PPC Conversion Rates

A fellow colleague at another university e-mailed me about conversion rates for PPC campaigns. He said he had trouble finding anything online about higher ed PPC conversion rates, so I asked him if I could republish my e-mail response in case it might be of help to you. Also, if you have PPC conversion rate info of your own, please share it in the comments below. Thanks!

E-Mail:

Hi Rob –

I found you through BlogHighEd, and was wondering if you had any information to share on a topic that I am currently investigating – pay-per-click search engine marketing.

In addition to an imminent complete website overhaul, I’ve been tasked with developing a pilot PPC program, and I’ve not been able to find any data related to PPC in the Higher Ed vertical.

I posted to the educause mailing list asking if anyone had positive or negative experiences with the various companies that work in this space (Network Solutions, Clickable, Yodle, ReachLocal, etc.), but I did not get any responses. Have you had experience in this area?

Also, I’ve read that across all PPC marketing, the average conversion rate is 2% – but I’m guessing that is heavily weighted towards consumer product sales, and not Higher Ed inquiries/applications. Any thoughts on what might be reasonable in terms of performance expectations after the initial couple moths of keyword honing?

Any information you can provide would be very, very much appreciated. If you are aware of other fellow Higher Ed colleagues who might have expertise in this area, I would be very grateful if you could pass along this email.

My Response:

Yeah, 2% is on the low side. But, since PPC is based on competitive bidding and geo-targeting, conversion rates really depend on which programs are being marketed, where and when. It also depends on whether you are doing display and/or extended network ads. We’ve had campaigns that have had conversion rates as high at 13.75% and as low as 1.57%. Our overall campaign conversion rate since October 2008 is 4.03%. However, this last fiscal year, we increased the number PPC conversions even though we decreased our conversion rate, so it really depends on what you value more, the number of leads or the conversion rate.  But I would say with some confidence that you can do much better than 2%.

Hope that helps and good luck with the upcoming campaigns!

Rob

Determining Brand Credibility

Relevant brands exist in the overlap of what internal audiences value (product) and what external audiences value (market demand). Once a relevant brand is developed, decisions must be made regarding what its capabilities are and what opportunities exist for it in the marketplace (competition). Three factors determine whether a brand can be successfully established in a particular market space: market relevance, market capability and market opportunity.

Credibility Footprint Diagram

Market relevance is where your brand promise is formed. A brand must be continually evaluated to ensure that it is still relevant in a particular market space. Market opportunity is when student demand is present in an open market space (i.e. one that is not greatly contested). But the university must be capable (academically and financially) to meet the opportunity. Market capability is when you can offer a product that the competition can’t or won’t. However, the value of market capability is contingent on market demand. When all three of these factors come together, you have the credibility needed to establish your brand in a particular market space.

[From our university's brand portfolio]

Branding Questions: E-mail to Art Prof

Our university is getting ready to open a senior art studio and gallery downtown and my department was brought in to help with developing a sub-brand for it. At George Fox, we value student input and involvement, so the art professor who is heading up the studio – and who is also a member of the university’s marketing team – asked me to send some questions to help facilitate a discussion with his senior art students on developing the sub-brand. So, I thought, why not pass it on? Maybe it will be of some use to you!

E-mailed Questions:

Vision:
What does the future look like?

Mission:
What is the primary reason for your existence?

Values:
What matters to you?

Brand Promise:
A brand promise is a valued and differentiating promise that you make to your most important audiences to meet a need or fulfill an expectation. The purpose of a brand promise is to encapsulate the ideas expressed by your vision, mission and core values into one succinct statement.

What promise can you make that will matter to your most important audiences?

Brand Creative Objectives:
Brand creative communicates your brand promise in ways that are emotionally engaging. What objectives can you identify toward this end?

Brand Creative Strategy:
One sentence on what you’re attempting to do.

Brand Creative Tag Line:
What is the “phrase that pays” for your target audiences? Take your brand promise and narrow it down to an emotionally engaging phrase or word.

Brand Creative Rationale:
Why will this creative work? A brand creative rationale can be developed by answering the following questions:

• Is this brand creative based on widely shared core values?
• Is it broad enough to encompass your diversity, yet specific enough to show your distinction?
• Does it fulfill a need or expectation held by your most important audiences?
• Is it is realistic? Is it something you can deliver?
• Is it aspirational?
• Is it different?
• Is it measurable? Can it produce tangible results?
• Is it dynamic? Can it cover all the things included in your mission and vision?

Brand Attributes:
What are the three to five action words or phrases that can be used as talking points for describing your brand?

*Keep in mind that this sub-brand is working within the context of our fully-develop institutional brand – Be Known.

University Business Highlights George Fox’s Branding Efforts

Check out the September issue.  Bob Sevier interviewed six of us. The subtitle reads, “Ten years after higher ed became enamored with “branding,” a panel of university marketers talks about lessons learned.