The Great Waterway 07/16...04 THE GREAT WATERWAY MONTHLY ERVIEW Key Project Highlights July Monthly Overview C. Social Media The Great Waterway social media team continued their paid

THE GRE AT WATERWAY MONTHLY OVERVIEW01

07/16The Great Waterway Monthly Overview


July

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sOverall website traffic continues to exceed expectations with July 2016 total traffic being more then double July 2015.

With a total organic and paid social media reach of 687,097 and 9,529 visits to the website, social efforts continue to contribute strongly to overall campaign performance.

Blogging performed well including strong readership with the “Hidden Gems” post (over 3,300 views since July post).

Launch of Pattison Outdoors Double-Decker bus and Matrix screen campaign. Excellent traction with Google AdWords campaign.

Assisted to finalize Booking Engine launch plans including curation of packages and new deals for Insider Rewards.

1 3 5

4 6Media Sales efforts for Home Page Takeover continued to be booked consistently throughout July.

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Key Project Highlights

July Monthly Overview

A. Website PerformanceJuly website traffic once again exceeded our expectations with unique visitor traffic that doubled from the year prior.

As our native ad campaign tapered off with OTMPC (ending in June), our overall website bounce rate decreased also. Bounce rate has been higher then we expected, but understandable given the amount of advertising that has hit the market and the portion of traffic visiting the site due to advertising.

In August, we will be launching some added usability tactics on the website that will help to direct traffic to more pages on the site and help us to obtain a noticeable reduction in bounce rate.

Otherwise, media buys, social, SEO and blogging tactics has provided us with some very generous increases to website traffic...something we’re proud to showcase.

Other enhancements are being made to Activities Await as well to allow for even better search by users.

B. Media Sales EffortsThroughout the month of July, home page takeover (HPTO) weekly buys have been fairly consistent by tourism operators and therefore, we’ve been consistently putting up new HPTO spots every week.

Between TGW and 1dea, we’re continuing to review our sales offerings and making adjustments (where necessary) along the way to respond to the needs of tourism partners (and feedback from TGW team).




C. Social MediaThe Great Waterway social media team continued their paid social media efforts into July. These paid ads consisted of boosted posts (blog content), Facebook ‘like’ campaign, and website traffic posts. Overall paid interactions were slightly down from that of July. The social team rolled out more specific campaigns using Facebook pixels and re-marketing efforts, which can lead to lower overall numbers. That being said, using these tactics leads to higher engagement with fans, and more meaningful interactions. An example of this can be seen through the Insider Rewards campaign which saw a total of 63 sign-ups to the program.

Organic growth and general reach continues to grow on all three social platforms and compliments all paid efforts tremendously. As the social media advertising budget downsizes moving into the fall months the social team is confident these organic interactions will keep sentiment and interactions moving strong into the slower tourism months.

Moving into August TGW will:

• Continue to immplement paid social media advertising, and adjust each ad based on performance and interaction.

• Repurpose content, curate content and create additional content to support the August theme week on social media channels.

• Experiment with Facebook live options to interact and engage with fans in real time.

• Experiment with the new Instagram Stories feature. This feature is identical to what Snapchat offers, but does not force TGW to start managing and interacting with a new social platform.




E. Blogging Strategy & SuccessesJuly proved to be the most successful month for blog interactions to date. This is due to several factors including: heavy research into SEO to ensure each blog was formulated to achieve high rankings, well written and researched topics and content, and focused advertising on Facebook.

Our newest blogger Mike Hector produced over 3,000 visits to his blog post, which represents one of the top performing blogs we’ve had to date.

Jennifer, Mike and Jordan have all produced some strong blogs in July. Moving forward The Great Waterway social team will take these winning tactics for blogs, and promotions of blogs to obtain similar success moving into August and the Fall months ahead.

