Decision On Trip Advisor Advertising Program Tabled Until Future Tourism Tax Commission Meeting

A decision about signing up for a two-month program with Trip Advisor was tabled at the city of Ste. Genevieve Tourism Tax Commission meeting on September 25.

The commission did approve spending $3,003 on print advertising.

City tourism director Sandra Cabot reported on a two-month trial program the city had with Trip Advisor. She said the program had a .28 percent click-through rate to the visitstegen.com website, whereas .08 is the usual bench mark.

Specific things are targeted, such as people interested in Missouri destinations, St. Louis, or arts and culture weekends. The lowest rate Ste. Genevieve had was .08 percent for people in Chicago searching for St. Louis activities. Cabot said this percentage still was matching the overall Trip Advisor norm.

She recommended that if the commission opted to continue with Trip Advisor that it uses the  $500 per month option called a self-serve platform.

“Now that we’ve run these different possibilities, I think we would be ready to try the self-serve program,” Cabot said.

She called it “a good place to start and keep that digital campaign going.” …

It was agreed to table the Trip Advisor program until Cabot brings some analysis and comparison of click-through rates between Trip Advisor and Madden Media.

August and September search engine marketing through Madden Media had previously been approved at $660, with the state Division of Tourism paying an equal amount.

See complete story in the October 2 edition of the Herald.