Capturing real, active demand
When Missourians searched "COVID vaccine near me" or "free flu shots," MO Vax was there: 321K+ impressions and 49.6K+ clicks on search ads, routing people straight to vaccination resources at the exact moment of intent.
Public-health behavior change 01
Moving a whole state to get vaccinated, one audience at a time.
MO Vax is Missouri's statewide vaccine awareness effort. Our senior team led the paid-media program behind it: not a single billboard message blasted at everyone, but a tailored system of creative and channels built for the people who actually needed to hear it. The result was 147M+ impressions, 30.5M+ video views, and two national awards, and, more importantly, a measurable lift in people finding vaccination resources.
By the numbers 02
A statewide campaign that earned attention, with the data to prove it.
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impressions delivered across all digital channels, up 23% over the prior period
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video views statewide, a 51% jump as the message scaled into winter
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clicks on the ads, a 17% increase: real people seeking out resources
Gold & Silver
2025 Ragan PR Daily Content Marketing Awards
A note on attribution: MO Vax is work our founders and senior team led, executed during prior agency tenure (media leadership at Lambert). We present it as the credentials you'd be hiring (the experience and the system), not as a Zoned Marketing client logo. Figures are drawn from the program's own paid-media reporting (May 1 – Dec 1, 2024).
The challenge 03
Vaccine messaging doesn't fail on reach. It fails on relevance.
By 2024, "get vaccinated" was background noise. Audiences were fatigued, skeptical, and fractured. A 23-year-old in St. Louis, a parent in Springfield, and a 58-year-old in a rural county don't share a worry, a platform, or a reason to act. A one-size message reaches everyone and moves no one.
Missouri's Department of Health & Senior Services needed more than awareness. They needed people to actually find resources and act across COVID, flu, polio, measles, HPV, RSV and more, in communities with the highest vulnerability, where the stakes are real and trust is hardest to earn.
And it's public money. Every dollar had to be tracked, every audience reachable, every asset accessible. Performance and accountability, not one or the other.
One state, many audiences
Our approach 04
We didn't run one campaign. We ran three: one for each audience, tuned to the platform and the worry.
The strategy was simple to say and hard to do: meet each audience where they already are, in the language they already trust, with the specific vaccine that matters to them right now. Then measure relentlessly and move budget toward what works.
Young Adults
COVID-forward messaging on TikTok and Instagram: short, native, creator-style video built for a thumb-stopping feed, not a TV slot.
Parents
Childhood-vaccine messaging (polio, measles, HPV, meningitis) on the platforms parents actually use, framed around protecting the people they love.
50+
General and RSV messaging on Facebook and YouTube, where older audiences engage, comment, and share, extending paid reach with organic lift.
Channel by intent
Search to capture active demand, YouTube and CTV for awareness, TikTok and Meta for the feed. Each channel doing the job it does best.
Equity-weighted targeting
Media weighted toward high Social Vulnerability Index counties: the communities where access is hardest and the impact is greatest.
Always-on optimization
Creative tested by audience, budget shifted toward winners, and seasonality leaned into as winter vaccination interest climbed.
How it performed 05
Every channel pulled its weight, because each one had a job to do.
Reach is easy to buy. Reach that converts into people finding resources is the hard part. Here's how the system performed, channel by channel, against the audience each was built for.
Awareness that holds attention
7.2M+ video views, up 63% period over period, with creative cut per audience: COVID for Young Adults, polio for Parents, general messaging for 50+. The platform did its best work building awareness where a feed ad can't.
Native video that earns engagement
14.7M+ impressions and 192K+ clicks across Young Adult and Parent audiences, with Parents actually outperforming on engagement. Creator-style, message-specific video that looked like the platform, not an interruption.
The click engine across every age
The top click-driver of the program: 25.4M+ impressions and 240K+ ad clicks. The 50+ audience commented and shared on Facebook, multiplying paid reach with organic lift; Parents on Instagram climbed to a 1.17% CTR.
The outcome 06
Impressions are the start. Action is the point.
The campaign didn't just get seen. It sent people to the place that mattered. Missouri's MO Vax landing page drew 404K+ visitors and 469K+ page views, with thousands of clicks on resource buttons and file downloads. That's the whole game in public health: turning attention into the small, concrete actions that protect a community.
The work was also recognized nationally, earning Gold and Silver at the 2025 Ragan PR Daily Content Marketing Awards, a national benchmark for content that performs.
Explore our public-health practice →
404K+ landing-page visitors
Why it worked 07
Not a bigger megaphone. A smarter system.
The same thinking that made MO Vax work is the thinking we bring to every engagement: audience first, channel by intent, measured to the action that matters.
Segment, don't generalize
Three audiences, three message strategies, dozens of creative variants. The relevance is what cut through the fatigue: a parent and a 23-year-old never saw the same ad.
Buy by intent, not by habit
Search for active demand, video for awareness, social for the feed. Each channel was held to the job it does best, and the budget followed the proof, week over week.
Measure the action, not the impression
Clicks, landing-page visits, downloads, form submissions: every dollar tracked to a real-world step. Public work has to be defensible, so we built it that way.
Related work 08
More proof from work our team has led.
Economic developmentSelling a whole state as the place to build a life
28,000+qualified leads in a single fiscal year at national scale
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Financial certification650% lower cost-per-lead, year over year
6,000+qualified leads against a 3–4K goal, on similar spend
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Public energy authorityDigital infrastructure for a public energy authority
10+clean-energy program sites serving millions of residents
Read the case →
Let's talk 09
Have a public to reach and an outcome to move? Let's build it.
Behavior change is our home turf: multilingual, accessible, measured to the action that matters. Tell us about the audience and the goal, and we'll tell you honestly how we'd approach it.