafy today, and we’ll show you how to reach the right travelers. (And prove your impact!)