From Goal to Action

We took over this account from another agency, and we wanted to compare performance using the same key performance indicators (KPI) as in the past, to ensure like-for-like comparisons, so we made adjustments to Google Analytics and Tag Manager.

The big job was the new campaign structure, based on the information of campaigns from the past and from our own research. We increased keywords covered from below 4,000 to more than 45,000. The campaigns were divided per department – on marketing, business or education qualifications for instance – making it easier to assign budgets and switch campaigns on or off, as needed. We wanted to see how performance of the various campaigns were going. Is the offer on construction courses better than that for the language courses, for instance?

Much traffic came in the past from keywords related to jobs, vacancies, courses and training. That didn’t help Thomas More. At BossData we believe that segmentation is key. That means building campaigns that are as specific as possible related to searches. We increased the amount of excluded keywords by 138% since they were generating a negative ROI.

Next we built display and remarketing campaigns that focused on detailed targeting on a departmental basis. The remarketing campaigns for example were focussed on specific courses that were difficult to fill.

Results

The new level of segmentation that we implemented boosted results massively. On Google searches we registered an increase of 369% in the number of conversions compared to the previous year. The cost per conversion dropped slightly while the overall conversion rate increased by 25%.

For Google Display, for example, we measured an increase of more than 35% in conversion rates and more than 100% in the number of conversions. All in all the ROI from the campaigns increased and we were very successful at attracting more relevant traffic for Thomas More via our SEA campaigns. Initial goals achieved – and there’s more still for us to do.

👩🏼‍🎓 +369% SEA conversions

👩🏼‍🎓 +25% SEA conversion rate

👩🏼‍🎓 +100% Display conversions

👩🏼‍🎓 +35% Display conversion rate

What’s Next?

For us the SEA campaigns functioned as accurate market research for SEO, which is our next step. We now know exactly which the important keywords are for Thomas More, which keywords were positive and which were negative. Alongside SEO we believe conversion optimization is an aspect that really needs immediate attention.

We believe if we use a more commercial approach – emphasizing the benefits of Thomas More for instance, with reviews from students and their subsequent employers – on the website we could convince many more potential students to study there. Besides SEO, email marketing could be a very powerful tool for Thomas More. We are now looking at ways to integrate email capture better into their website.