PPC Strategies for Online Courses & Education
The truth is that academia and studying are not for everyone. Nevertheless, you are still bound to succeed if you make the right moves at the right time. I, myself, never thought of myself as the typical student.
However, I have done a lot of research to help find and reach other people who are interested in pursuing higher education. My career path working on perfect PPC strategies is a challenging one because higher education accounts are rather tricky to market. This is why I have worked hard to help clear misunderstandings and shed light to clarify the confusion.
Why are Higher Education Accounts Tricky?
Account managers usually struggle while working with educational marketing. Although a lot of people are currently willing to continue with their studies, there are several obstacles that account managers deal with:
Budgetary Constraints
Managing your budget is one of the most challenging obstacles that you will encounter. Keywords are extremely expensive and the cash needed might not be available. If you need to get the target keywords for higher education marketing, you will cross the budget limit. This is extremely frustrating even if your company has a high budget. But it is already tight; you will be stuck. If one click costs more than $50, there is a little that can be done to get things going.
A good way for an account manager to overcome that dilemma is by avoiding the busiest times of the year. This is usually the time between fall and late winter. You can always use exceptional target keywords at less busy times. People who are seeking higher education will keep on looking at different times of the year and eventually find your website.
Getting Conversions
You must work on your lead generating funnel all the time to get the conversions you need. Working in educational marketing is different from all the other niches that you might have dealt with as an account manager. Paid search might serve as the first step to nurture your funnel. Other account managers consider this step to be the last one before someone completes an application. The only way to decide is by studying the pattern of your prospects and tailoring your CTA accordingly.
3 actionable strategies for educational PPC accounts
Chances are you already know everything I have mentioned so far. Nevertheless, you are here to know the deep secret hacks that allow you to excel in managing educational PPC college accounts. Here are the top strategies you need for educational smart PPC.
1. Remarketing
Remarketing is not an option when you are dealing with paid higher education marketing. Let’s face it, most prospects seeing your ads are not yet familiar with your program. They might click your page instead of one that belongs to your competitor’s thanks to a great and tempting ad copy, but this won’t necessarily lead to a conversion needed for generating money.
This is where remarketing becomes crucial. This is going to lead to nurturing your funnel because people are going to see your compelling ads every single time. When prospects see enough information or a tempting discount in exchange for an email, they will eventually convert. In that sense, remarketing is special advertising for people who have already been on your website. Facebook and social media platforms also allow you to leverage leads most efficiently.
source: farotech.com
However, you might have to block certain IP addresses. Don’t be afraid to do this if your current remarketing efforts attract spam. It is also important to put your remarketing tag on the entire website. This will lower the cost of competing and bidding for the target keywords to a significant degree.
2. Focus on Dedicated Campaigns
Combining different disciplines in one single campaign is going to put a toll on your budget. If you are working with an educational program or a custom assignment writing service that offers various academic disciplines, it is best to work on each one of them separately. This increases the conversion rate and helps you control spending.
The same applies to ad groups. Divide your inquiry-based keywords and break them into different ad groups. Being more specific enables you to discover which terms are working best. Using these specific terms and long-tail keywords enable you to tailor and tweak your ad copies to cater to the needs of your prospects.
source: mycollegeguide.org
3. Smart Display
There are several new players that can take your smart display efforts up a notch. One of them is the use of Gmail ads. These are paid ads that appear in Gmail inboxes and let me just say this: they are perfect for higher educational marketing. The best part is that you don’t have to pay unless a prospect actually opens the email.
This means that you have to work on compelling email content as well as an attractive subject header. You can target your own domain by targeting people who are already receiving your emails. At the same time, you can target your competitors’ domains by showing prospects that you offer a better return on ad spend. Doing this without actually having to compete for your competitors’ expensive keywords is a win-win situation.
source: fiverr.com
The other option is Display In-Market. This targets hardworking and active customers who are already in the market looking for products and services, similar to the ones you offer. They are most likely going to make a purchase and so represent the qualified traffic you are looking for. Google is actually going to help identify these prospects based on their browsing history. They have probably been to your website or visited other competing websites. They might have been busy participating in forums and other platforms that tackle the same concept. While In-Market might not be the best way to nurture your funnel, it is certainly important.
Although managing educational marketing accounts is not easy, it is not impossible. With the right knowledge, you can definitely make it happen. Combining these amazing strategies together is the best way to increase your conversions while maintaining control over your budget and spending.
