William Jessup University reached out to us for help with advertising their new online-only set of degree programs for both undergraduate and graduate students. The school was not currently running any search ads for online programs, so we developed a robust strategy that would appeal to prospective students who wanted to complete their accredited college degree entirely online.

Keyword Research

We used Google Trends data and other proprietary data sources available to us to perform research on the target market. We identified the terms that competitors were using to trigger their ads and aimed to improve upon the intent of the consumer by constructing a list of long tail keywords. We knew that we were entering a highly competitive marketplace, so we had to be careful with the match types used to ensure we weren’t casting the net too wide.

High Intent Audience

Our goal with the search ads was to only show ads to people who were most likely going to apply or wanted more information. A private online college appeals to those in their mid to late 20s, all the way up to those in their 50s. The cost associated with the program also eliminates some neighborhoods and device types. So through analyzing all the data, we narrowed down where our ad spend would be going – giving William Jessup University a better chance of a higher return on their investment.

Display Advertising

After a few months of the search ads starting to yield results, William Jessup wanted to explore other avenues of opportunity, to further decrease their cost per application, and get more of them. We discussed using a highly engaging display remarketing campaign, to get those who have already shown an interest, back to the website to sign up for more information.

We had huge success with this. Introducing remarketing display ads increased goal completion by 22%. The traffic to the website also increased by 67% – all for just an additional 12% increase in ad spend.

Ongoing Optimization

With these two tactics working together, and integrating with their paid social efforts, we’re reducing the cost per application significantly. Future plans for expanding our efforts include adding YouTube non-skippable ads to the remarketing mix and also to in-market audiences who have a history of researching university programs.

How Did COVID-19 Affect This Business?

Luckily, with technology, operations haven’t been impacted at William Jessup University. In-person classes have moved to online remote sessions for the duration of the lockdown. Online courses are largely unaffected. Looking at the analytics data, traffic has actually increased slightly during the lockdown, so everything is business as usual here.