PPC Landing Pages and Higher Education…Why are we not ‘pack leaders’?

[Tina Wisnoski]

Why is higher education always at the back of the pack when it comes to online advertising? I was searching recently for some good higher education landing page examples….well, it took over an hour to find one that was appropriate. All the ads I clicked on took me to pages in the site or to a home page…not an actual ‘landing page’ with a form on it. How can you learn more about me or I about you without trying to capture my information.

The main point of doing pay-per-click advertisement (aka sponsored ads) is to capture new leads and cultivate those leads into matriculates. Unlike billboards or other traditional marketing pieces, PPC advertisement has a built in mechanism to track MROI for each of your campaigns. PPC advertisement will show you your click thru rate and your conversation rate (meaning those who actually fill out the form) while allowing you to see what keywords people click on and what keywords they fill out the form on. This is some great information to have handy!

In order to do this properly your landing page must have pertinent information to the word or group words that visitor has just searched on. So, this means you must have different landing pages for EACH of the different programs you are trying to promote. The information on the page must be easily scannable and tell the visitor just enough information about the program you are trying to promote.

Here is the most important part of a landing page….the FORM. Whether the form will give them more information or give them a t-shirt, it is a way for you to track the results of your landing page. It is a MEASUREABLE way to track the success of your PPC campaign. Otherwise, you can just track clicks to your landing page but without understanding how many people took action on your site, it is hard to know the true success of your landing page.

Having a form on your landing pages opens many, many doors for you and allows you:
• To understand what keywords people are converting on (meaning filling out your form)
• To improve your landing page to include more of the terms visitors clicked on to get there
• To strengthen your SEO efforts for your natural rankings

Some good examples of landing pages I saw for higher education are:
• Marlboro’s MBA Landing page - http://gradcenter.marlboro.edu/welcome/mba
o This landing page has a short description of the program and has an even shorter form for visitors to fill out if they are interested in more information. I also like the option to subscribe to a monthly newsletter, this allows the GradCenter at Marlboro to come to the forefront of the visitors mind once a month.
• Grantham University Brand Landing Page http://www.grantham.edu/ppc/branded.php
o I wish there was more copy on this page but at least it takes you right to a form to request more information. Please keep in mind the longer the form, only those that are truly interested will fill it out.
• Abilene Christian Education Landing Page http://education.onlineacu.com/masters-in-education-ns/
o Short text with tabs to learn more and a short form…they really want the visitor to fill out the form as it is the focal point for the page.

All in all, higher education needs to make a separate page for each PPC program they are trying to promote to fully utilize their marketing efforts. Those that conform to this sooner will capture more leads, have more insight of the audience they are reaching, and will be a ‘pack leader’ when it comes to PPC marketing.

[Kati Davis]

Great topic Tina - I'm definitely surprised by how many institutions put dollars toward online campaigns (ppc, banner ads) but don't send them to a page that's been strategically put together to help the user reach their intended goal.

[Maria Thompson]

Thanks Tina! Good points and good examples! Do you have examples of the ads that drove users to the landing pages?

[Kati Davis]

Here's the ad text from Grantham:

I do like how the ad is very clear. The phrase "scholarships available" is a good way to present an offer without coming off to gimmicky.

[Tina Wisnoski]

A good practice as you create text ads is to make sure you use your keywords in them. This will help improve your quality score as well as let the searcher know that the ad is related to their search. I can write an entire other post on things to do for good text ads.......

[Chris Rubenstein]

This is an interesting article, but one comment I have is that the landing pages referred to in this article are more like portals rather than Landing Pages. There are too many exit points for the user. Can anyone show me some landing pages that only have one purpose, converting the visitor. Pages without any exit points, that clearly get the message across and only provide a form to fill out.


Can anyone show me some links to true LPs?

[Kati Davis]

A portal to me is something that requires you to log in. What would you consider to be a real landing page?

These landing pages have several other links which is something that you have to balance. Obviously, the more links you include on your landing page, the higher chance you have of someone clicking and leaving. We usually try to avoid including the global navigation to cut down on the amount of links available, but I don't think you want to remove all other links and trap the user either.

The landing page is just the page you drive users to. The most important thing on that page is a call-to-action to allow the user to convert (and create a strong enough offer and build enough trust to get them to do so).

For example, if I'm in the market for a kindle and Google it, I'll find this ad from Amazon:

Which then drives me to this page:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00154JDAI/?tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=&am...

This is a great example of a landing page (obviously Amazon is known for spending buco bucks on testing landing pages) because I have all the options to easily add it to my cart. Of course, in higher education our "offer" isn't usually to buy - it's usually to request to receive something or sign up for something and in that case it's best to get the form directly on the page.

Chris Rubenstein said:

This is an interesting article, but one comment I have is that the landing pages referred to in this article are more like portals rather than Landing Pages. There are too many exit points for the user. Can anyone show me some landing pages that only have one purpose, converting the visitor. Pages without any exit points, that clearly get the message across and only provide a form to fill out.


Can anyone show me some links to true LPs?

[Kati Davis]

Just stumbled across this landing page from Full Sail. I want to sign up and I'm not even a designer!
http://www.fullsail.edu/index.cfm?fa=landing.MDMFA_1a&mnc=497&a...

[Justin Bryant]

Full Sail is EXTREMELY affluent with marketing online. In fact, they offer an Internet Marketing degree?!??! Of course, it's unbelievably $$ and NON ACCREDITED!

The University of Phoenix is another great example of using PPC ads. However, like Full Sail, what's the 'education' worth?

I'd love to know their advertising budget!?!?!

[Kati Davis]

Great point Justin - the value of the degree is definitely something to be considered. BUT we can take notes from the institutions that are very marketing driven and apply them for our own needs (since we know those are the ones focused on making sure marketing is done right).


Justin Bryant said:

Full Sail is EXTREMELY affluent with marketing online. In fact, they offer an Internet Marketing degree?!??! Of course, it's unbelievably $$ and NON ACCREDITED!

The University of Phoenix is another great example of using PPC ads. However, like Full Sail, what's the 'education' worth?

I'd love to know their advertising budget!?!?!