There’s a boom of Ontarians who are choosing to vacation close to home. Yes, “staycations” are hot, and they’re bringing golden opportunities to businesses across eastern Ontario. Ontarians are ready and willing to book their vacation in their own backyard. They’re also ready to enjoy all the nearby restaurants, markets, and special events while they do it.
What this means is your vacation season marketing strategy needs to be targeting people in your own backyard. Don’t sweat it, though: you can do that with fast, flexible ad campaigns that will bring Ontarians right from their daily scroll to your booking portal.
Here’s how to bring Ontario staycationers through your doors. It all begins with some marketing alchemy, and that begins with a great ad campaign.
Just the facts
The staycation boom isn’t just hearsay. A survey for Destination Ontario revealed that 90% of Ontarians are planning an overnight trip within the province sometime in the next year. That’s a lot of people looking to explore their eastern Ontario backyard.
The survey also revealed some welcome insights, especially for places like the Bay of Quinte, Prince Edward County, Kingston, the 1000 Islands, and Lennox and Addington. Respondents also listed their top leisure experiences as local cuisine (58%), shopping (57%), natural experiences (55%) and family-focused attractions (42%). Plus, 41% chose “visiting farmers’ markets” as a favourite food experience. Those are all experiences many eastern Ontario businesses can boast of!
Conclusion: Staycations are definitely a trend with staying power. So how do you get these eager Ontarian staycationers to choose your business as a can’t-miss activity?
Start with from social media
You’re probably already posting gorgeous photos on social media. Time to put them to work. Most platforms let you run ads that are quick to launch, easy to tweak, and scalable to meet even modest budgets. These are great for catching last-minute vacation traffic. Let’s check out the biggest players:
- Meta (Facebook and Instagram) Run ads across both platforms, test different versions, boost visibility, and target specific interests (photography, travel, hiking, shopping) and regions—like the GTA.
- TikTok Boost posts to reach more users, and set up a TikTok Shop so people can buy straight from your videos.
- Snapchat Great for playful, interactive content. A solid choice if you’re targeting a younger, fun-loving crowd.
So which one is best for your business? That depends on who you want to reach. Facebook plays well with a 30+ demographic, while TikTok might be your platform of choice to reach a Gen-Z audience. Think about who your highest-value clients are to determine who you want to reach and which social platform should be given priority.
Google is still tops for staycationer searches
Social platforms are good for reaching casual scrollers, but for Ontarians actively searching for their perfect getaway, Google searches still reign supreme. Start by claiming your business on Google to improve your company’s visibility. Then use the Google Ads platform to run ads that show up where and when your audience is looking. You can set up your ads to appear based on user location, user attributes, and most importantly, the keywords they’ve used in their search. This brings us to the most important part of all for your staycationer ad campaign: keywords.
Choose the best keywords
The best keywords are ones frequently used by people looking to book a local vacation. “Weekend getaway” “staycation”, “eastern Ontario” “local experience” and “hidden gem” are frequently used by vacationers in Google searches. They’re increasingly used in AI searches as well.
You can further target your ads to bring in your specific audience. Keywords like “family-friendly activity” and “kid-friendly accommodation” should be used if you’re a family resort. On the opposite end of the spectrum, “couples-only accommodation” or “romantic getaway” will ensure your ads reach adults looking for a child-free experience with one another.
Google Ads will use those keywords to determine which ads to run. For example, if there’s been a recent surge in searches for “local romantic getaway”, your ad with those keywords will be shown to users conducting those searches.
Naturally, you’ll want to include keywords that reflect your location, city, and what your business has to offer. “Strawberry farm” will bring in day trippers near you, who are looking for a nearby pick-your-own field, as an example. That brings us nicely to my final point:
Target the right locations
Nailing the right keywords won’t matter if your ads aren’t showing up in the right region for people to see them. Make sure you set your ads to run exactly where your potential clients are going to be.
Whether you’re advertising on Google or a social media platform, you’ll have options of where you’d like your ads to appear. If you’re targeting eastern Ontario or Quebec staycationers, then you’ll want your ads to run in the most likely places. Sure, you can target entire provinces but, depending on your budget and who you want to reach, you may want to narrow that down to:
- Major population centres, such as the greater Toronto area (GTA) and the Ottawa valley (NOTE: if you’re targeting Ottawa, or especially Montreal, make sure you have a French version of all your ads!)
- Your own city or town. Plenty of locals are looking for nearby day trips and excursions.
- Other centres where you’ve historically attracted visitors and customers (your accounts should help you identify this).
Be strategic! Remember, your goal is quality web traffic, not quantity of web traffic! It’s better to target areas where your data says you’re most likely to bring in clients, bookings and sales.
Once you do this, you’re ready to roll.
Keep monitoring those ads
Once your ads have gone live, monitor them several times a day. Check for clicks, opens, and where they’re coming from as well. If an ad is underperforming, you can rework it or pull it. If an ad is playing better than expected, extend or boost it. The best part about Google and social media ads is their flexibility lets you course-correct in real time. This means you can keep targeting the areas that have shown the most interest in making you part of their Ontario staycation.
If all of this sounds overwhelming, don’t worry. A full-service marketing agency like ours can handle it all for you. We’ll plan and run a multi-pronged ad campaign, while you doing what you do best – running your business as a top destination in eastern Ontario for staycations.
Get in touch with us today and we’ll set up an introductory call.