Advertising to The Steller Audience Turned South Carolina Inspiration into Action
In tourism marketing, momentum is everything and Discover South Carolina wasn't ready to slow down. After an 8-month advertising campaign that kept the destination visible to travelers and delivered outstanding results, renewing for another term was an easy decision. Follow along as we explain how advertising to the Steller Audience helped the destination spread awareness to new audiences, foster travel intent, and drive trip planning with consistent, connected promotion.
The Challenge
South Carolina wanted to drive trip planning with Gen Z and Millennial travelers. They turned to Steller because our user base is primarily in that demographic and highlights travel experiences through video, a medium the desired audience strongly connects with. Discover South Carolina wanted to reach travelers with a genuine intent to visit and keep the destination top of mind throughout their decision-making process. They needed a partner who could provide guaranteed exposure while tapping into authentic, creator-driven storytelling to keep South Carolina top of mind.
The Campaign
Steller launched a targeted advertising campaign designed to move travelers through the funnel by leveraging the full power of the Steller Ecosystem, a connected network of travelers across our app, website, social channels, email, push notifications, and creator network. Steller is able to connect destinations with a community of travelers already primed for action. Through custom trip itineraries, strategic placements, consistent optimization, and remarketing across the Steller Ecosystem, Discover South Carolina generated 3.66 million impressions at a $6.56 CPM and drove 2.1% of trip viewers to plan their own trips to South Carolina with verified travel dates. This targeted campaign demonstrated the power of consistent, connected promotion to drive verified trip planning and bookings.
Targeted Placements That Delivered Results
Discover South Carolina maintained consistent visibility to the Steller audience across key travel planning windows through Steller’s connected content and multi-channel promotion. Fresh trip guides, bookable itineraries, and targeted messaging kept the destination top-of-mind, ensuring travelers always had a reason to engage. These outcomes were driven by the following guaranteed placements across the Steller Ecosystem:
- Homepage Takeovers: Three months of premium homepage placements during peak planning windows.
- Destination Page + Editorial Trips: Bookable itineraries and curated content embedded within South Carolina’s destination page.
- Push Notifications: Targeted messages delivered to people.
- Email Promotion: Inclusion in emails to the Steller userbase.
- Social Amplification: Steller’s own social promotion plus affiliate content featuring South Carolina.
Creator Network & Social Amplification
When South Carolina began trending on Steller, we alerted our creator network, a community of thousands of travel creators who publish itineraries and video content year-round and participate in our Affiliate program, earning ongoing revenue from the trip guides they share with their audiences.
Creators sharing their South Carolina travel videos with their audiences, along with their bookable itineraries, generated more than 2 million social impressions, 234 direct requests for trip guides, and thousands of additional click-throughs from creator stories, extending South Carolina’s visibility beyond the Steller platform. Because the Steller platform allows creators and destinations to connect their content directly to action, each post was connected to trip planning tools, marketing automation to keep the destination top of mind, and booking opportunities, enabling travelers to easily move from inspiration to action.
While destinations don’t hand-pick individual creators, they benefit from the authentic amplification to an audience already highly engaged with the creator. This amplification is not an added cost to destinations.
Results of Harnessing the Power of the Steller Ecosystem
Every part of the Steller Ecosystem, from connected social content to our video-based travel platform and global creator network is designed to guide travelers from inspiration into action. Steller content lives on and remains discoverable, continuing to drive engagement long after a campaign ends. By leveraging this scale and engagement, Discover South Carolina connected with a community of travel lovers and converted inspiration into measurable trip planning.
Beyond generating millions of impressions and engagement rates 18x higher than the industry average, the campaign drove 417 trips planned with verified travel dates to major cities like Charleston to coastal towns such as Hilton Head, and beyond. Taking into account that the average travel party to South Carolina spends $994, the campaign generated $414.5K in economic impact, 16.5x the cost of the campaign.
Steller’s Ecosystem is a purpose-built travel community with over 1.5 million users who don’t just get inspired, but who take action. Steller provides destinations with a unique combination of scale, intent, and measurable results that you can’t buy anywhere else. The success of this campaign led Discover South Carolina to commit to a FY 25/26 campaign to drive travelers to the state during the shoulder seasons.
Campaign Stats
$6.56
CPM
3.66M
Impressions within the Steller Ecosystem
1.2M
Total Traveler reach
2.1%
of users who viewed the trips started planning their own itinerary
417
Trips planned with verifiable travel dates
$414.5K
Economic Impact
