Visit Anaheim Finally Answered the Question: Did It Book a Trip?

Winner, ESTO's 2026 Digital Brilliance Award

Visit Anaheim wasn't new to influencer marketing. The DMO ran 39 influencer campaigns in 2024 alone, and those campaigns reliably generated awareness and engagement. What they couldn't do was answer the question every DMO has struggled with: did any of it actually move a traveler toward planning or booking a trip?

The Challenge

Like most destination campaigns, Visit Anaheim's influencer work was stopping at the point of engagement. A traveler would watch a video, feel inspired, and then disappear from view. There was no way to see what happened next, whether that inspiration turned into a planned trip, a booking, or nothing at all. Visit Anaheim wanted to evolve past impressions and engagement metrics and build a connected path from inspiration all the way to a measurable outcome.

The Campaign

Beginning in August 2025, Visit Anaheim ran its first Steller Connect campaign, targeting local and drive-market travelers, particularly families and leisure travelers actively considering a fall Southern California getaway. Five travel and family creators produced short-form video, Stories, and Reels showcasing both Anaheim's iconic attractions and its local businesses. But the creator content was only the entry point.

Instead of sending viewers to a static landing page, Visit Anaheim used DM automation so a traveler could simply comment on a post and receive an interactive itinerary directly. Each itinerary was built in Steller and included creator videos, maps, hotel recommendations, and attraction and travel tips, giving travelers a reason to keep engaging well past the initial view. From there, travelers entered automated email and push notification journeys with additional Anaheim content based on how engaged they already were. Paid media amplified the strongest-performing content and drove traffic to a custom Steller landing page that pulled all the campaign's creator content into one destination planning experience. Visit Anaheim also embedded these same interactive creator experiences directly on VisitAnaheim.org, turning what would normally be a short-lived social campaign into an always-on planning resource.

The campaign set out to hit 6.8 million impressions and delivered 31 million, more than four times the goal. Social engagement landed at 13.66%, well above the 3% industry benchmark. The interactive itineraries themselves drove a 28.35% engagement rate, more than double the 11% Steller benchmark, and email campaigns tied to the retargeting journey achieved a 40.25% open rate and 13.83% click-through rate. Most importantly, the campaign generated 234 trips planned, with a potential economic impact of $791,800, giving Visit Anaheim something no previous influencer campaign had delivered: a direct line from creator content to real, measurable travel intent.

Visit Anaheim’s results show what happens when influencer content isn’t treated as a one-off social asset but as the entry point into a connected system, one that carries a traveler from a single video all the way through planning and, ultimately, toward a booking. The content, itineraries, and automated journeys built during the campaign are still active today, continuing to generate planning activity long after the original posts went up.