The UK higher education sector is more competitive than ever, and universities are having to work harder and smarter than ever to raise awareness of their courses and attract the right students. The marketing team at the University of Derby wanted to push the message that the University is ranked in the top 10 for graduate employability. The team wanted to actively prospect to both students and their guardians - to drive information and prospectus requests, attendance at open days (including virtual open days), and applications for courses.

In order to raise awareness of their courses and attract the right students the University decided to test online display advertising. They needed a programmatic advertising partner that could provide them with a straightforward, in-house platform that offered complete visibility into performance and spend, and help them understand how to successfully achieve their goals through online advertising.

Admedo worked with the University of Derby team to help them set achievable goals for an initial 6-week campaign, and provide full training and account management support to help them understand programmatic advertising and how to manage the platform themselves. A CPA target of £50 was set, with a candidate acquisition target of 500. Three distinct tactics were also employed to help precisely target the right groups: Student targeting: retargeting of website visitors and parental targeting. (See attachment for details)

The University of Derby achieved their campaign target of acquiring candidates at £50 or less, with a cost per acquisition of £49.97 over the 6 week campaign period. Candidate acquisition targets were also met, with over 500 conversions achieved. Through regular testing, they were also able to understand which creatives performed most effectively.