Wakefly BlogReach Prospective Students with Display Advertising

Are you looking for new ways to reach more students?  Do you feel like you have exhausted all your lead generation options? Infusing budget into online display advertising sounds like the right fit!  According to research done by the Education Market Group, of the more than $600 million dollars spent by higher education marketers on paid advertising last year, 24 percent ($152.3 million) went to online display advertising.  If you aren’t participating, then you are missing the boat, especially if you aren’t remarketing to students who have visited your site. College websites are the most influential recruitment source for prospective students and parents, outranking email correspondence from colleges, sites for college planning, and social networks, according to Noel-Levitz’s 2014 E-Expectations Report.

There are 2 types of retargeting to explore here that satisfy the lower end of the funnel when trying to reach a new pool of prospective students: search retargeting and site retargeting.

Let’s start with search retargeting.  We work with companies like Magnetic.com to utilize their immense databases.  According to Magnetic “Search retargeting is a mid-funnel strategy that reaches audiences with display advertising based on their previous keyword searches in a search engine. Billions of searches happen every month, and the data that Magnetic can capture from a consumer’s search activity represents a strong source of targetable intent. Magnetic has one of the largest pools of intent data, collected across shopping comparison, vertical, eCommerce and product review sites. Search retargeting is an effective way to influence brand preference and purchasing decisions, enabling new customer acquisition.”

Site retargeting is a lower funnel strategy, aimed at reaching consumers that have already visited your website. One of the major benefits of this strategy is that it’s cost-effective.  Since potential students have already visited your site, you now have the ability to target a smaller slice of potential students with a more comprehensive keyword set.  This helps you maintain a lower average CPC because there is less competition for keywords once you get down to this type of granular targeting.

Remarketing also re-engages students who have already shown interest in your school by checking out your website.  This provides you with an opportunity to create a more focused message that will move prospective students along their decision path. Re-engagement often leads to a higher conversion rate as institutions “continue the conversation” with interested students.

While these are just a couple of ideas that have worked well for us, you can also utilize location targeting to only target around your specific locations.

If you think that online display advertising is the right fit for your school, contact Wakefly today!