Welcome to the BlueConic Doer Spotlight, where we highlight the hands-on doers using BlueConic to take their data strategies to new heights.
Today, we’re thrilled to hear from Mike Gussiaas, Chief Marketing & Creative Officer at Travel South Dakota, on how his team uses the BlueConic CDP to deliver personalized, data-driven experiences that boost visitor engagement and inspire trips to South Dakota.
What's your role?
Mike is the Chief Marketing & Creative Officer at Travel South Dakota.
What are the top three things you envisioned accomplishing with the BlueConic CDP?
We had three primary goals:
1. Comprehensive Data Review and Integration: Travel South Dakota utilizes a multi-faceted system for collecting and managing visitor data. Before engaging with potential visitors, our first priority was to conduct a thorough review of all visitor data within the Travel South Dakota ecosystem to ensure the data was cleaned, organized, and seamlessly integrated. This would lay the groundwork for effective and efficient communication.
2. Enhanced Segmentation and Targeted Content Delivery: We aimed to leverage rich visitor data to improve segmentation based on onsite browsing behavior, demographics, and interests. We set out to create segments for first-time visitors, repeat visitors, and those who had shown interest in specific content or destinations on our website.
Targeting potential visitors with personalized content based on their previous site visits may seem straightforward, but without the right technology, it can be challenging to even identify those segments. With BlueConic, we aimed to create interest-based segments based on website activity that would allow us to deliver personalized content and, ultimately, a more tailored user experience.
3. Automation of Personalized Communication: We sought to leverage segmented data for A/B testing to determine what resonated most with our audience. This would include using lightboxes on the site to deliver targeted messages effectively. BlueConic’s automation capabilities would facilitate this process, allowing us to optimize our communication strategies and better connect with our visitors.
Additionally, we envisioned automating personalized emails to nurture interest and strengthen loyalty with the Travel South Dakota brand. This would involve targeting potential visitors who have visited our site and opted in to receive marketing, ensuring they receive relevant, tailored content that encourages continued engagement.
What’s the most exciting thing you’ve done with your data using BlueConic?
We’ve uncovered a number of opportunities to transform how we engage with potential visitors. Some examples include:
1. Targeted Messaging: We leveraged our segments to enhance onboarding by delivering personalized messaging that encourages valuable-first actions. By tailoring content based on interactions with specific website content, we aimed to provide timely, relevant information to engaged segments. This approach boosts engagement with both emails and the website, strengthens subscriber relationships, supports their planning process, and fosters long-term loyalty.
We implemented targeted lightbox and toaster content to reach specific segment types and users with particular profile properties coming to TravelSouthDakota.com. For instance, first-time visitors might see a lightbox prompting them to sign up for our emails, while repeat visitors could be encouraged to enter a giveaway. We also use lightboxes and toasters to drive visitors to content most relevant to them based on their behavior on the site, such as serving Fall Inspiration to our “Leaf Peepers” segment. We utilize triggers to display lightboxes at optimal times—after a visitor spends a certain amount of time on the site, views multiple pages, shows exit intent, etc.—ensuring the message resonates at the right moment. For special campaigns and holiday events, we have also used Blueconic to customize landing page content. For example, we’ve customized body copy on a campaign landing page based on the location of the site visitor.
2. Seamless Integration with Salesforce Marketing Cloud: We push these segments to Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC) daily for email targeting, which has eliminated the need for manual list uploads and streamlined our workflow.
3. Creating Personalized Email Series: Using BlueConic segments, we’ve successfully developed nine two-part email series.
What kind of results have you seen since working with BlueConic so far?
The results from Travel South Dakota's partnership with BlueConic speak volumes about the power of personalized, data-driven strategies. Here are some highlights:
1. Testing & Optimizations: By leveraging BlueConic to conduct A/B tests on various lightbox designs, messaging, and CTAs, we identified the most effective approaches for different audience segments, enabling us to optimize our strategies based on the data-driven results. For example, we tested two creatives directing to the “Things to Do” landing page with different messaging and imagery. The creative with an image of a family and mention of roadside attractions outperformed the other with almost double the click/view ratio. Insights like these help us make decisions about the language and images to use in both new and existing lightboxes when we make seasonal updates.
2. List Growth: Our subscriber list has grown by nearly 4,000 new subscribers since integrating BlueConic.
3. Email Performance: Since implementing our personalized BlueConic email series, we've achieved a 39% open rate—nearly double the industry average of ~20%—and a 4.2% click-to-open rate, which significantly exceeds the industry average of ~1.4%. Our automated sends consistently outperform standard monthly sends, demonstrating higher open and click-to-open rates. This indicates that our automated messages are both engaging and effective, underscoring the value of continuing and expanding our automated email campaigns.
4. Website Visits and Engagement: In just five months, the automated emails drove over 2,000 users to our site, with these users viewing an average of 6.91 pages—108% more than the average website visitor, who views 3.32 pages. Additionally, these users spent an average of 3 minutes and 31 seconds on the site, a 268% increase compared to the average visitor's time of 57 seconds. Overall, we’ve seen significantly higher engagement rates compared to our typical website visitors.
If you could give one piece of advice to a team just starting with BlueConic, what would it be?
My advice would be to fully leverage its robust integration capabilities. BlueConic makes it easy to create seamless connections with external data sources, allowing you to access and optimize data that’s readily available at your fingertips. This will empower your team to do more with the data you’re already gathering. Additionally, don’t hesitate to tap into the expertise of the BlueConic team—they’re incredibly helpful and great to work with.
What’s next on your BlueConic journey?
We’re eager to continue evolving our data strategies with BlueConic. Here’s what’s on the horizon:
1. Expanding Email Series: We plan to continue developing our email series based on custom segments to enhance our communication with potential visitors.
2. Growing and Refining Segments: We aim to expand our segments, allowing for even more personalized and targeted messaging.
3. Driving Engagement through Content: We’ll focus on including content within our emails that encourages visitors to explore our site further, aiding in their trip planning process and inspiring them to broaden their interests. Clear CTAs will guide them toward action.
4. Inspiring Visitation to South Dakota: Our goal is to inspire more people to visit South Dakota, helping them plan for the unexpected and map out their adventures in the 605 state.
