From 9/1/19-11/30/19, USM Office of Marketing and Branding ran digital advertisements to support out-of-state Admissions college fairs and High School visits. Using the Office of Admissions calendar of events, we targeted the geographic areas where these events were booked. All of our ads drove traffic to the New England Regional Student Program. We paid particular attention to where Admissions wanted to increase student applications in hopes to increase Inquiry activity by advertising the events themselves and increasing brand awareness.
Reading this map
The dark blue dots represent the specific areas of admission’s events where we geo-targeted digitl ads. The yellow areas represent the web traffic driven by the ads.
This map provides an interactive feature that alculates distance between any 2 points you select in order to get an idea of how far students have to travel to get to fairs
Geotargets only
Performance:
USM’s geo-targeting largely worked well. Most areas targeted drew web traffic. The areas where we would like to see improvement are New Haven, New London, and Litchfield, CT. We saw considerable drop in unique pageviews to the campaign landing pages from these three areas from last fall, as detailed below.
| TargetArea | Fall_18 | Fall_19 |
|---|---|---|
| Litchfield | 100 | 49 |
| New Haven | 665 | 209 |
| New London | 127 | 41 |
| Total | 892 | 299 |
Note: I have reached out to the agency to ask if perhaps these areas were not targeted so heavily with impressions.
Fall Travel Ads 2018
| Code_Vendor | Code_Medium | Impressions | ClickRatePct | UPV | BounceRatePct | Av_TOP | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DBM | DISP | 1,782,286 | 0.13% | 1,274 | 92.82% | 00:02:20 | $9999.88 |
| FB | DISP | 999,395 | 0.6% | 3,190 | 92.8% | 00:02:15 | $1912.19 |
| FB | VID | 69,766 | 0.91% | 395 | 90.36% | 00:03:25 | $387.81 |
| IG | DISP | 325,305 | 0.2% | 150 | 89.21% | 00:00:30 | $1351.7 |
| IG | VID | 360,751 | 0.2% | 155 | 95.95% | 00:00:20 | $1348.11 |
| SC | VID | 725,817 | 1.27% | 1,779 | 97.61% | 00:00:55 | $1197.27 |
Fall Travel Ads 2019
| Code_Vendor | Code_Medium | Impressions | ClickRatePct | UPV | BounceRatePct | Av_TOP | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DBM | DISP | 825,448 | 0.12% | 1,770 | 75.61% | 00:00:30 | $9999.79 |
| FB | CAR | 130,602 | 0.32% | 270 | 89.47% | 00:01:10 | $720.14 |
| FB | DISP | 337,434 | 0.38% | 732 | 90.92% | 00:02:55 | $1458.62 |
| FB | VID | 393,275 | 0.52% | 619 | 94.98% | 00:01:40 | $2056.43 |
| IG | CAR | 194,994 | 0.25% | 266 | 91.6% | 00:02:20 | $1106.16 |
| IG | DISP | 29,440 | 0.19% | 38 | 94.44% | 00:00:30 | $175.37 |
| IG | VID | 38,249 | 0.17% | 55 | 96.23% | 00:01:15 | $234.13 |
Performance:
DBM display ads maintained a CTR from FY19 during the months of August-November. However, it is importannt to note that while the budget allocated did not change, we received nearly 1 million fewer impressions. Despite the fewer impressions, the ads drove 500 more unique pageviews with a much lower bounce rate.
Facebook display ads saw a drop in budget due to a trend in declining CTR. The CTR dropped from 0.6% in FY19 to 0.38% in FY19. Because Facebook is one of the strongest drivers of web traffic, we saw massive drop in unique pageviews.
In FY19, carousel was used as a new medium with FB and IG. The carousel ads have slightly lower bounce rates than display and video.
The budget for Instagram display ads also dropped significantly, however the CTR remained above benchmark.
Significantly more money was allocated to Facebook video. Because we do not have benchmarks, it is difficult to evaluate the performance. The only standardized metric we have is CTR.
Facebook offers a video report and I have included the data below. It is remarkable how much Facebook view rates fell from 2018 to 2019, while Instagram’s went up. This data should be considered when planning upcoming Travel campaigns.
| Campaign | Vendor | Plays | VTR | VR_3_Seconds | VR_25_Percent | VR_50_Percent | VR_75_Percent |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fall_18_Travel | FB | 45,186 | 22.54% | 59.53% | 49.36% | 37.87% | 36.28% |
| Fall_19_Travel | FB | 289,768 | 1.82% | 8.60% | 6.82% | 3.30% | 2.29% |
| Fall_18_Travel | IG | 310,092 | 0.56% | 3.74% | 2.98% | 1.61% | 1.13% |
| Fall_19_Travel | IG | 33,271 | 0.89% | 3.93% | 3.28% | 1.80% | 1.24% |
Another way to measure the success of the Travel Ad Campaign is to count how many inquiries and applications we have received from students in the geo-targeted areas who have an initial source date during campaign’s run time. This data is below.
| Date | Inquiry | Applicant |
|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 1756 | 263 |
| 2018 | 2549 | 762 |
| 2019 | 2436 | 642 |
Performance:
There has been significant growth in inquiries and applications since Fall 2017. Although there has been a slight drop in inquiries (4.4%) from Fall 2018 to Fall 2019, we do not yet know if there will be the same drop in applications as these numbers are not yet final.
The tables below show how each state has performed
CT
| State | Date | Inquiry | Applicant |
|---|---|---|---|
| Connecticut | 2017 | 385 | 50 |
| Connecticut | 2018 | 495 | 110 |
| Connecticut | 2019 | 403 | 74 |
MA
| State | Date | Inquiry | Applicant |
|---|---|---|---|
| Massachusetts | 2017 | 955 | 124 |
| Massachusetts | 2018 | 1328 | 350 |
| Massachusetts | 2019 | 1282 | 307 |
NH
| State | Date | Inquiry | Applicant |
|---|---|---|---|
| New Hampshire | 2017 | 286 | 53 |
| New Hampshire | 2018 | 540 | 215 |
| New Hampshire | 2019 | 555 | 197 |
VT
| State | Date | Inquiry | Applicant |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vermont | 2017 | 128 | NA |
| Vermont | 2018 | 185 | 87 |
| Vermont | 2019 | 195 | 64 |
Performance:
We see consistent growth in the areas we targeted in Fall 2019 in NH and VT. We see a drop in MA and CT from last fall, but applications are likely to go up as the application period goes on.
The majority of ads are performing at benchmarks.
The significant drop in CTR for Facebook digital display ads supports the decision for allocate less funding to this vendor and medium.
I recommend we discuss the best way to evaluate the performance of video ads, particularly Facebook video. According to the report available of the Facebook Campaign Manager, there has been a significant drop in performance metrics.
Ads are drawing traffic from targeted areas. We would like to see more interest from New Haven, New London, and Litchfield, CT.
Again, in Fall 2019, we have seen growth in inquiries and applications since Fall 2017. Inquiries from targeted areas remain robust from Fall 2018. When the application cycle for Fall 2020 ends, we can better assess if there has been continued growth in applications.