Paid Digital MEdia
Google Search Ads for Higher Ed
Boost the effectiveness of your search ads and avoid common pitfalls with our unique approach to driving more high-value clicks from right-fit students.
As a Premier Google Partner Agency with over a decade of higher ed-specific experience, we know what it takes to get the quality clicks that other agencies miss
In the world of higher education digital marketing, Google Search Ad management is big business. In fact, the largest universities in the country spend an average of nearly $780,000 per month on PPC. Despite the price tag, many agencies that manage higher ed paid search ads struggle with effective goal-setting, strategy, tracking, and attribution — making it next to impossible to run successful campaigns.
At Vital, we take a different approach, combining innovative keyword targeting strategies with airtight, full-funnel attribution, so you can be sure that your PPC budget is driving more than just clicks. When you work with Vital, your Google Search Ads campaigns are an integral part of your cross-platform paid digital media strategy, turning clicks into the leads, inquiries, and applications your institution needs to thrive in this highly competitive space.
Why higher ed paid advertising is so challenging
Colleges and Universities We’ve Worked With
Campaign Strategy
As higher education Google Search Ads experts, we know that if you fail to treat your PPC campaigns as an integral piece of your total digital marketing strategy, you’ll never realize the full potential of the clicks you’re paying for. While there may be no way around the expensive cost-per-click for in-demand higher education keywords, we deliver dramatically increased return on ad spend (ROAS) by targeting potential students at every stage of the decision-making funnel across platforms, as well as leveraging campaign data to continuously hone in on the keywords and clicks that ultimately lead to applications and enrollments.
Keyword Research & Optimization
Google Search Ad keyword optimization is both an art and a science. With over a decade of experience running keyword-based search campaigns for higher education institutions, we begin with the science of proven keyword strategies and apply creative approaches customized to your institution once the data tells us what’s working (and what’s not). We maximize the effectiveness of your campaigns by targeting the keywords your ideal students are searching for and constantly weeding out those that lead to unproductive clicks.
Advanced Audience Targeting
Audience targeting strategies for higher education paid digital ad campaigns range from the obvious — such as remarketing audiences and high school or college students and their parents — to the unexpected. We dive into the data from both audience and keyword-based campaigns to uncover affinities for topics as wide-ranging as outdoor activities and health and wellness. Knowing which audiences convert at higher-than-expected rates enables us to build campaign strategies that connect your higher education institution with new potential students — and can even provide the key to resonating with their values and interests through targeted creative approaches.
Bid Strategy Optimization
When you work with Vital, you don’t need to worry about a lengthy and expensive trial and error process while we figure out the right bid strategies for your Google Search Ad campaigns. That’s because we apply a tried-and-true process that has worked for dozens of higher education clients — and it’s based on the little-known truth that, at the outset of a campaign, you’re paying for data. Our secret sauce is knowing precisely what data we’re after and how to leverage it to drive the greatest enrollment impact for your institution.
Ad & Landing Page Optimization
Focus and discipline are everything when it comes to creating effective higher education Google Search Ads and landing pages. While it can be tempting to try to deliver broad messages about your institution’s value, we know that only highly targeted, highly relevant ads and landing pages will accomplish your goal — which is, quite simply, to get prospective students to click on the ad, visit your landing page, and take the next step in their enrollment journey. We are experts in creating ads and landing pages that drive action, bolstered with social proof in the form of videos, testimonials, and other experiential content to ignite your prospects’ emotional response.
Performance Max Campaigns
Once you’ve settled into consistent performance on your higher ed Google Search Ads, Performance Max campaigns can be an effective way to scale. In particular, when run alongside display campaigns, Performance Max can be a good way to increase impressions and get your school’s brand in front of new eyes. Unfortunately, because Google controls what ad headlines and creative assets are shown to what audiences, they can also be a quick way to lose money without gaining useful data. That’s why we follow a few rules of thumb when running Performance Max campaigns for our higher ed clients: keep ad copy clean and precise, use your highest-quality images, and allocate a modest budget.
Cross-Channel Integration & Remarketing
In the world of paid digital media for higher education, it’s generally best to advertise on as many platforms as possible. After all, today’s prospective students are digital natives who are highly susceptible to online marketing. Prospects who are actively searching for higher ed options may first find you via a Google Search Ad campaign — but they might not take action until they’ve seen your ads on YouTube, TikTok, and their favorite websites. We think of remarketing and cross-channel advertising as another form of lead nurture, and it all drives toward filling your enrollment funnel.