D. Advertising It was exciting to launch the Pattison Outdoors campaign this month with the introduction of an advertising mural on 3 double-decker buses in Ottawa as well as digital matrix screens (up to 30’w x 10’ high) at key shopping or high traffic locations in both Toronto and Ottawa. The advertising was focused on equally promoting all destinations and directing traffic to thegreatwaterway.com. Total impressions of 622,000, but more importantly, this is the high impact piece.

Furthermore, Google AdWords was launched in full force this month with both Activity ad campaigns as well as destination (including general TGW ads). The general ads were the top performers. As of July 31, we received 24,698 clicks to the website and 2,601,710 total impressions.

Advertising in general has been a strong driver of our overall campaign success this year.


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Google AnalyticsGoogle analytics offers a seemingly endless stream of information about The Great Waterway’s website. This section of the report will outline the key findings, and relevant information regarding web traffic, habits, referrals, demographics, and social information.


Campaign Performance


A. Audience OverviewThis section provides a snapshot of the complete audience overview and their time spent on The Great Waterway website.

1 KEY TERMS

Bounce Rate Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page sessions (i.e. sessions in which the person left the website from the entrance page without interacting with the page).

Sessions Total number of sessions for the website. It is important to note that multiple sessions can be completed by one user.

Users Total number of users/visitors to the website over a specified time frame.

Page Views Total number of page views over a specified time frame.

Pages/Session The average number of pages visited per session.

Avg. Sessions Duration The average amount of time for each session.


25,468JULY 2015 TOTAL

169,6172016 YEAR TO DATE

52,584JULY 2016 TOTAL

Totals To-Date

2016 Sessions Users Page Views

Pages/Session

Avg. Session Duration

Bounce Rate

June 60,264 46,098 85,563 1.42 0:55 83.80%

July 52,584 46,313 91,313 1.74 1:21 74.36%

YTD 169,617 138,745 299,253 1.76 1:18 75.53%


Pages/Session


Bounce Rate

June 15,689 13,826 32,668 2.08 1:50 62.17%

July 25,468 22,032 55,201 2.17 2:11 60.09%

YTD 89,965 76,849 191,546 2.13 1:59 61.79%


Pages/Session


Bounce Rate

June 27,352 23,135 64,796 2.37 2:07 54.24%

July 55,561 46,463 120,417 2.17 1:58 55.44%

YTD 117,995 98,675 263,521 2.23 2:04 56.66.%89,9652015 YEAR TO DATE


Age & Gender A breakdown of the age groups and gender of visitors.

Age 18-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65+

% of Total 10% 20% 22% 21% 17% 10%39%

61%FEMALE

MALE

2016- July

Note: 1dea Inc. enabled demographics on Google analytics on Feb. 8, 2016. No prior data exists due to the option being dormant before that date.


Location – Country & City

July - 15 % July - 16 %

Canada 86.46% Canada 82.34%

USA 7.56% USA 12.81%

Germany 1% India 0.68%

Brazil 0.38% UK 0.52%

UK 0.33% Philippines 0.47%

(not set) 0.31% (not set) 0.46%

France 0.28% United Arab Emirates

0.16%

China 0.13% Pakistan 0.15%

Australia 0.12% Nigeria 0.14%

India 0.12% Saudia Arabia

0.12%

Other 3.31% Other 2.15%

July - 15 % July - 16 %

Toronto 15.53% Toronto 18.44%

Ottawa 13.45% Ottawa 7.07%

Kingston 9.73% Montreal 6.57%

Montreal 5.36% Kingston 3.80%

Laval 4.86% Mississauga 3.42%

Mississauga 2.49% Brampton 2.85%

(not set) 1.95% Hamilton 2.61%

Brockville 1.77% (not set) 2.50%

Brampton 1.65% Boston 1.70%

Gatineau 1.36% Markham 1.50%

Other (850+) 41.85% Other (850+) 49.54%

A snapshot of the top countries and cities that have visited The Great Waterway website over a certain period of time.

