DIY Digital Advertising

About the Program

Category: County Administration and Management (Best in Category)

Year: 2018

The Miami-Dade County Communications Department (COM) manages advertising for county departments and agencies in an effort to keep nearly 2.7 million residents informed of important news, events and public education messaging. While most of our campaigns are multichannel, we are increasingly turning to digital marketing to maximize our reach. For years we relied on third-party vendors to facilitate digital advertising, with varying degrees of success. After all, digital marketing in its early days was this murky landscape of new terminology and technology. Over time, we grew to understand more about the platforms and saw opportunities to take on more digital advertising ourselves. We realized that managing our digital campaigns internally would ultimately provide more value to departments, through value-savings and an increase in overall ad performance. In 2015, the COM decided that it was time to initiate a program that effectively, and efficiently, brought the function of digital advertising in-house to be managed by County staff rather than by outside vendors. Once implemented, we saw immediate gains in ad performance, with nearly every Key Performance Indicator (KPI) improving, notably impressions and Click-through Rates (CTR). At the same time, we noted dramatic decreases in cost per ad unit, allowing us to multiply our reach. We leveraged countywide advertising dollars to achieve enterprise-wide, value-added services for the benefit of departmental programs. In fiscal year 2016-2017, COM saved more than $3.5 million by continuing the placement of social media and digital advertising ourselves.