Case Study

McGill University – School of Continuing Studies

“HEM was able to conﬁgure and connect various platforms so we have the insight we need from each campaign to be able to make data-driven decisions!”

David Kynan, ACTING DIRECTOR OF MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS.

Challenges

Like many education providers, McGill University School of Continuing Studies offers students the option to register and pay for its programs directly on its website, specifically using its Modern Campus Destiny One eCommerce platform.

Despite investing heavily in digital marketing campaigns to support student recruitment, McGill University School of Continuing Studies found properly evaluating the success of its efforts was a challenge. Due to the complexity of tracking user journeys across ad channels, its website, and Modern Campus Destiny One, the school’s team found that it had:

» No firm conversion data on leads, applications, registrations
» No method to effectively run and act on split tests
» Inability to diagnose and optimize funnel stages
» Inability to track ROI on ad spend to guide decision-making

This made it harder for the school’s team to evaluate and optimize their campaigns, and to justify ad spend to their stakeholders.

Objectives

Having worked in partnership in the past, McGill SCS approached Higher Education Marketing (HEM) to:

» Run new ad campaigns for its programs;
» Help implement an eCommerce tracking model that would better enable them to measure the applicants, registrations, and revenue their campaigns were driving through Modern Campus Destiny One.

When we ﬁrst started using Destiny One (now Modern Campus), we weren’t getting the data we needed to understand how our campaigns were performing. We needed a way to see applications, registrations, and return on ad spend (ROAS) by campaign to know what working and what to optimize. Well, now we have it!

HEM was able to conﬁgure and connect various platforms so we have the insight we need from each campaign to be able to make data-driven decisions! David Kynan, Acting Director of Marketing & Communications

Solutions

To tackle a complex problem like McGill SCS were facing, HEM examined their lead generation and conversion framework from top to bottom. From there, we developed a four-stage plan to implement more measurable campaigns

1. Implementing Improved Tracking

The first step in the project was to implement a measurement plan that would track results from multiple channels and give a clear picture of the revenue and registrations each was driving.

2. Creating Online Ad Campaigns

HEM adopted a multichannel paid advertising strategy for McGill University SCS, developing campaigns for Google, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. The campaigns were program-specific to allow the school to target its audience with more precision.

3. Creating Custom Landing pages

By creating unique landing pages for the campaigns, we could present prospects with a form to make an inquiry directly on the page to better facilitate lead capture and conversion.

4. Developing Email Drip Campaigns

With the new landing pages increasing the chances of inquiries from prospective students, HEM and McGill SCS created email nurturing campaigns to help drive these new leads towards registration.