Case Study

How EXL’s Paid Media Management Increased Organic Rankings and Hotel Referrals for Visit Walnut Creek

Located outside of San Francisco in the Bay Area, Walnut Creek blends small-town charm with vibrant culture, dining, hotels, and luxury shopping. Yet in a region dominated by powerhouse destinations like San Francisco and Oakland, not to mention California’s own global brand, Walnut Creek faced a familiar challenge for many cities: strong amenities and limited awareness.

Visit Walnut Creek partnered with EXL Media to use paid media not just to drive traffic, but to influence how new audiences discovered, evaluated, and ultimately chose the destination. With 30 years of media buying experience in Northern California, EXL identified niche traveler segments and media placements designed to capture attention and drive measurable action.

The Challenge

Delivering differentiation and discovery
Even as the City invested in continual improvements for leisure and group travel, the destination was still known as a suburban city. Competing destinations were targeting the same audiences who had established travel habits and preferences.

The challenge wasn’t demand. It was differentiation and discovery.

The Strategy

Niche and targeted marketing at the right moments
To stand out and encourage action, EXL built a paid media strategy focused on relevance and timing. The goal was to place the Visit Walnut Creek message in high-traffic environments and contextually aligned moments where travelers were more likely to pause, engage, and explore.

The strategy emphasized full-funnel paid media, designed to introduce the destination, reinforce its value, and drive users toward booking actions.

Audience Targeting, Timing, and Reach

Audience Targeting: 

• Leisure Travelers
• Group Sales: Meetings and Celebrations
• Sports Travel

Timing:

Annual Advertising Campaign

Reach:

• Primary DMA: San Francisco and Sacramento

• Secondary DMA: Reno, Monterey, Chico-Redding, and Fresno

The Tactics

Media investment was allocated across three targeted segments, each aligned to distinct audience behaviors and performance goals.

• Media buys for each segment were optimized to drive website engagement based upon consistent website traffic analysis
• Paid search and paid social served as the primary growth drivers, representing 74% of total media spend
• Paid search and paid social generated 97% of all website engagements, delivering efficient reach and intent-driven traffic
• The remaining paid media campaign supported upper-funnel placements designed to narrate the destination attributes to new visitors via niche outlets and publications.

The Results

The integrated paid media campaign delivered measurable performance metrics year-over-year:

• Campaign impressions: +180%
• Website sessions: +130%
• Website engagements: +163%
• Click-out to lodging/venues: +168
• Form leads: +75%

In measuring conversions, 86% of the 5,278 click-outs to lodging/venue sites and 49% of the 182 lead forms were derived from the media campaign.

Within the first few months of EXL’s paid media launch, VisitWalnutCreek.org moved from the eighth page of Google Search to the first page, demonstrating how paid media can directly influence organic visibility and referral growth.