The Challenge
Colorado Shines is the state’s quality rating and improvement system, designed to help families identify high-quality child care and support providers in improving care. While the system offers a standardized way to evaluate quality, it requires both family awareness and provider participation to be effective.
Many families were either unaware of Colorado Shines or did not understand how to use quality ratings when choosing care. At the same time, providers faced barriers to participation, including perceived complexity and limited time. The core challenge was building trust in the system, increasing awareness, and motivating both parents and providers to actively engage with it.
Our Approach
SE2 approached this work through a multi-year, integrated strategy designed to make child care quality easier for families to understand and act on. At the foundation was the development of clear, plain-language messaging that demystified what “quality” means in early childhood care and why it matters for children’s development.
To ensure this understanding translated into action, SE2 optimized the Colorado Shines website experience—improving how families search for, compare, and identify quality-rated providers. This included refining user pathways and prioritizing content that supports decision-making at key moments.
SE2 also developed English and Spanish toolkits that break down the core components of early childhood quality into accessible, real-world guidance for families and providers. These resources helped extend understanding beyond awareness into deeper engagement.
All efforts were reinforced through sustained, targeted paid media campaigns over several years, designed to build awareness, drive traffic to the platform, and ultimately connect families across Colorado to quality child care options.
The Impact
Efforts to promote Colorado Shines contributed to measurable progress in both quality and access across the state. The percentage of high-quality providers increased from 30.9% in 2023–2024 to 33.4% in 2024–2025, alongside a 2.1% increase in licensed infant and toddler capacity, growing from 38,416 to 39,218 available spots.
Paid media campaigns played a key role in driving awareness and engagement. Facebook generated the highest overall reach with 1.8 million impressions, including 928,000 from the English-language campaign alone. Google Search delivered strong intent-driven performance, achieving a 4.99% overall click-through rate (CTR), with the English campaign reaching 6.84% CTR.
Additional channels reinforced engagement: Entravision e-blasts achieved a 1.92% CTR with a 17.7% view rate, Bright by Text outperformed benchmarks with a 2.69% CTR (exceeding the 1.25% benchmark), and dynamic display banners in both English and Spanish drove stronger performance and more clicks than static formats.
While multiple factors contributed to these outcomes, SE2’s integrated communications and media efforts helped increase visibility, engagement, and connection to quality child care—supporting continued growth in both provider quality and family access.
