THE CHALLENGE
How can a state university recruit the most impressive student prospects online? Especially when there’s no database that tracks students by GPA or academic performance. For the College of Science at a four-year state university, recruiting high schoolers who excel in science, tech, engineering and math (STEM) was a top priority. The state university worked with Advance to reach STEM students online and increase enrollment in the College of Science.
THE STRATEGY
We developed a four week digital campaign leading up to National Decision Day, when seniors choose which college to attend — researching the 40 top-performing STEM high schools in the four closest states. Half of the campaign went toward mobile in-app ads, geo-targeted to those schools. Any student who engaged with an ad and then left the area were retargeted later using the other half of the budget. In total, the university spent less than $3,000 to deliver 250,000 ad impressions over four weeks. By National Decision Day, the results were in.
THE RESULTS
- 1,134 clicks at 0.46% CTR (click-through rate)
- 113 admitted students, 88.3% increase
- 79% increase in Honors College students from the College of Science
Ad Choices
