The 10K Campaign - the Virginia Breeze

Target Audience: The 10K campaign – named for our goal of reaching 10,000 passengers in one month – was directly primarily to a young demographic (age range of 18-25), and the secondary audience were potential passengers who resided within 25 miles of the Piedmont Express and Capital Connector routes (https://virginiabreeze.org/routes/).?

Strategy Objective:Our primary objective for the campaign was to increase ticket sales to college students. The call to action was to plan for breaks during the academic year, and purchase tickets to go back home via the airport, bus station, or other destinations on the Piedmont Express and Capital Connector routes. We ran the following creative assets in July, August, and September 2023: Snapchat and YouTube: Four 20-second videos; Facebook/Instagram: Six static ads and four 20-second videos, and Google search: 85 keywords split into four topic groups. ?

Situation Challenge: While ridership has increased on all four routes of the Virginia Breeze, recovery from the pandemic has continued to be?slower for two of the routes, Capital Connector and Piedmont Express. To increase ticket sales, the majority of our ad dollars were directed at college students, who live on college campuses located within 25 miles of?the Capital Connector and Piedmont Express. The service has been well-received on college campuses on our other two routes and we were hoping to replicate that success on these underperforming routes. ?

Results Impact: The 10K campaign extension concluded on September 10. In terms of impressions (2.1 million) and 30,286 clicks, the campaign was a success. Month-over-month CPA performance improved by 22% due to strategy shifts on Facebook and Instagram and we advertised on a new social media channel, Snapchat, which had 8,045 views lasting at least 15 seconds. We also learned which ads were most effective with this particular audience. In terms of ridership, this campaign was part of a broader strategy to increase ridership for the Capital Connector and Piedmont Express.

Why Submit: Effective transit advertising is essential for ticket conversions. By using more video and new channels, we expanded our reach, and targeted an audience that was similar to a successful audience on other routes.