Country City

86% 16%82% 18%CANADA TORONTOCANADA TORONTO

JULY 15 JULY 15JULY 16 JULY 16


Acquisition by Medium 2016

Source July 2015 Sessions - Total 25,468

Source July 2016 Sessions - Total 52,584

Google - O 15,405 Google - O 18,145

Google - CPC 4,051 (direct)/(none) 13,259

(direct)/(none) 2,760 m.facebook.com - R 6,078

Yahoo - O 439 TWN 2016 - Theatre Campaign - CPC 1,458

bing - O 413 Im.facebook.com - R 1,419

voyagesontario.com - R 120 OTMPC Content Partnership - CPC 1,289

northernontario.travel - R 119 TWN 2016 - History and Culture Campaign - CPC

1,143

facebook.com - R 111 ontariotravel.net - R 1,140

campinginontario.ca - R 104 facebook.com - R 1,057

bicycleontario.ca- R 100 tpc.googlesyndication.com - R 992

t.co - R 96 TWN 2016 - Golf Campaign - CPC 581

m.facebook.com - R 95 I.facebook.com - R 563

getaway1000.com - R 93 TWN - CPC 516

success-seo.com - R 91 Star Metro Media 2016 (Digital Campaign) - CPC

443

m.thegreatwaterway.com - R

77 OTMPC Content Partnership - Not Set

407

ontariobybike.ca - R 71 com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox - R

394

ontario.uberflip.com - R 59 narcity.com - R 299

Other 1,264 Other 3,401

How consumers were able to find The Great Waterway online.

O – Organic | R – Referral | E – Email | S – Social


Social Overview

Social Network Sessions % Sessions

Facebook 319 66.74%

Twitter 101 21.13%

TripAdvisor 41 8.58%

Blogger 9 1.88%

Pinterest 3 0.63%

LinkedIn 2 0.42%

Facebook Apps 1 0.21%

Social Network Sessions % Sessions

Facebook 9,218 95.56%

Twitter 285 2.95%

Instagram 79 0.82%

Meetup 29 0.30%

TripAdvisor 13 0.13%

LinkedIn 6 0.06%

Pinterest 6 0.06%

An overview of the total conversion value of each type of social media channel. Once a digital campaign is in place, and Google analytics goals have been set, this section of Google analytics can also provide a monetary value to the social stream.

2015 – July 2016 – July


Behaviour

Page Page Views

%

/ 3,984 7%

/camping/ 2,960 5%

/blogs/active-adventure/top-ten-beaches-sandbanks-grass-creek-joel-stone-and-more/

2,922 5%

/1000-islands/ 2,310 4%

/on-the-water/cruises/ 1,916 3%

/prince-edward-county/ 1,863 3%

/map/ 1,365 2%

/on-the-water/beaches/ 1,210 2%

/on-the-water/cruises/kings-ton-1000-islands-cruises/

1,064 2%

/on-the-water/cruises/ganano-que-boat-line/

1,030 2%

/on-the-water/ 899 2%

2015 – July 2016 – July

The total page views for a specific page within The Great Waterway website, based on URL.

Page Page Views

%

/ 27,507 30%

/activities-await/ 4,251 5%

/pt-destination/prince-ed-ward-county/

3,758 4%

/explore/food-drink/ 3,562 4%

/off-beaten-path-17-must-see-hid-den-gems-great-waterway/

3,309 4%

/pt-destination/gananoque/ 2,659 3%

/stay/ 2,597 3%

/skywood-eco-adventure-park-travel-tips/

1,950 2%

/pt-explore/theatre/ 1,620 2%

/pt-explore/golf/

1,568 2%

/pt-destination/kingston/ 1,454 1.5%


Campaign Performance B. Paid Social Media OverviewDuring the month of July the social team continued the paid social media strategy on both Facebook and Instagram. Due to the fact that Facebook owns Instagram, all created ads for both channels occur within the Facebook ads manager. Total reach and total website clicks reflect statistics from both Facebook and Instagram. Here are some of the highlights from the July paid social media efforts:


