Case Study
Marshall University Increases Impressions, Searches, Clicks, AND Conversions with Degree-Focused Paid Digital Media Strategy
Scope
Overview
Marshall University is a public research university located in Huntington, West Virginia that offers a variety of undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees both in person and online. With an array of programs that have earned national recognition, Marshall has been named one of the top 100 most affordable universities in America. With that type of recognition, clearly Marshall has a lot of appeal to prospective students, but they did need some assistance in getting the word out — especially to support newer and smaller programs. Their internal marketing team wanted a new strategy to stand out within the crowded higher education market, which is why they turned to Vital.
Our experienced team worked to improve their paid and organic advertising and digital marketing efforts with the goal of increasing enrollments. As a result, they saw improvements in every metric — including a 558.75% increase in conversions!
558.75%
Increase in conversions
Goals:
- Drive more traffic, drive more leads, drive more applications, and (ultimately) drive more enrollments
- As a public University with hundreds of individual programs, they wanted to highlight both new programs and existing ones that need to grow
- Get the word out about their Metro rate, which offers in-state tuition for out-of-state students who might be considering competitor institutions
Challenges
Marshall’s small, dedicated team had great marketing knowledge — but struggled with a lot on their plate. In addition to managing their existing marketing initiatives, they needed to take on new responsibilities and expand the scope of their advertising to meet the growing needs of the University:
- They knew there was a lack of general awareness about what their different programs offered, especially with regard to newer and specialized programs, and how they differed from nearby competing programs. Relying on Google’s campaign recommendations wasn’t giving them the results they wanted.
- They needed to clear up confusion about in-state vs. out-of-state tuition costs and let prospective students know about the different ways Marshall is an affordable option. And they had to get that message out in a way that was affordable.
- The internal team did not have enough resources or an established strategic approach to support their organic marketing efforts. They were so occupied with handling the day-to-day necessities, they didn’t have the bandwidth to create the new initiatives necessary for the improvements they needed.
Vital’s Strategic Approach
Our team of higher education PPC experts recognized that Marshall’s team was missing key approaches and best practices that could have helped their efforts. Here’s the strategic roadmap we offered them.
Apply a proven strategy
The very first thing Vital brought to Marshall was fresh eyes on their website and digital marketing campaigns. With our outside insights, we had a different perspective on what wasn’t working for them, and what was working for other higher education institutions.
Because we’ve built program pages hundreds of times for other clients, we were able to build templates and structures for Marshall guaranteed to yield long-term results. We also brought a disciplined structure to create net-new content that makes it easier to continually support individual programs through organic marketing efforts.
Prioritize programs
You can’t do everything at once, so we had to work with the team to identify their priorities and where we should spend our time. This process involved establishing a baseline of performance, defining their goals, and identifying the unique challenges associated with each program. For example, are prospective students actually visiting the pages, but not filling out forms? Then we know there’s a conversion problem. Or, in the case of a newer program, are people not even visiting the page? In which case, we have to find ways to increase awareness.
Tighten up their advertising efforts
Once we knew what to focus on, we got started on creating campaigns that would bring about results for both organic and paid strategies. Our approach accounts for all parts of the buyer’s journey, which includes engaging with students who aren’t necessarily ready to apply, but are at an earlier stage where they’re comparing different schools and programs, or are just looking for more information. We also had to account for the more specific terms used by searchers near the end of their journey (at the bottom of the funnel).
The existing Marshall team was running campaigns based on Google’s recommendations on how to build a campaign, which wasn’t sufficient for what they wanted to achieve.
Because we work with a lot of higher ed institutions, we were able to quickly develop an approach that defined a program’s audience and find the most effective keywords for that audience. This allowed Marshall to get the word out for unique degree programs, even the ones lacking keywords with the highest search volume.
Refine their keywords
Marshall was previously on paid search channels — which is pretty common for higher education institutions and something we (almost always) recommended for our higher ed clients. One of our priorities was to review their existing campaigns and figure out how to optimize them to reduce the cost-per-click and increase conversion rates to increase value.
We looked at a lot of data to refine their keyword selection, identify what their target audience was searching for online, and then get in front of those new keywords they weren’t going after before. As a result, we were able to add a range of net-new keywords to their account to drive better results.
Align advertising and content creation
One area that Marshall’s team just didn’t have the capacity for was in creating original, organic content. Fortunately, we have a system in place where much of the blog content that we pitch and then create is built off of the content of advertising campaigns.
That way, when we do capture a lead, there is organic content that we can point them to or share. This coordinated approach creates multiple touch points for prospective students — reinforcing our positive results.
Results
When Marshall initially launched their new campaign, the first few months focused on very general, university-wide ads at the top of the marketing funnel. We leveraged generally college terms with less competition that allowed us to lower cost per click while maintaining solid conversion rates. That approach was an immediate success, and we saw significant improvement.
The next step was where the real work began, which was to incorporate a variety of degree-specific campaigns to raise the visibility of the programs that Marshall wanted to increase enrollments for. While these keywords are more costly to go after and have a lower search volume, it creates a better environment for our team to optimize for conversion rates.
The higher-intent results allowed for higher conversion and click-through rates, which counteracted the higher cost per clicks, and led to substantially better cost per lead metrics.
Here are the YOY improvements in Marshall’s Google Ads from when Vital took over the account:
Impressions: +456.40%
The number of times an ad or piece of content is displayed to users, regardless of whether they interact with it.
Clicks: +299.28
The count of times users click on a digital ad or link, showing active engagement with the content.
Click Through Rate (CTR): +63.52%
Known as engagement rate, the percentage of impressions that result in users clicking on the ads.
Conversions: +558.75%
The number of desired actions (e.g., purchases, sign-ups) completed by users after engaging with an ad or content.
Cost Per Lead: -33.34%
The average amount spent to acquire a lead, which determines how efficient are your ads — spending less is better!
Conversion Rate: +64.98%
The percentage of users who completed a desired action out of the total who interacted.
What’s Next?
For Vital, nothing here was anything unique — we took what already existed and applied the best practices we’ve built up across dozens and dozens of institutions. We built a solid foundation at a very early stage, which allowed for expansion, scaling, and creativity over time.
With this success, we’ll continue to add new programs to the advertising efforts and experiment, innovate, and further refine our methods over time. When you work with an agency like ours that has significant experience in higher education, then you benefit from several important advantages:
- An experienced team that regularly collaborates across different accounts to share information and insights
- Synergy between organic and paid advertising, allowing for creation of gated resources that you can leverage for campaigns, and the creation of resources that support priority programs
A strategy and road map for success, providing you the opportunity to define what your goals look like and ensuring everyone on your team is on the same page
Partnering with Vital has been transformative for our digital marketing strategy. They’ve helped us maximize the impact of every dollar, hour, and resource, ensuring that we remain nimble while achieving exceptional and consistent results.
Their collaborative and relational approach has allowed us to confidently navigate the ever-changing digital landscape and connect with our audience in meaningful ways. This partnership is a true testament to the power of smart, strategic marketing.”
Dave Traube
Chief Marketing Officer, Marshall University
Get Ready to Write Your Own Success Story
Just like how our approach worked for Marshall, it will work for your own institution.
Start the conversation about how Vital can help your higher education institution maximize the ROI of your marketing spend.