Case Studies

Case Study #1 — Website Management

Opportunity

When reviewing the Lead Performance Report and monthly Website Management Report, ES identified an opportunity based on trends with Google to spend less on marketing overall yet yield more enrollments. The website converted leads at nearly 15%, compared to Paid Search converting around 9%, and Paid Social at 2%.

Solution

ES created a more aggressive monthly website management plan to improve rankings and increase keyword footprint by leveraging Google’s EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) metric.

Optimization highlights:

• Expanded the program page content to 2000-2500 words and additional integrated keywords
• More than tripled the monthly blog posts plan, each with a minimum length of 1,000 words and utilizing SME’s for each program
• Introduced additional contact forms to maximize traffic-to-submission opportunities
• Developed A/B testing plans based on heat-mapping analysis

Results

• Organic search traffic increased 14% YoY
• Leads from the website increased 17% YoY
• The Partner’s overall marketing budget decreased by 13% YOY, while enrollments grew 9%. (Note some programs were at capacity.)

Case Study #2 — Website Development

Opportunity

When ES took on a Website Management client, the client’s Semrush website overall health score was 49 (scale of 1-100). Over 12 months, ES improved traffic and conversions yet the site still scored an overall ranking of 81. The site was 4 years old, and the ES developer best described the site as clunky, slow, and outdated. A new website provided an opportunity to further improve results.   

Solution

ES created a modern, custom designed website with a streamlined customer journey that focused on conversions and user experience while also meeting the needs of website’s stakeholders.

Optimization highlights:

• Calendar content was now crawlable by search engines
• Site was built with a mobile-first design approach as 71% of users were on mobile devices
• Site became fully ADA compliant
• Navigation was streamlined and better optimized for SEO purposes
• Users had a better user experience based on heatmapping data

Results

• Conversions from the new website increased 300% after the first 60 days of being live
• Semrush now scores the website with a score of 98 (scale 1-100)
• The site is much easier to update for all parties involved

Case Study #3 — Paid Social

Opportunity

An online school accepting students nationally has been running a paid social campaign for many years. They engaged with ES for a paid social audit to see if we could improve their current efforts handled by another agency. Their cost per lead was averaging $12.51. They also were dealing with the frustration and inefficiencies of a 20% invalid lead rate.

Solution

ES formed a paid social strategy that improved the creative assets and overhauled the targeting and audiences. Partnering with Meta, ES also was able to identify opportunities to decrease the number of invalid contact forms being submitted.

Optimization highlights:

• New creative images and videos considered to be thumb-stoppers while scrolling on a mobile device were implemented
• Creative strategy that varied by region was developed to better reflect target audience location regardless of being an online school
• Frequent enrollment data was used to improve target audiences
• Highly involved and frequent updates were performed to campaigns for an optimized performance

Results

• Inquiry cost decreased from $12.51 to $9.50 per lead (24%) after 60 days from taking over the paid social campaigns
• The number of invalid inquiries was reduced in half, now averaging 8%-10% per month vs 18-21% previously