687,097Total Facebook &

Instagram Reach

Organic: 82,862

Paid: 604,235

1,014New Facebook Likes

(July 2016)

Organic: 471

Paid: 543

9,529Total Website Clicks from

Facebook & Instagram

Organic: 2,557

Paid: 6,972


+8,732 Weekly reach on Facebook in July, 2016

+26 Retweets on Twitter in July

+42 Followers on Twitter in July

+175 Followers on Instagram in July

+338 Likes on Instagram in July

Other Key Social Media Highlights

The Great Waterway’s social media efforts have been increasing in engagement, likes, fans, website traffic and general online sentiment month over month in 2016.

While the implemention of paid social media strategies have increased web traffic, and overall engagment on all social channels, The Great Waterway’s social media organic engagment has also been exceptional.

The overall social media landscape is looking very strong moving into Q3 of 2016. Here are some other key highlights from July, 2016.



Media Campaign Performance

*Media Buy Type Campaign Period

Visits to Website (to July end)

OTMPC Co-Branded E-Newsletter

Email April 27 40.8% open rate (228,147 subs)

theweathernetwork.com Digital May 1 - Aug 31 10,990 visits

Star Metro Media Digital Jun 6 - Oct 31 913 visits

OTMPC Content Partnership

Native Ad May 9 - Jun 19 33,863

Bay of Quinte Regional Guide

Print* end of May (1 year) 66 direct URL key-in’s

Attractions Ontario Summer Passport

Print* May 15 - Sept 11 86 direct URL key-in’s

Trenton Air Show Program

OTMPC Summer Tip-In

Social Media Advertising

Google AdWords

Print*

Print*

Social

Search

end of May

Summer

Summer ( Jun start)

July - Mar

70 direct URL key-in’s

101 direct URL key-in’s

604,235 paid reach, 8 ads (FB & Instagram)

24,698 visits, 2,601,710 total impressions

*Special Note Regarding Print Print media buys presents an interesting challenge in that it is not trackable. We’ve established a system with unique website URLs that redirect to pages on the website. Those unique URLs allow us to track how many times people type in the direct URL shown on the ad. Most people will likely conduct an organic search of The Great Waterway website or see the ad only. However, the results above (although very low) provides us with a rough gauge on how print ads are performing relative to other print ads bought. This allows for better decision-making in the years to follow.


Campaign Performance D. Social Media Advertising - Paid

June July

Total Reach 337,769 604,235

Ad Placement (location) GTA, OTT, MTL, NY

GTA, OTT,

MTL, NY

Number of Ads 9 8

Medium FB & I FB & I

The following is a month to month view of some key parts of the paid social media campaign.



Content and Creative


A. Editorial Calendar – Social The editorial calendar has been completed to the end of September, and with a continued focus on contests, theme weeks, and paid strategies the editorial calendar will continue to be a massive asset to managing and controlling all social media activity.

B. Editorial Calendar – Blogging A total of four (4) blogs were created in the month of July. With the implementation of paid social media strategies some blogs received the benefit of a boosted post on Facebook to reach a larger audience. These boosted posts allowed for higher engagement levels and drove more traffic to the website. The two blogs with lower pageviews will be repurposed during the August theme week as boosted posts.

a. OfftheBeatenPath:16MustSeeHiddenGemsinTheGreat Waterway 3,309 Page views

b. Skywood Eco Adventure Park: 8 Things to Know Before you Go 1,950 Page views

c. Chow Down: Summer 2016 Food Festivals 51 Page views

d. Trenton to Cornwall: Summer 2016 Music Festivals 46 Page views

The Great Waterway 07/16...04 THE GREAT WATERWAY MONTHLY ERVIEW Key Project Highlights July Monthly Overview C. Social Media The Great Waterway social media team continued their paid

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