How We Promoted Online Courses

Initial data

• The client – Large EdTech company that sells online courses.
• Launch geo – Europe, USA.
• The Product – courses in nutrition and cosmetology.
• Target – Russian-speaking female audience in the US and Europe by interests and age.
• Vertical – EdTech. It’s a white vertical, making it easier to moderate and launch.
• Whitehat (i.e., white vertical) – a product, that complies with the site’s policy. These include clothing, household goods, accessories, dietary supplements, and cosmetics (without medicinal properties or promises of a “miracle effect”).

The goals to increase lead generation and reduce the cost per lead.

The company operates internationally, and the promotion geography is extensive. We were tasked with promoting it in the US and European countries.

It was important for the client that the campaign runs continuously, without blocking, and it was also necessary to use the entire planned budget.

What the client came to us with:

• The placement was chosen only Instagram, in the feed, and in stories.
• The client had experience with advertising on Facebook but needed help scaling the campaign and paying for the services.
• The client must spend a relatively large budget, 3000-7000 € per week, from one advertising account.

Strategy and implementation

As we wrote above, advertising was launched on Instagram for selected GEOs. Our entire support team, official site representatives, and the client are involved in setting up an advertising campaign to achieve maximum results.

The first stage is a detailed study of the media plan.

This stage always includes immersion in the client’s product and business, strategy development, and audience segmentation. This approach guarantees good results for the advertising campaign in the end.

The second stage is the approval and verification of creatives and landing pages and preparation for the launch.

First of all, we carried out pre-moderation and checked the creatives and all promotional materials that the client comes with.

Then we proposed to make some changes to the marketing materials to comply the rules of the chosen platform, and the client made test runs of the creos we have corrected.

In this case, the client’s creatives contained the following wording: “Do you like it?” and “Would you like it?”. A creative with such text would not pass moderation, as it broadcasts an assumption about the user’s state (the site’s rules prohibit the wording).

We changed the text and added questions starting with “How?”, “How is it possible?” and “For those who want?”. This wording passes the moderation of the site without any problems.

Also, the client’s creatives initially used celebrity photos, violating copyright and platform policies. To prevent the creatives from being rejected, we changed the content to include appropriate images of models.

Another platform trigger we eliminated from client creatives was promises of quick earnings. We bypassed such formulations and focused on a healthy lifestyle in general.

We used a static creative banner for tests to reach the broadest possible audience. We tested different hypotheses for creatives on all GEOs. At the heart of our concept:

• Tasty and healthy food, as well as an offer to become a nutritionist and get a diploma
• A happy and slim girl with a picture of healthy food (salads, avocado, salmon), as well as an offer to become a nutritionist and get a diploma

So we confirmed the hypothesis that showing a beautiful picture of all creatives and giving information about the timing and quality of training is necessary.

We decided to use the creative with a small amount of text, which we designed in large print. The main focus is on the image of smiling people. They convey positive emotions and make potential customers feel connected to the company. We also added a company logo to identify the brand.

The most effective format in all locations where we campaigned was static images: 9:16 and 1:1. This format was used as the basis for promotion.

We received the highest CTR when placing creatives in Instagram stories:

• CTR – 0.28%
• CPC – 1.62€

This is an excellent indicator for EdTech, signifying a high level of audience engagement.

When launching the campaign, we worked with both warm and cold audiences. Types of audiences that we have involved:

• Look-alike (for previous course registrations)
• By interest. We targeted a female audience by specific interests and intersections, for example, healthy lifestyle, cosmetics, distance learning, adult education, organic products, healthy habits, and retargeting users who spend a lot of time on the site but still need to register.

Advertising campaigns were built according to a single model. The versions of creatives were almost the same for all countries. The main goal of the campaign was registration for courses.

The third stage is the support and launch of advertising campaigns.

One of the main advantages of working with AdSkill is access to agency advertising accounts. Our pre-moderation helped to avoid blocking the campaign. The client didn’t waste his time unbanning the ads and didn’t risk the balance. We provided the client with an advertising account with no daily spending limit, so it was possible to simultaneously spend large sums on it. This was entirely in line with our client’s goals.

Results

• In March, more than 20 thousand euros were spent, and the number of leads was 429. The price per lead was 48 euros. This is an excellent result since the courses last six months, a diploma is issued, and the final cost of the methods is much higher than the average.

• Based on the results of our pre-moderation, all materials were adapted to the site’s rules.

• Among advertising creatives, static images with a small amount of text and a bright picture performed best.

• Almost 1.3 million unique users were reached during the campaigns.

To conclude

An efficient structure for the advertising campaign was developed during this test period, and advertising creatives and user audiences were tested. Data was collected for analysis and further scaling and optimization of advertising campaigns.

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