CRM Data Integration
Your CRM is a treasure trove of data. If you know how to tap into it, it can be the key to running more successful Google Search Ad and other paid digital ad campaigns — which means converting more clicks to applicants and driving down your cost per enrolled student. We like the Hubspot CRM because it integrates directly into the Google Ads platform to find more prospects like your best-converting leads. But even if you can’t achieve this level of integration with your tools, we’re able to use the information in your CRM to tighten up our ad strategy.
Custom Reporting & Data Insights
Most Google Search Ad management agencies focus on just a few metrics — like clicks, conversions, and cost-per-conversion. Our extensive higher ed experience allows us to go much deeper than that, creating reports that paint a holistic picture of your prospective students’ enrollment journey. In our weekly reporting calls with our higher ed clients, we highlight the metrics that matter, including all actions taken on your landing pages to make sure you’re not losing clicks to unproductive exit paths.
Accessibility & Compliance
As a full-service digital marketing agency for higher education that specializes in both paid digital media and website design and development, we are always up-to-date on the latest web accessibility and compliance standards. We ensure that your ads and landing pages are built to the highest level of accessibility and that you never have to worry about staying in compliance with regulations that impact higher education.
–28%
Decrease in Cost-Per-Lead
+30%
Increase in eCommerce Sales
+40%
Increase in Click Through Rate (CTR)
–35%
Reduction in Cost Per Click (CPC)
What’s Included in a Higher Ed Google Search Ad Management Plan?
When you work with Vital to manage your higher education Google Search Ads, you get everything you need to succeed, including:
- Keyword research and optimization
- Audience targeting
- Competitor analysis
- Campaign setup and management
- Budgeting and bid management
- Ad copywriting and creative service
- Videography and photography for creative assets
- Landing page creation and optimization
- Ad testing and optimization
- Campaign analytics and reporting
Essential Reading
Webinar: 7 Paid Ad Campaigns Universities Should Be Running (But Aren’t).
Get insights into the tailored PPC solutions many higher education institutions and agencies miss to go beyond the basics and run cost-effective campaigns that drive real enrollment results.
Vital’s Approach to Managing Google Search Ad Campaigns for Higher Education
When you’ve been doing this as long as we have, you learn a few things about how to ensure maximum efficiency and return on ad spend. Here’s how our unique, structured approach works:
1. Quarterly Strategy Sessions
We believe that every quality client engagement is built on collaboration. That’s why we meet with your team before we start running campaigns, and every quarter after that, to align on goals, ensure that your paid ad campaigns are having a real impact on your quality lead count, applications, and enrollments, and refine our plan for continuous improvement.
2. Weekly Status & Data Calls
Once your campaigns are up and running, we meet with you weekly to review the metrics that deliver the most insight into how prospective students are interacting with your ads, hear from you about the impact on your enrollment team, and plan tests, tweaks, and optimization strategies to keep growing your enrollment funnel.
3. In-depth Monthly Reports
Once a month, we pull together all the data to report holistically on the performance of your paid ads, including Google Search Ads. We identify areas of potential growth and recommend new campaigns, changes to existing campaign structure, content enhancements, and more.
Google Search Ads for Higher Ed Process
We take a thorough, deliberate approach to getting started on the right foot. Here’s how:
Step 1: Questionnaires
We start by asking you to fill out questionnaires about your history with Google Search Ads — as well as what makes your institution special, what programs you’re most focused on, what types of students you want to attract, what your lead-generation and enrollment goals are, and what other institutions you consider to be your biggest competitors.
Step 2: Audit of Current Account
Unless you’re brand new to Google Search Ads (it happens!), we dive into a thorough assessment of your account, applying our custom Google Ad account audit process based on years of experience analyzing higher education accounts for weaknesses and opportunities. We break down your current account to learn as much as we can from past performance, then benchmark all KPIs as a baseline for future success.
Step 3: Kickoff Meeting
Once we’ve done the prep work, we have a kickoff meeting with the full team to review timelines, walk through each step of the setup process, and mine your completed questionnaires and audits for hidden insights and discoveries.
Step 4: Keyword, Audience, & Competitor Research
Starting with our proven higher education keyword strategies as a baseline, we conduct thorough research to address any missed opportunities found in our audits. We customize your keyword list, create ideal student profiles, and gather insights from your competition. Then we segment the keyword list into campaign groups for your approval before inputting the new keywords into your account.
Step 5: Account Setup or Restructuring
We set up or restructure your account settings, including campaign setup, Ad Group setup, copywriting and testing setup, match type, extensions, bids, goal tracking, call tracking, negative keywords, and audience targeting setup.
