Digital marketing has become crucial for educational institutes in this digitalized world. Be it for medical purposes or educational needs, today, people seek solutions online. As such, PPC becomes important for universities to promote themselves online to make sure they don’t fall behind.
PPC is a part of digital marketing. It allows universities and businesses to promote themselves by running ad campaigns on different platforms, such as Google, LinkedIn, Meta, etc. By using effective PPC strategies, universities can boost their visibility.
In this blog, we will explore how effective PPC strategies help universities attract more students.
Understanding PPC for universities
What is PPC and how does it work?
PPC short for Pay-Per-Click is an essential part of digital marketing. It includes running ad campaigns for different businesses or universities to help them attract more customers and students.
Universities can advertise their services online either themselves or by hiring a reliable digital marketing Agency. Furthermore, whoever is running the ad, be it university itself or the agency, have to add funds to the Google add account. A part of this fund—a charge you pay to the platform—gets deducted every time someone clicks on the advertisement. The deduction varies from ad to add depending on the bidding competition, keyword demands, and audience targeting.
Why should universities invest in PPC?
There are a wide range of benefits that PPC strategies bring for universities. From building a strong online presence and increased visibility, to attracting more students, PPC helps universities reach their target audience effectively.
Let’s discuss the importance PPC for universities to determine why universities should invest in them:
- Visibility: As mentioned earlier, PPC enables universities to promote themselves online by running ad campaigns. These ads consist of high intent keywords and SEO friendly descriptions which make them rank higher in the search engines. Thus, using effective PPC for universities helps increase visibility and drive traffic.
- Improved reach and engagement: People now browse the internet to find good universities and educational institutes. This means that online platforms have comparatively more audiences than offline platforms. As such, PPC for universities becomes important because it helps them grab the attention of this crowd, resulting in higher reach and engagement.
- Higher Profit: With increased visibility, more and more people would notice the university online. This would attract more students, leading to higher profit.
- Cost-Effective: Using PPC strategies mean that universities have to pay charges only when someone clicks on their ads. Additionally, they can manage their finances and change them as needed. This makes PPC quite cost-effective and somewhat more affordable when comparison is made to some other advertisements.
- Targeted audience: PPC allows universities to enrich their ads with high-intent and specific keywords. This helps them target specific audiences based on their geographical location, age, profession etc.
Key PPC Platforms:
There are multiple PPC platforms that are available in the market today. All these platforms differ from one another on the basis of ad formats, targeting options, bidding strategies, etc.
Below are some of the key PPC platforms that universities can use for their ad campaigns:
- Google Ads: Google is a very well-known PPC platform. By using Google, universities can promote themselves to more people because Google lets users make multiple ad campaigns like search ads, display ads, video ads, and shopping ads.
The kind of ad a university wants to run depends on its intent and target audience. While search ads enable universities to appear at the top in search engines whenever someone types a keyword, display ads help them display ads on websites and blogs.
- Meta Ads (facebook & Instagram): Meta is one of the most powerful PPC platforms for universities. It is suitable for universities because it allows them to reach their target audience—students and youngsters.
With Meta, universities can run image ads, video ads, carousel ads, story ads, etc. Using Meta’s PPC strategies, universities can filter and reach audiences based on their age, qualifications, locations etc. In addition, when a user visits any website related to collages, Meta begins displaying multiple university adds to that user. This grows the reach of the ad campaigns as well as works as a bait to entice user to explore and engagement further.
- LinkedIn Ads: Linkedln is mostly preferred for ads campaigns that want to target professionals, post graduates, working people or those looking for jobs. It allows advertisers to create video ads, messanger ads, sponsored content ads, text ads, etc.
By using LinkedIn as their PPC platform, universities can reach and find users based on their education and job title. Furthermore, they can reach individuals who are looking for courses to enhance their skills.
Keyword Research & Targeting
Importance of keyword research for student recruitment
Keyword research is an important part of every student recruitment PPC strategy. It helps universities and schools locate appropriate people, optimize advertising funds, and encourage increased student enrollment.
Target Right Audience: Effective PPC strategies help target the correct audience. These strategies identify what students search for when finding programs. It actively targets students who are searching diligently for universities or programs. Universities as well as educational institutes can show up in the most relevant search results, in addition to attracting important students particularly, via the utilization of high-intent keywords.
Optimize PPC Campaign Performance: The motive behind ad campaigns is to generate leads and improve conversion rates. Therefore, if an ad campaign is not bringing potential students to the university, it is of no use. This is where keywords research comes to the rescue. It helps create better ad copy. It also ensures that ads are shown to the people who are genuinely interested in them, preventing universities from wasting their money on ineffective ads.
Geo-targeting: Keyword research also lets universities use exact geo-targeting as well as draw in both local and overseas students by tactically using keywords tied to a location, like “top universities in Canada for engineering.” In addition, it is important in remarketing plans because it lets universities target potential students who earlier looked for programs from them but did not finish an application. Institutions, by using Google Keyword Planner and SEMrush, can pinpoint several high-converting keywords, optimize multiple content, and sharpen many digital marketing strategies for improved student recruitment outcomes.
Key Features of a High-Converting Ad Campaigns
- The Right Keywords & Engaging Ad Content: Choosing the right keywords is important. Whenever students look for courses, particular keywords make certain ads show up. For example: “Best engineering universities in the USA,” along with “MBA scholarships for international students.”
Additionally, interesting content for ads, with appropriate keywords, is undeniably necessary. Along with relevant images or videos presenting campus life and student experiences, the ad should contain a clear message and a powerful call to action, such as “Apply Now” or “Download Brochure.”
- Simple And Effective Landing Page: Universities should have an effective and user-friendly landing page. It ensures that whenever students click on the ad, they are guided to a simple page where application forms, course details and other information can be accessed easily.
- Ads On Multiple Platforms: For optimal results, PPC ads should be run by universities across many platforms. Google Search Ads especially serve students who are actively searching for programs. In addition, Meta (Facebook & Instagram) as well as LinkedIn Ads are better for creating more engagement along with brand awareness. Furthermore, universities can improve their campaigns by regularly monitoring Click-Through Rate (CTR), Cost Per Lead (CPL), and also the Conversion Rate.
Conclusion:
It is important for universities to adopt effective PPC strategies to promote their services and courses. By using PPC strategies, universities can boost their visibility, rankings, and engagement. This helps attract high-intent students, leading to improved conversion and profit.
However, creating engaging PPC campaigns is not as simple as it seems. It requires experience and expertise, making it necessary for universities to hire reliable digital marketing agencies. These agencies have knowledge and therefore they can create effective PPC strategies for universities.
Want to attract more customers but not sure which PPC agency to trust? Don’t worry, Seven Fusion is here to help you! Contact us now to know how we can help you attract high-intent students.
