DIGITAL ANALYTICS

In September and October, website engagement increased, showing quality user interactions. In October, overall sessions resulted in a 9% increase year-over-year with 246,272 sessions. Nearly 60% of users are accessing the website on mobile, which is taken into account when designing pages. Act-on newsletters brought 4,000 of those highly engaged sessions. Travelzoo and TripAdvisor also aided in high engagement.

Organic search saw 78,850 sessions, a 3% year-over-year increase. The top organic pages include "events," the Visit Greater Palm Springs homepage, and "events this weekend." 

Website conversions in September and October resulted in 94K+ partner referrals and 3,500 visitor guide downloads.

Consumer E-Newsletter
The VGPS digital team introduced an updated version of the e-newsletter template and conducted an A/B test in the months of September and October, comparing the old and new layouts. Findings revealed that the new layout experienced a slightly higher click rate of 3.64% compared to the 2.84% of the old one, and the team implemented the new template for Consumer and dineGPS newsletters moving forward. Combined e-newsletter signups for September and October totaled 1,830.

What Will You Find Landing Page
This fall, the What Will You Find landing page launched and has seen over 17,000 users and 3,000 conversions in September and October. This landing page includes a persona quiz to share custom itineraries with users based on travel style.

See the What WIll You Find landing page here.

What Will You Find Landing Page

Blog Content

Old Blog Layout 

New Blog Layout

A new blog design was created in September and October in order to create a more dynamic and easy to view blog experience; it launched in November. The new layout is reflected in the posts linked below.

In September and October, 30 blogs were created and/or updated. A few of the new blogs to the site include:            

1. Your Guide to Relaxing and Recharging in Greater Palm Springs
2. Traveling Solo in Greater Palm Springs
3. Soar to the Cathedral City Hot Air Balloon Festival 
4. Dia de Los Muertos Events in Greater Palm Springs
5. Coachella Valley Firebirds Season Preview
6. Celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month
7. Your Guide to Hidden Gems in Greater Palm Springs
8. Your Guide to Midcentury Modernism in Greater Palm Springs

Looking Ahead — Holidays
In October, the Visit Greater Palm Springs team started updating and optimizing holiday content for November and December search. 

Performance Max ads — a goal-based campaign that optimizes ad delivery using automation across all Google networks — were started to support the campaign to drive holiday travel in November. VGPS has launched a holiday events page as well as created three blogs featuring events, local businesses, and restaurants. These are continually updated to improve VGPS organic search rank, and a New Years Eve blog will be published in November, as well. 

As we move into the winter months, VGPS will continue to target fly markets, drive markets, and Canada in search and Performance Max campaigns as search demand increases this time of year.

Below are dashboards showing our year-to-date total website traffic, engagement, and conversion rates.