University of Medicine and Health Sciences
Applying the SEM Connector to increase leads for UMHS by 500% in a single month.
Challenges & Issues
- Messy account structure with minimal consistency.
- Unjustified bids that were leading to overblown CPCs.
- Poorly monitored keywords spending thousands of dollars and gaining nothing in return.
- Misallocated budgets going to traffic with poor performance and campaigns with good performance being limited or underutilized.
- Absence of program specific strategy and ad copy.
Unfortunately, we see management negligence way too often and UHMS was one of the most extreme cases to come to our agency.
Their money was getting WASTED and they weren’t even aware about it!
It was our job and ethical responsibility to take better care of their precious advertising budget.
James Winstead
VP of Marketing
Solution Process
1. Account Foundation
We began by making sure we had a solid account foundation. This account had already been set up, so it was a matter of checking if everything was the way it should be. The client had too many conversion actions, some of which were redundant. Thus, we made sure we’re not double tracking anything and removed the junk. We adjusted attribution settings and studied the audiences available. We also studied the client’s business and the current account structure so we could base our our new structure plan on this data.
2. Account Structure
Most accounts don’t have good structures, which limits their ability to perform. They are often inconsistent and do not follow a single logical structure. This significantly burdens the optimization process. Other agencies and in-house marketing teams are more frequently than not disorganized when building out accounts. UHMS was such a case where the previous agency had campaigns and keywords all over the place, lacking common structural integrity.
We reinvented the way their account was built by developing a category-based structure with a unique URL and ad copy for each category. We also employed match type and device breakout on the campaign level, which ensured very precise and structured optimizations. Keywords were chosen based on past performing keywords because there was already a lot of data in the account that we could use. This process ultimately set up UHMS’s account for success!
3. Optimizations
After launching the initial account structure, we began our ongoing optimization process. We started the campaigns on manual CPC, which many agencies overlook in exchange for automatic bidding strategies. However, starting with AI will waste your money because AI likes spending money and high CPCs. Starting on manual CPC allows for a progressive ramp up process and provides the AI with data to use in the future. It also offers the most control in the early testing stages of campaign launch.
From there, we optimized numerous segments such as age, gender, household income, ad schedule, geo location, etc. All of this was integral for the success we achieved with UHMS’s account and the 483% growth in leads we achieved in just the 1st month of management!
4. Data Integration
At this stage, we had the front end in a good place. We saw a massive increase in leads and an 81% reduction in CPL. The next stage in setting up an education account for success is integrating the front-end data with the back end. This allows us to see which keywords trigger the leads in the CRM. We had to integrate Google Ads & Bing Ads in order to pass keyword level data to Pardot. If you would like to learn more about how we did this, you can check out our free guide on back-end data integration here!
5. Lead Quality
Once we had collected sufficient data, we could start improving the lead quality. The goal was not just to get a cheaper CPL but also a cheaper cost per application and from there, a cheaper cost per enrollment! We paused targeting, which was gathering leads, but they weren’t leading to students taking steps further down the funnel. Next, we gathered data on device and match type performance, which allowed us to make smart, data-driven decisions about budget allocation. Category based performance is also important, so we calculated which CPL each keyword category must perform at in order to have (roughly) equal cost per applications across all categories.
6. Funnel Optimization
After making several big improvements on the PPC side of things, we could focus on improving other elements of the business, such as funnel optimization. A better landing page experience is what UHMS needed most, so we got to work in that area.
The Results
- 1st month
o 483% increase in leads
o 81% decrease in CPL - 2nd month
Further 31% MoM increase in leads
Further 32% decrease in CPL - 88% increase in average monthly applications
- Organized front-end account structure providing the ability to launch events such as seminars and open houses on a consistent basis
- Back-end data integration providing the ability to analyze very granular PPC data such as campaign, keyword, device & match type performance
The Proof
May vs April
June vs May
“Within two months of working with this team, they literally were able to hit our lowest cost per enrollment we have ever seen while hitting our highest monthly enrollments. Because of them, we are now saving $2M a year while growing enrollments.”
Sarah Hernandez
Director of Marketing
