54.5% Decrease to Cost Per Lead Thanks to Testing

Rapid Testing to Launch Educational Programs

Pinnacle Career Institute had always worked with agencies specializing mainly in education until the summer of 2019. They realized they needed to work with an agency that offers a different approach, with measurable results that would better inform their marketing decisions on social media. The tech school wanted a more effective way to promote their new programs, so they decided to partner with EmberTribe.

With Facebook as their main source for leads, it was essential to determine how cost-effective their marketing campaigns were at generating audience engagement and click-through rates, among other things. To do that, Pinnacle Career Institute collaborated with our team to establish benchmarks to determine cost-lead effectiveness.

EmberTribe launched the paid Facebook ads campaign for Pinnacle Career Institute's TowerTech program by testing variations of creative media and audience demographics to reduce cost-lead and meet the client's goal for audience engagement.

Building Ad Creative Variants

Ultimately, the answer was to focus on a different lead and cost per lead goal each month, specific to the career tech program. Then we tested audience engagement by varying the three key elements in a Facebook ad: the image, text, and call to action (CTA).

Focusing on the visual, we tested variations in size, image, and still images vs. video. Additionally, we tested various images portraying the campus, student life, and more intimate close-ups of individual students. We also experimented with text based on the tech program, focusing on brevity to make the point quickly and efficiently.

Finally, we varied the CTA from ad to ad and set indicators to establish what inspires the audience to take action.

Using Benchmarks to Guide Success

The strategy in launching the TowerTech program was to use lead generation ads to target audiences in the middle of the funnel (MoFu), create benchmarks each month and success indicators, then test and revise using the data and comparing it to our goals.

Benchmarks include:

Average click-through rate (CTR)
The average cost per click (CPC)
Average conversion rate (CVR)
The average Cost per Action (CPA)

Of course, the primary goal is to minimize cost-lead. An increase in the volume of high-quality leads and the cost per lead drops were the prime indicators that the campaign was doing well.