Programmatic Ads
Highly targeted ads delivered to the right audience at the right time
Learn moreUniversities marketing
University marketing across programme-level demand
Prospective students search by programme, not by institution. Programme-level pages and campaigns capture demand the brand campaign misses.
The problem
What usually goes wrong
These are the problems we see most often in universities accounts before we take them over.
- Brand campaigns that cannot be attributed to enrolments
- Programme pages competing with the central site for rankings
- Domestic and international demand needing separate strategies
The fix
How the engagement runs
Week 1
Audit
A full read of your current universities visibility: rankings, ad spend efficiency, tracking accuracy and the three competitors taking your calls.
Weeks 2–3
Foundation
Tracking fixed first. There is no point optimising against numbers that are wrong, and most accounts we inherit have broken conversion tracking.
Month 2+
Compound
SEO and content build the base while paid covers the gap. As organic rankings climb, paid spend gets reallocated rather than increased.
Ongoing
Report on jobs
Monthly reporting on booked work, not impressions. If the number is not moving, we say so and change the plan.
The niche
What makes universities different
Prospects search by programme, career outcome and format — online, evening, accelerated — not by your institution's name. Meanwhile web governance sits centrally and every dean wants their programme promoted, so the bottleneck is often internal rather than in the market. The cycle from first touch to census is long enough that campaigns get judged before they can be measured. International recruitment runs on different channels and intermediaries, and outcome claims carry disclosure obligations.
Prospects search by programme, career outcome and format — online, evening, accelerated — not by institution name. Web governance sits centrally while every dean wants their programme promoted, so the bottleneck is often internal rather than in the market. The cycle from first touch to census is long enough that campaigns get judged before they can fairly be measured, and outcome claims carry disclosure obligations.
The checklist
What a well-run universities account has in place
If you are already working with an agency, this is a useful list to hold them to. If you are not, it is what we build first.
- Programme pages built around career outcome and format, matching real search language
- A CRM and nurture flow that survives a months-long consideration cycle
- Agreed leading indicators — applications started, RFI-to-applicant rate — so campaigns are not judged only on census
- Outcome and salary claims kept within accreditation and disclosure rules
Channels
What we typically run for universities
Search Engine Optimization
More organic traffic that improves your search ranking
Learn morePPC Management
Paid campaigns managed against booked revenue, not clicks
Learn more
Questions
Universities: common questions
Capture the source at enquiry, store it on the CRM record, and pass enrolment outcomes back to the ad platforms as offline conversions. Then report on cohorts rather than months: this term's starts against the campaigns that ran a year ago. In between, use application submitted and deposit paid as working signals. Anything judged on last-click inside a single quarter will mislead you.
Keep them on the main domain in nearly all cases. Separate domains split your authority, start from nothing, and multiply the governance problem instead of solving it. If the real issue is that central web slows you down, fix that with a programme page template and delegated editing rights. Reserve separate domains for genuinely distinct brands, such as an executive education arm or a joint venture.
Different search behavior, different platforms, different intermediaries. Agent networks carry much of the volume in some markets, and Google is not the default search engine everywhere. Visa questions, English requirements and total cost including living expenses dominate the decision, so pages that dodge them lose the enquiry. Build country-specific content only for markets you genuinely recruit from, and staff response times for those time zones.
Find out how we can help your business succeed.
Let's talk about your universities pipeline
Free audit, no obligation, and you keep the findings whether you work with us or not.
Free audit · No obligation · No long-term contract
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