Step 6: Ad Copywriting
Writing PPC ads is a balance of art and science. The ads need to be persuasive, informative, and direct, all within very tight character limits. Luckily, Vital has a team of experienced copywriters who have been writing higher education PPC ads for years. We also consistently test ad copy to determine what works best in the higher ed sphere so we have an arsenal of data to build off of.
Step 7: Ad Design & Creative Assets
If we’re running Google display campaigns along with your search campaigns, Vital will design multiple flights of ads in the chosen ad platform’s recommended ad size dimensions. Our ads are designed to be enticing and eye-catching, while representing your school’s brand. In addition, we enhance ads with photography or video where appropriate.
Step 8: Landing Page Setup
To have meaningful success, your ads need to drive users to a landing page that will convert them. Vital will help write, design, and develop landing pages for your campaigns according to tried and true best practices. We’ve formed our own higher ed landing page best practices based on years of testing different landing page formats.
Step 9: Report Creation
Vital creates a custom dashboard report for each client. To start off, Vital imports all historical data, and then we update our main dashboard report every month. Vital reports on metrics in terms you understand. We pride ourselves on reporting in the language of higher ed (leads, inquiries, applications), and we don’t try to mislead you with vanity metrics. We provide and review reports with clients on a monthly basis. That said, you’ll always have full access to your account and can log in at any time to review metrics.
Step 10: Account Maintenance Meetings
Once we’re up and running, we get you into our established cadence of weekly status updates, monthly in-depth reporting, and quarterly strategy sessions. This is the structure that drives continuous improvement that builds over time, and it’s why the majority of our higher ed Google Ads clients stick with us for years.
Higher Ed Google Search Ads Pricing
Vital’s pricing for Google Ads management services is pretty straightforward. We charge a one-time account setup or restructure fee which varies depending on the size and status of the account we’re onboarding. After that, you pay a percentage of your ad spend as a monthly management fee.
Account Setup – Fee Structure (One-Time)
Example Pricing:
Setup Project | Low | High |
---|---|---|
Discovery: kickoff-meeting, strategy, competitive research, questionnaires, stakeholder interviews | $800 | $1,200 |
Keyword research & grouping / audience & demographic targeting | $1,400 | $2,100 |
Account review / setup, budgeting | $560 | $1,120 |
Campaign creation / updates | $1,680 | $2,800 |
Landing page design and content update | $980 | $1,960 |
Miscellaneous Projects | $0 | $1,400 |
Total: (final project pricing TBD in Discovery) | $5,420 | $10,580 |
Ongoing Management – Fee Structure (Monthly)
Spend level is based on a per-channel/network spend unless otherwise stated. If you partner with Vital to manage paid digital advertising in addition to your Google Ads account, your monthly management fee will be a percentage of your spend on a single channel, not on all channels combined (e.g. If you spend $5,000 on Google Ads and $5,000 on Meta Ads, your rate will be based on a $5,000 spend level, not a $10,000 level).
Clients who enroll in a digital marketing retainer in addition to Google Ads management services receive a 10% discount on monthly management fees.
Custom quotes can be provided upon request.
Paid Media Spend (Monthly) | Management Fee (Monthly) |
---|---|
< $4,999 | $980 (minimum) |
$5,000 – $9,999 | 17.5% |
$10,000 – $19,999 | 15% |
$20,000 – $29,999 | 12.5% |
$30,000 – $99,999 | 10% |
$100,000 – $499,999 | $10k+ Custom retainer available |
$500,000 – $1mm+ | $20k+ Custom retainer available |
The Truth About Google Search Ads for Higher Ed (That Other Agencies Won’t Tell You)
When new clients come to us, they’re often focused on two things: increasing conversion rates, and driving down cost-per-click or cost-per-conversion. You may have encountered agencies that tell you they can deliver both. Here’s the truth:
Due to the competition for higher ed-related keywords, clicks and conversions from Google Search Ads are typically expensive. Focusing too much on decreasing this cost almost always results in lower-quality clicks and unproductive leads.
That’s why it’s important to work with an agency that understands the role Google Search Ads play in your holistic digital marketing strategy and your paid digital advertising strategy in particular. At Vital, we combine bottom-of-the-funnel Google Search Ads campaigns with full-funnel strategies that include cross-platform display and video ads to dramatically increase both high-quality leads and overall ROAS.
We’ve been doing this for higher education institutions like yours for over a decade, and our strategists and specialists keep getting better at their jobs. That’s why we can afford to tell the truth about your projected cost-per-conversion — especially when that metric turns out to be much less important than you may have thought.