Competing with the University of Phoenix on paid search, on a fraction of the budget.
Every degree program has a different cost to acquire and a different lifetime value. Treating them all the same in paid search was the actual problem — not the media budget.
One CPL target for programs with very different economics.
A for-profit education company needed to compete for paid search visibility against a much larger, better-funded competitor. The existing approach applied a single cost-per-lead target across every degree program — treating a nursing program and a business-certificate program as if they generated the same downstream value, which they didn't. That mismatch was capping how aggressively the business could bid without knowing if it would actually pay off.
Model lifetime value by program, then let the budget follow the value.
We segmented cost-per-lead targets by individual degree program using a lifetime-value model, rather than one blended target across the whole portfolio. That let the business justify a much higher acquisition cost for high-value programs and pull back on lower-value ones — bidding with real program-level economics instead of a single average.
4x the spend, 60% more applications, and enough visibility to generate inbound interest from Google itself.
Once bidding reflected actual program-level value, the business supported 4 times its previous media spend and generated 60% more submitted applications, while reaching top-3 paid search positions against much larger competitors. The campaign's performance was strong enough that it generated direct interest from Google, leading to inbound business outside the original engagement.
Bidding the same for every lead, regardless of what it's actually worth?
A single CPL target across a varied portfolio usually means you're underbidding on your best opportunities.
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