Work / Palm Coast Marina

Case study

VideoAdsAI

Palm Coast Marina: Captain IQ

From an ad on the phone to fuel at the dock, and every step counted.

Diagram of the Captain’s Journey: the ad, the quiz, then the marina, where staff check the voucher on the dock tablet and fuel savings are applied
The plan we drew for fall 2026.

01

The goal

Turn boaters passing on the ICW into fuel dock visits, and show the marina what the marketing brings in.

02

What we did

  • Ads on Facebook and Instagram.
  • Captain IQ, an 8 question quiz that unlocks a fuel savings voucher good for 90 days.
  • A dock tablet check in, so the crew logs every voucher visit.
  • One dashboard for every lead, visit and gallon.
  • Captain testimonials and a dock welcome video.

03

The thinking: why the marina needed its own tool

Ads can fill a list with leads. What the marina could not see was what happened next: which captain came to the dock, and what the visit was worth. So instead of a plain lead form, we built the marina its own CRM tool, with AI doing the heavy lifting on the build. The quiz captures the captain, the dock tablet logs the visit, and one dashboard holds every lead, visit and gallon so the crew can follow up.

  1. Leads are the easy part.

    Follow up and tracking are the hard part. So the build starts at the dock, not at the ad.

  2. A quiz, not a coupon.

    The ad asks 8 rules of the road questions. A captain gets a rank, then unlocks fuel savings at the marina.

  3. One step at the dock.

    The crew checks the voucher on the dock tablet and enters their initials. Every visit is logged where it happens.

  4. Sharing is free reach.

    A captain who shares a score sends dock mates to the quiz.

  5. What we cut.

    No new creative for the fall relaunch. The same ads came back on, and the out of date ones stayed off.

04

The dashboard

Leads, outreach, dock visits, contacts and pages live in one admin hub, with a report view on top.

  • The Captain IQ admin dashboard, database view, with row counts for quiz leads, dock entries and outreach
    The database view: quiz leads, dock visits and outreach, counted in one place. Private details are boxed out.
  • The Captain IQ admin dashboard, analytics view for the last 7 days, with visits by source
    The analytics view, Oct 21 to 27, 2026. Private details are boxed out.

05

The full campaign, in real numbers

The Meta quiz campaign ran from Mar to Jun 2026 at about $1 per Meta lead, on $1,828 in spend. 88% of quiz leads came from Facebook.

Quiz leads
413 captains took the quiz in the first season.
Finished
320.
Average score
6.5 out of 8.
Cost per Meta lead
About $1 per lead, Mar to Jun 2026, on $1,828 in spend.
From Facebook
88% of quiz leads.
Dock tablet
192 dock check ins and 10,427 gallons logged.
  • Meta ad: 8 questions. Your score? Over an aerial photo of the marina docks
    The quiz ad.
  • Meta ad: Beat your dock mates. Over an aerial photo of the marina
    The share ad.
  • Meta ad: Fuel up. Tie up. Over an aerial photo of the fuel dock
    The fuel ad.
  • Video thumbnail: A trusted stop on the ICW, a captain testimonialPlay
    A captain on why he stops here.
  • Video thumbnail: Palm Coast Marina welcome videoPlay
    The dock welcome video.

Result

What changed

413 captains took the quiz in the first season (320 finished), with an average score of 6.5 out of 8. The dock tablet logged 192 dock check ins and 10,427 gallons. Every lead, visit and gallon lands on one dashboard.

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