Located in Southwest Louisiana and leading the way in data-driven decision-making, Visit Lake Charles (VLC) puts integrated data insights at the center of their marketing strategy. Early on, the team used Zartico insights to cook up an award-winning ad campaign. Now they’re placing continuous data optimization at the core of all of their work.
Notable Numbers |
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9% increase in restaurant spending during targeted Chuck Eats promotion |
44% year-over-year increase in overall visitor spending |
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Led by Chief Marketing Officer Timothy Bush, VLC uses Zartico insights to inform their marketing strategy, drive visitor economic growth, and communicate the measurable impacts of their marketing efforts to their community.
The team faces many of the challenges common to destination marketing organizations. They need to effectively target and engage quality visits, then distribute the benefits of tourism across the entire community — all while balancing short- and long-term marketing needs and proving the impact of their efforts.
“Every piece of data I can pull to help me build a better strategy and story, that’s where I'm focused. That’s how we deliver impact to our community.”
Timothy Bush, CMO, Visit Lake Charles
Highlights: Strategy in Action
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For a vibrant, all-season destination like Lake Charles, a single successful campaign won’t bring home the bacon. Brand-building efforts are vital for sowing the seeds of future visitation, while the marketing team takes a more targeted approach for focused impact.
VLC’s data-driven strategy balances these two approaches, employing both “hunting” and “farming” to meet destination goals.
Check out these two examples:
To drive incremental visitation and capitalize on the growing culinary scene throughout their community, Visit Lake Charles offers their version of restaurant week, called Chuck Eats.
In 2024 VLC launched a Meta campaign targeting foodies in regional drive markets across Texas and Louisiana. The campaign drove a 116% increase in landing page views, demonstrating a strong intent — but Zartico insights revealed the full impact of the promotion.
To maintain a stable visitor economy, VLC supplements targeted campaigns with general brand awareness efforts throughout the year.
They leverage takeaways from targeted campaigns — such as new opportunity markets — to optimize their continuous efforts. Their year-round marketing strategy incorporates regular data-driven optimization and reporting, including:
Data-driven decision-making is written into VLC’s strategic plan, including a specific call to “share VLC-owned data with partners… to enhance their marketing and product development.”
VLC understands that knowledge is power and that communicating insights with their industry creates opportunity and strengthens relationships.
With a focus on always improving marketing ROI, the VLC team is taking data-driven optimizations to the next level by digging into the data of marketing attribution. After participating in Zartico’s pilot program, Timothy saw the potential Zartico’s Digital Campaign Optimization could offer.
“My job is to be the best steward of my marketing budget and to deliver the best for our destination. I think DCO is creating a more visible picture of attribution… It's clearing away the clouds and presenting a clear picture of our campaign performance. That allows our agency to make optimization decisions and pivot at a much better pace.”
Timothy Bush, CMO, Visit Lake Charles
With the insights from DCO, VLC and their agency will be able to:
Visit Lake Charles’ ongoing marketing success demonstrates how a data-driven approach to destination marketing can deliver measurable results while supporting broader community development goals. Their experience shows that combining strategic data use with targeted execution creates a sustainable model for tourism growth that benefits both visitors and residents.
Data fuels successful marketing — here are 10 Ways Destination Marketers Use Zartico Data to Achieve Success.