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Google, Meta, and programmatic all run on machine learning, and constant tweaking doesn't help that process. It resets it. Here's why the real key to campaign performance happens before launch.

There's no set price tag on a digital marketing campaign — the more you spend, the more exposure and results you get. Here's how to build a budget around the result you actually need.

University of Saint Francis just welcomed its largest class in five years, with enrollment up 12.74%. Here's how our four digital campaigns across Meta, Google Ads, and programmatic helped make it happen, and the results behind them.

Comparing your campaign to industry averages or a competitor school might feel like a benchmark, but no two institutions compete under the same conditions. Here's why your own past campaigns are the only true apples-to-apples comparison.

Sending campaign traffic to your homepage or general admissions page might be capping your enrollment results before prospects ever convert. Here's why dedicated landing pages outperform, and how to build one for your next campaign.

Digital marketing gives colleges and universities more ways than ever to reach prospective students, promote academic programs, generate inquiries, and support enrollment goals. See the 14 mistakes that quietly undercut those campaigns — and exactly how to fix each one.

SEO and AI search can help colleges build long-term visibility, reach prospective students earlier, and strengthen paid enrollment campaigns. Learn how an integrated organic, paid, and AI-focused strategy can improve discovery and support enrollment goals.

Digital marketing for higher education enrollment: We do more, you get more! Check out the work we put into a single digital marketing campaign for spring transfers.

Digital marketing for higher education enrollment: We do more, you get more! Check out the work we put into a single digital marketing campaign for nursing.

Question for enrollment professionals: What reporting statistics are the most useful when you’re evaluating the success of a digital recruitment campaign?

There’s an affordable and effective way to promote your academic programs—and it works: SEM Academic Cluster Campaigns. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) uses paid search ads to connect students with programs they’re actively researching. For higher ed, this means meeting students at the exact moment they’re searching for a major you have—making them highly-interested prospects.

At Calculate, our digital marketing campaigns are built to achieve your enrollment goals - not pad our bottom line. They are thorough, robust, and complex. See for yourself. Here’s the work we put into a single general undergraduate campaign.

How do you evaluate the success of a digital recruitment campaign, especially when using a third-party vendor? Which of the many metrics included in the campaign report show success in reaching the right prospects and moving them through the admissions funnel?

I want to share this particular digital recruitment campaign for two reasons: its success in delivering leads and what it says about messaging.

When it comes to digital marketing for higher education enrollment, technology can be a dangerous thing. I’m not referring to the dark web, viruses, ransomware, etc. I’m referring to how technology is often seen as the “solution” to problems when, in most cases, it’s really the tool that facilitates the processes that solve the problem.

May 1 came and went quietly, reiterating the fact that nothing is typical about the current admissions cycle. The impact of Covid-19 remains to be seen and there have been few positive enrollment reports — so, here’s one we’re happy to share and happy to have been part of.

In our last post, we demonstrated how digital marketing campaigns can yield significant enrollment results — especially at key points of the recruitment cycle. In another example, we worked with the University of North Carolina, Wilmington (UNCW) to grow summer enrollment for transfer and late-to-enroll first-year students.

The best enrollment manager I know taught me this: great enrollment rarely comes from one big idea or change in approach. Rather, it grows in bits and pieces, from identifying small pockets of potential that lead to recruiting “10 more students here and 20 more here” until it adds up to a significant increase.

The recruitment cycle is fraught with make-it-or-break-it deadlines, perhaps none more critical than May 1, Decision Day. As prospective students weigh their acceptance and financial aid offers, colleges ramp up communications in an attempt to secure deposits.

Want an enrollment campaign that keeps on giving? Go digital. In addition to the many obvious reasons why college and universities should be recruiting online, here’s another: Digital enrollment campaigns (when done right) fuel all other online recruitment investments — most notably, an institution’s website and social media presence.

The rise of digital marketing has provided higher education marketing teams with an unprecedented toolkit of tactics and methods for reaching their intended audiences. We are now at a point in time where 1 to 1 marketing is not only a reality but it’s an affordable reality. Psychographic and demographic targeting are a marketer’s dream and the inherent nature of the digital medium allows us to modify and manage our campaigns mid-flight.

As former employees of a University’s enrollment management team, the Calculate principals have the unique viewpoint of having been both the client and the consultant on digital advertising projects. Our philosophy on how to properly strategize, produce, and evaluate a digital marketing campaign was born from our own frustration.

May 1, which looms large in the minds of admissions professionals, has come and gone, marking the end of the recruitment cycle. Now we tally up our deposits, take a vacation, and then start preparing for the next cycle, right? Hardly.

More is expected of enrollment management professionals these days than is realistic. Not only are we supposed to be experts in traditional recruitment, but we also need to be skilled digital marketers — a field we all know requires constant vigilance, evolvement and expertise.

This institution — a small, liberal arts university — had experienced a substantial increase in its undergraduate enrollment so turned its attention to graduate recruitment. In particular, the administration wanted to meet enrollment capacity in 4 online master’s programs. Calculate recommended a digital campaign that would attract “perfect-fit” prospects based on demographic and self-reported traits.

Our own foray into digital search started when the university we worked for hired a digital marketing firm. At first, it sounded pretty good: they would develop digital ads to promote a specific academic program and we would select the target audience.