What UK Visitor Attractions Can Learn from the Latest Digital Advertising Benchmarks
For many visitor attractions, digital advertising has become an essential part of the marketing mix. Meta campaigns, Google Ads, Performance Max and, increasingly, TikTok are all being used to drive awareness, website traffic and ticket sales.
But one question still comes up again and again:
What does good actually look like?
It is easy to compare this year’s campaign with last year’s, or one school holiday push with another. But without wider industry benchmarks, it can be difficult to know whether your results are genuinely strong, whether your budget is in line with similar attractions, or whether your campaigns are quietly underperforming.
That was the focus of a recent session at the National Attraction Marketing Conference from Liz Dimes, Managing Director of Agility Marketing, who shared findings from Agility’s annual digital advertising survey for UK visitor attractions. The survey included responses from a broad range of attractions, including theme parks, zoos, museums, heritage sites, children’s farms, scare attractions and film or TV studio experiences.
The findings reveal a sector that is investing more in digital advertising than ever before. But they also show that bigger budgets do not automatically mean better strategy.
More spend does not always mean better performance
One of the clearest themes from the survey was that attraction size and media spend do not always translate neatly into better digital advertising performance.
Larger attractions often spend more overall, but they are also more likely to focus on a smaller number of established platforms, particularly Meta and Google Search. Smaller attractions, by contrast, are often more experimental, testing new platforms and looking for different ways to reach audiences.
That distinction matters. In a crowded digital environment, competitive advantage does not come simply from being present on the obvious channels. It comes from how well those channels are used.
Meta is now standard practice
The survey found that every participating attraction was advertising on Facebook, with almost all also advertising across both Facebook and Instagram.
That means Meta is no longer a differentiator in itself. It is the baseline.
For attractions, the opportunity is not just to “do Meta”, but to do it well. That means choosing the right campaign objectives, balancing traffic and sales campaigns, understanding the role of different audiences, refreshing creative regularly and ensuring conversion tracking is working properly.
The benchmark figures shared in the session suggest that a Meta link click-through rate of around 1% to 1.5% is broadly in line with the sector average, while many attractions are achieving between 0.8% and 3%. Average cost per link click was around 16p to 25p, which had improved compared with the previous year.
Those numbers are useful, but they should not be viewed in isolation. A campaign optimised for ticket sales may have a higher cost per click than a traffic campaign, but a better cost per conversion. A traffic campaign may look efficient at the click stage but fail to drive meaningful sales.
The key is to understand what each campaign is designed to do.
Tracking is improving, but too many attractions are still flying blind
One of the most positive findings was the improvement in Meta conversion tracking.
The proportion of attractions unable to track Meta conversions had fallen significantly compared with the previous year. That is encouraging, because tracking is not just about reporting. It is also about campaign optimisation.
If the platform cannot see which users go on to make a booking, it cannot properly learn who to target next. Poor tracking does not only make reporting weaker; it can actively limit campaign performance.
The concern is that some attractions still spending substantial sums on digital advertising are unable to connect that spend to conversions. In practical terms, that means they are making budget decisions without a clear view of what is actually driving revenue.
For any attraction investing seriously in paid media, tracking should be treated as a priority, not a technical nice-to-have.
Google Ads: beware misleading brand-term results
One of the strongest recommendations from the session was around Google Search campaigns and brand terms.
Many attractions are still not excluding their own brand names from prospecting campaigns. On the surface, that can make campaign performance look impressive. Brand searches often produce high click-through rates and low conversion costs because the user already knows the attraction and is likely close to booking.
But that can be misleading.
If someone searches directly for your attraction by name, they may have already seen your social content, watched a video, discussed the visit with family or friends and decided to book. Paying for that click through a prospecting campaign may not represent true incremental value.
Worse still, if brand terms are mixed into broader prospecting campaigns, the algorithm is likely to allocate more budget to those easier brand searches, leaving less spend available to reach new audiences searching for more generic terms such as days out, family activities or things to do in a particular area.
