Was Tourism SA’s Marketing Campaign Cost-Effective?

Tourism SA is at it again!

Now, they have paid an undisclosed amount for 12 TikTok influencers to promote SA.

That’s including travel and itineraries etc.

This is slightly better than the Sam Smith shit show as the content was actually viewed in-feed 5,000,000, not an over-exaggerated, unprovable potential reach number of 32,000,000.

But I have already addressed that previously.

In-feed consumption has value.

That is, if it is relevant content that is targeted to relevant segments and they actually want to consume it (not skip it).

Going by the content published, it’s relevant.

Is it segmented?

Not really.

Is the content compelling?

I.e. will it make someone visit South Australia?

The opposition deputy leader John Gardener doesn’t seem to think so.

But that’s purely subjective: the only way of knowing if it’s compelling” content is if people visit South Australia.

That can be measured, but it can’t be accurately traced back to this campaign.

And this can’t be — there were no direct response call-to-actions.

And any increase (or decrease for that matter) in tourism to South Australia, cannot be attributed to this campaign.

That is not to say the campaign was a waste.

Everything with increasing tourism starts with attention and awareness.

But this all depends on cost!

Which Zoe Bettison and Tourism did not (nor will not) disclose.

That just means it’s a lot, because if it was cost-effective (compared to other equivalent channels like Spotify, where one can get the same 5,000,000 “views” as listens, where users are forced to listen to the content and not skip it like they can on TikTok, for $25,000) you would certainly gloat about it — clearly, Tourism SA is not gloating about the cost per impression.

I guarantee they paid way more than $25,000 for this campaign.

I once did a TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@orrenhimself/video/6782132370628693253) that was targeted directly to South Australia that got 183,000 views, 7509 comments and 17,100 likes.

I know it was targeted to South Australians because I used the #SouthAustralians #southaus #southaussie #southaussies #southaustraila #southaustralia hashtags and, more importantly, I read and responded to every single one of those comments which said they were from South Australia.

Why did they say they were from South Australia?

Because that was the content’s call-to-action.

That equates to a 13.6% engagement rate — 0.4% lower than the Tourism SA average figure (https://tourism.sa.gov.au/media/tklhpdn5/satc-x-tiktok-creator-camp.pdf)

And you know how much that cost me?

$0.

I say on my couch in my PJs, opened my camera and talked.

The lighting was shitty and there was no microphone — people liked it.

Out of the 12 influencers Tourism SA paid, the only influencers who outdid me in that list were:

1. Tatenda Luna;

2. Maddy Macrae;

3. Dylan O’Brien; and

4. Fash.

I’m in the top 67%, baby!

And in all fairness to me, I don’t have anywhere near 52,100 or 5,700,000 Followers on TikTok.

But this isn’t about me…

It I about highlighting that you don’t need to spend a lot to get a lot of attention.

Especially on social media!

But you can certainly overpay (like any other channel).

And if all Tourism SA wanted was a lot of attention, there are plenty of paid platforms that could have guaranteed delivery of 5,000,000 impressions for far cheaper than what Tourism SA would have paid (paying influencers to distribute content organically is a risk because they cannot guarantee consumption).

Tourism SA even paid an interstate agency to coordinate this — so much for keeping money in South Australia.