Facebook campaign Geography

The campaign Aim: Create a Facebook advertising campaign promoting undergraduate Geography courses ahead of the UCAS deadline (15 January 2018) Budget: £1,000 Duration: Four weeks (10 December – 6 January) Requirements: Facebook post Campaign landing page Review of course profiles and all ‘Study’ pages

The audience Age: 17-18 Locations: Birmingham, Bristol, London, Manchester, Newcastle, Leeds (all +40km) Interests: geography, human geography, social geography, physical geography, economics, inequality, austerity, poverty, sociology, ecology, environmental science, environmentalism, natural environment, climate change, pollution, sustainability, environmental resource management, renewable energy, fracking/anti-fracking

Facebook post News feed link description changed to ‘Outstanding teaching and unmissable fieldwork opportunities at a Russell Group university.’ Both posts were split tested for four days, with the left-hand post declared ‘winner’

Landing page Banner image Key message Important messages Further information Quote e

Landing page Explanation of different courses Links to four courses Link to UCAS

Results Reach: 23,069 Impressions: 300,093 Link clicks: 880, 693 of which were unique Click-through rate: 0.29% CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions): £3.02 CPC (cost per click): £1.03 Spend: £906.40

Results n.b. Investigation into difference between Facebook and Google Analytics stats taking place Pageviews: 332, 310 of which were unique (c. 12 per day) = Reasonably strong traffic Average time on page: 00:00:55 = Good engagement, see also ‘Next Page Path’ Bounce rate: 89.68% = We should aim to lower this figure in future campaigns Exit rate: 87.35% = We should aim to lower this figure in future campaigns

Results

UCAS applications 12-Jan 19-Jan

Summary We need to review both the Facebook post and landing page, comparing to other campaigns (e.g. Law) and advice provided by NetNatives. Generating more than 300 leads for around £900 seems relatively strong. However, the landing page hasn’t performed significantly better than subject homepages or course profiles used in other campaigns. Increase in applications after 22 December could be influenced by the campaign, but further investigation into this is required.

Questions Why are the Facebook and Google Analytics statistics so different? Which Facebook account(s) should we use to post from? How can we improve posts (e.g. split testing)? How can we improve landing pages (e.g. format, location, visibility) to best appeal to potential undergraduate students? Should ‘Apply now’ be more prominent, especially when prospective students are at the ‘action’ stage rather than ‘research’ stage? How can we ensure all ‘Apply through UCAS’ links are tracked? How can we narrow the user journey? How can we fully measure the campaign’s success? Please send all feedback to dominic.claeys-jackson@manchester.ac.uk