KPI Tracking for Post-Secondary
Tracking Benefits
Knowing the cost/student is important to post-secondary recruitment departments as it allows them to understand:
Which media channels, platforms, and audiences produce the highest Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) Develop marketing budgets based on program needs
Definitions
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):actions a user takes on campaign landing pages, or site-wide, that track events related to the client’s sales funnel.
Sales Funnel: how far along the sales process a customer is based on KPI actions.
KPI Conversion Event: site visitors who click on an email or phone link, submit a form, purchase a program online via store checkout, or apply online through a third-party centralized application system, or an individual school application portal.
Cost/Lead (CPL): the marketing cost to generate a lead
Cost/Application (CPA): the marketing cost to generate an admission application
Cost/Start (CPE): the marketing cost to generate an enrollment
Cost/Student (CPS): the marketing cost to generate a student (enrollment after 10 days to be determined by the school)
Site Conversion: the percentage of visitors to the client site that click on a tracked conversion event
Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): a marketing metric that measures the revenue generated for every dollar spent on advertising. It shows how effective an ad campaign is at generating sales and is calculated by dividing the campaign’s total revenue by its cost. ROAS is a key performance indicator (KPI) used to assess campaign profitability and guide future ad spending decisions.
Sales Funnel
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Sales funnel tracking is broken down into three levels:
- Top-of-the-funnel: engagement with advertising and site visitation
- Middle-of-the-funnel: site actions such as program or ‘contact us’ page views, etc.
- Bottom-of-the-funnel: site actions such as email or phone clicks, form submissions, store check-outs, third-party centralized application system, or an individual school application portal
The purpose of this service is to track bottom-of-the-funnel events, optimize media, and develop corresponding benchmarks.
Service Overview
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The service can be used by client schools or agencies that need to track marketing spend to channel, platform, or affiliate.
Initial tracking is set up and monitored for future campaigns. If the client’s tracking requirements change, additional tracking can be set up.
Tracking can be set up to track
Cost per lead (CPL) – to paid or owned media marketing channels, platforms:
- Email and phone clicks
- Form submissions
- Store check-outs
Cost per application (CPA) – to paid or owned media marketing channels, platforms:
This requires setting up additional tracking of a third-party centralized application system or an individual school application portal.
Cost per enrolment (CPE) – to paid or owned media marketing channels, platforms:
This requires passing information from the school’s enrolment platform to the marketing platform if the two are separate. Big Clic is available to support this integration.
Alternatively, the school can pass an enrolment metric of applications to enrolments that can be applied to return an estimated CPE.
Cost per student (CPS) – to paid or owned media marketing channels, platforms:
This requires passing information from the school’s enrolment platform to the marketing platform if the two are separate. Big Clic is available to support this integration.
Use Cases 1
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A school with its own school application portal:
A school wishes to track its marketing efforts to bottom-of-the-funnel sales events. Users can apply through their own school application portal and purchase programs on their site via an owned-and-operated store.
The marketing team want to track media back to a specific campaign and understand:
- How many people contacted the school directly via email or phone clicks?
- How many people submitted forms?
- How many people purchased programs online via store checkout?
- How many people applied through an individual school application portal?
- How many people applied through a third-party centralized application system?
- The cost to generate a lead
- The cost to generate an application
- The cost to generate an enrolment
- The cost to generate a student
- Evaluate which marketing channels, platforms, vendors and audiences produce the strongest ROAS
Use Cases 2
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A school utilizing a third-party centralized application system
A school wishes to track its marketing efforts to bottom-of-the-funnel sales events.
Users can apply through a third-party centralized application system and purchase programs through a third-party store.
The same tracking used in use case 1 will be set up in the third-party centralized application system and/or third-party store, leveraging existing partnerships with leading centralized application systems and e-commerce SaaS platforms.
Use Cases 3
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Either of the above schools would like to set up KPI tracking to evaluate their affiliate lead generation partners.
Users research programs on the affiliate site, then either:
- Request school-specific program information from the affiliate site. The affiliate then sends the information request to the school
- The user is referred to the school site
For users referred to the school site:
The same tracking used in use case 1 will be set up for the affiliate site referral traffic, leveraging existing partnerships with leading affiliate publishers.
For users who submit inquiries to the school from the affiliate site:
The same tracking used in use case 1 will be set up for the affiliate inquiry submissions, by affiliate source.
Use Cases 4
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A school that wishes to post affiliate leads directly to its CRM with the record source.
Affiliate marketing partners provide advertising for school programs to generate interest. Big Clic manages the studentROI Affiliate Network, which works with over 75 affiliate partners to drive and measure lead conversion for our clients.
Users research programs on the affiliate site, then either:
- Request school-specific program information from the affiliate site. The affiliate then sends the information request to the school.
- The user is referred to the school site.
Big Clic will set up lead posting from the affiliate site to the school CRM, by affiliate source and enable the same tracking in use case 1 to allow the school to evaluate how each affiliate partner converts.
Use Cases 5
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Affiliate marketing partner
An affiliate marketing partner wishes to track the value of its referrals to bottom-of-the-funnel sales events.
Users research programs on the affiliate site, then either:
- Request school-specific program information from the affiliate site. The affiliate then sends the information request to the school.
- The user is referred to the school site.
Tracking options
For users who are referred to the school site:
- How many people contacted the school directly via email or phone clicks?
- How many people submitted forms?
- How many people purchased programs online via store checkout?