The recommendation was simple: exclude brand terms from prospecting campaigns in most cases. If there is a reason to bid on brand terms, such as weak organic visibility, a recent rebrand or competitor activity, keep those campaigns separate with their own budget and reporting.
Performance Max needs careful measurement
Google Performance Max continues to be used by attractions, with campaigns appearing across Google inventory including Search, Display, Maps, YouTube, Gmail and Discovery.
Because of that variety, Performance Max can be harder to assess using a single metric. A campaign with more YouTube placement, for example, may behave very differently from one that leans heavily into Search.
Liz recommended looking beyond click-through rate alone and paying attention to interaction rates and cost per interaction, particularly when video is part of the mix. Attractions should also review where Performance Max budget is actually being spent and make sure brand terms are not unintentionally absorbing too much of the campaign.
Performance Max can be powerful, but it needs active management and careful interpretation.
TikTok remains underused
One of the more surprising findings was that only 42% of surveyed attractions had used TikTok advertising.
That matters because TikTok currently offers strong opportunities for reach and awareness. The platform has relatively low impression costs compared with Meta, high user attention and growing importance as a brand discovery and research channel.
For attractions, TikTok should not be judged only as a last-click sales platform. It is particularly valuable at the top of the funnel, helping people discover experiences, imagine a visit and keep an attraction front of mind for future trips.
That does not mean TikTok cannot drive conversions. The session noted that clicks and bookings are becoming more visible from the platform. But its biggest value may be in building demand before people are ready to buy.
Authentic creative is outperforming polished advertising
A major theme from the session was the growing importance of authenticity.
Consumers are exposed to more polished content than ever before, including AI-generated creative. As a result, they are becoming more sceptical of what they see online. For attractions, audiences want reassurance. They want to know what the experience really looks like, whether it is right for them and whether it is worth the money.
That is where authentic content performs strongly.
Visitor-generated content, staff voices, behind-the-scenes clips and natural short-form video can help reduce doubt. They show the real experience, not just the idealised version. Polished creative still has a role, but it should sit alongside content that feels human, timely and trustworthy.
In a value-conscious market, attractions need to show not just that they exist, but why the visit is worth the spend.
Flexibility is becoming a performance advantage
The strongest digital campaigns are no longer the ones planned once and left alone.
Weather, transport disruption, school holiday behaviour and last-minute booking patterns can all affect performance. Attractions that can react quickly are better placed to capture demand.
That might mean having rainy-day creative ready to go, switching messaging when the sun comes out, adapting copy around availability, or refreshing ads when an event is not selling as expected.
This requires planning, but not necessarily huge production budgets. The important thing is to build flexibility into the campaign process, so creative and messaging can respond to real-world conditions.
Creative fatigue is happening faster
Another clear trend is that creative fatigue is setting in more quickly than before.
Ads that might once have worked for several weeks may now lose effectiveness sooner. Audiences are moving quickly, platforms are hungry for fresh content and short-form video has raised expectations.
Attractions that maintain performance are testing new hooks, refreshing creative regularly and producing more varied content. This does not mean every asset needs to be highly produced. In fact, the rise of authentic creative means simple, real and timely content can often work better than overly polished campaigns.
The real opportunity: spend smarter
Many attractions are planning to increase digital advertising budgets, with a large proportion expecting to spend between 1% and 10% more in 2026.
That makes sense. Media costs are rising, competition is increasing and platforms continue to introduce additional charges and complexity. But the answer is not simply to put more money into the same activity.
The real opportunity is to spend smarter.
That means fixing tracking, separating brand and prospecting activity, understanding the role of each platform, testing TikTok, refreshing creative more often and using authentic content to build trust.
Digital advertising for attractions is becoming more competitive, but also more measurable and more creative. The attractions that win will not necessarily be those with the biggest budgets. They will be the ones that understand their data, adapt quickly and make it easier for visitors to say yes.
