Abstract

The effectiveness of increased targeting of health communications in engaging parents in distracted driving prevention is unknown. This study aimed to compare website engagement and requests for a parent-teen distracted driving prevention kit before and after increased targeting of digital promotion and social media posts.Kohls Drive Smart is a distracted driving prevention program for parents and teens from a level one paediatric trauma program. A digital campaign targeted on age, gender, and interests was deployed to attract viewers to the website. Modalities included Facebook posts, streaming video and banner ads on websites frequented by parents. Engagement data was collected before (YR1) and after (YR2) increased targeting. Impressions, website click through rate (CTR), visit duration and pages per session are reported by age group and digital platform. Parent-teen driving kit requests are reported by month. Program data were collected from July 2015 through February 2017. Impressions and CTR increased year 2 (15,743,030; 0.41%) over year 1 (14,561,628; 0.30%), from 64 872 vs. 44 343 clicks respectively. In year 2, US media drove 42 097 website sessions, averaging 1.86 pages per session (up 54% over year 1). Average visit duration increased 849% in year 2 over year 1 (4.54 minutes vs. 30 s, respectively). Year 2 over year 1 Teen Kit orders increased 39%. Parent search re-targeting and contextual placement in digital advertising matched with seasonal timing was more effective in attracting parents to the website and holding their attention, than general messaging and geotargeting. A seasonal, parent-targeted call to action was more effective than general posts in social media engagement and parent action in year 2 of the Kohl’s Drive Smart campaign. Messaging around distracted driving prevention is normally highly generalised. More precise parent targeting can increase parent engagement with program media and increase effectiveness of a call to action.