Challenge
The Tippie College of Business was not satisfied with several aspects of their MBA lead generation efforts. The cost per lead was higher than they wanted, the number of leads had decreased over time,
and they wanted to improve their brand awareness for their highly ranked program.
Results
During the first year that we implemented the above changes, we saw a 45% increase in leads, and a 30% decrease in CPL. During the first two years we were not able to increase their budgets, but we’ve subsequently gotten approval for 25% more spend, which was a result of the improvement in performance.
Solution
As is the case with all clients, True Interactive performed campaign audits to develop a roadmap for improving results.
Our initial review of their tactics found many areas for improvement. The paid search campaigns were built several years ago and did not follow current best practices. This included the number of keywords, the match types, the bidding strategies, and the improper use of audiences. Additionally, a lack of ad copy and landing page tests all led to poor performance.
We also audited the tagging and reporting that was being used and found discrepancies between their CRM data and Google Analytics.
We started with the measurement clean-up, because we knew it wouldn’t matter what we did if the data wasn’t accurate. We discovered errors in their implementation and set-up of Google analytics that we immediately corrected. We then built a new Brand campaign and two new non-brand campaigns that focused on either the online or on campus terms. Those campaigns were duplicated for local (Eastern Iowa) and then a regional version.
We built a Discovery campaign (now called Demand Gen) that included:
Custom intent audience using MBA keywords (non-brand)
In-market audience for business education
Excluding current students and alumni lists
Excluding higher age ranges
We rebuilt a remarketing campaign and ran images ads and responsive display ads.
We then built a new LinkedIn campaign for prospecting to help with the awareness goals. We used interest targeting and lookalike targeting. We worked with Iowa to develop profiles on the age ranges, companies, seniority levels and types of jobs that align with current and past MBA students.
Lastly, we launched a YouTube campaign that capitalized on its ability to attract prospects who have shown an interest in graduate-level business degrees.
Based on performance, we developed a media plan that detailed how much was spent on each tactic, and weighed the spend so that we took advantage of the higher performing months.