Pay-Per-Click advertising, or PPC for short, is paid advertising. However, unlike more traditional forms of advertising you’ll only pay when somebody clicks the actual advert. If you’ve ever been on search engines like Google, almost every single one of the ads you see displayed will be PPC advertising.
PPC advertising works incredibly well because, in theory, the only people clicking your adverts will be those interested in products. You’ll only be paying for ‘hot’ leads. While businesses tend to be the ones that benefit the most from PPC, schools can benefit too. For example, a well-produced PPC strategy can boost potential applicants for the school and even boost the reputation of an educational establishment.
Nowadays, more and more schools are engaging in PPC advertising, particularly fee-paying ones. On this page, we want to share a few tips that can help to maximise your school’s PPC campaign.
1. Define Your Campaign Goals First
A PPC campaign can only be successful if you know two things:
- What the aim of the campaign is.
- Who you are targeting.
For example, if you’re promoting an open day, you’ll want to attract prospective parents to your school’s website.
Understanding what your campaign will guide how your campaign will play out, where you should run your campaign, your budget, and, most importantly, how you determine whether your campaign was a success.
2. Target the Right Location and Demographics
When you run a PPC campaign for a school, chances are you want to keep the campaign to a very specific area. For example, within your local town/city or, at a push, inside the local county. The only time you’ll really need to shake things up is if you’re an incredibly reputable private school that wants to grab people from further afield. One of the great things about PPC advertising is that you have a lot of control over who can see your ads. You can target to within a certain radius of your school, or even per postcode. This means that the only people who see your adverts are the ones who it is most relevant to.
You can even narrow based on demographics. For example, some platforms offering PPC adverts will allow you to narrow down by parental status or age range, ensuring only those with kids who are broadly within the age range you’re targeting will likely see your adverts.
3. Use Keywords Parents Actually Search
Your PPC campaign should be built around keywords parents are searching for. For example:
- Best schools in (location)
- Independent schools near me
- Book school open day
This is why it is so important that you understand who your campaign is meant to target. You can then get into the minds of the potential searcher and know what they are most likely to be searching for.
For example, you wouldn’t want to choose a generic keyword like ‘school’, because there’s no guarantee the person searching for that keyword is interested in you. But, if they typed in ‘good primary school in (location)’, then you know the parent is potentially interested in getting their child signed up to the school.
4. Write Compelling Ad Copy That Sells Your Strengths
Think about what you think a parent would like to know about your school. This will encourage them to click on your advert. For example, you can highlight the following in the ads:
- Ofsted ratings
- Exam results
- Unique facilities at the school
- School values
Make sure that you highlight the benefits of your school. Make the parents believe that they need to learn more about you.
Don’t forget to have a clear call to action too. Again, this will be tied to the type of campaign you’re running. For example, if you are creating a campaign that is aimed at getting more sign-ups then go for ‘Apply Now’, or something similar.
You should run multiple ads (read more about split-testing), so you know what works and what doesn’t. Ditch the non-converting ads.
5. Optimise Your Landing Pages for Conversions
One of the biggest mistakes you can make when running an ad campaign (and this goes for any digital ad campaign) is to have your advert link directly to the home page. It makes no sense. You’re sending people to your website for a reason, and you don’t really want them to hunt around to work out what they need to do. Make things easy for them, and you’ll have much higher conversions.
Create unique pages for your ad campaigns. For example, if you’re creating a campaign to encourage more sign-ups or open-day registrations, send people directly to the right form.
You might also want to include a bit of relevant information on there e.g. key information, testimonials, etc. Don’t overload people, though. Only share what they need to know. You never want the site visitor confused about what the next step is.
6. Use Ad Extensions to Expand Your Message
Some PPC platforms allow you to use ‘ad extensions’ which allow you to add more to your ad than a single link and a piece of text. Use them. You can use ad extensions to:
- Add links to specific parts of your website.
- Add contact details for your school
Some other PPC platforms may allow you to do more than this. While, sometimes, it costs a little bit more to have ad extensions, we find it is worth it. They help to improve the visibility of your ad, and the click-through rate. This means more potential leads.
7. Set a Smart Budget and Use Automated Bidding
One of the great things about PPC is that you have full control over how much you spend. You can set daily limits, meaning that you’ll never outspend your budget.
While some people will set the individual budget for each of their ads, we highly suggest that you use bidding strategies such as Target CPA (offered by most PPC platforms) that will automatically ‘bid’ per click for you. This means the PPC platform will always try to come up with a cost-per-click that is in line with your budget, while also maximising conversions.
You should always keep an eye on your PPC campaign. If ads aren’t performing as well as you hope, drop them. Focus on highly converting ads.
8. Retarget Visitors Who Didn’t Enquire
Ever visit a website, not buy anything, and have the ads follow you around for a while? This is known as ad retargeting, and the advertiser hopes that if you’ve shown interest in their site once, it means you’ll probably show interest again. After all, if you were interested in buying a product, you might still be interested. You just clicked away as you’re not in the mood to buy there and then.
So, use site retargeting. This keeps reinforcing your message and, over time, will boost conversions.
9. Schedule Ads around Key Events and Times
You probably shouldn’t run ads 24/7. Instead, run campaigns around key events and times. For example, if you’re about to run an open day, or open up enrolment, run ads. Don’t run a campaign if you’re not looking for new applicants. It is wasted money.
You might also want to think about the times your ads are running. For example, you’re more likely to have success with your ads if you display them of an evening or at the weekend. This is because parents are much more likely to be online then.
10. Review Your Campaigns Regularly
Don’t leave your campaigns to run and run, check them regularly. See how your ads are performing. Crank up the ads that seem to be doing well and turn off the ads that are costing you money.
Using a combination of Google Ads and Google Analytics, you should be checking your CTR, conversions and, ultimately, your cost-per-lead. You want every ad to make you money.
We highly recommend split-testing ads and dropping ones that don’t perform well.
Ready to Launch Your School’s PPC Campaign?
A PPC campaign is a powerful tool for driving new students to your school. In the right hands, a proper PPC campaign will generate more than its value, often many times over. Run your PPC campaign alongside your SEO, and you’ll be dominating the search engine results. However, we cannot stress enough how easy it is to get a PPC campaign wrong. That’s why you should work with the professionals.
Need help with marketing or website design for your school? Get in touch with our expert team today.
