Higher-Ed OPM Partner

Client name withheld at the partner’s request. Industry and program details preserved.

The challenge

The client is a national online program management (OPM) firm — a partner to colleges and universities that handles the full marketing program for the institution’s online degrees. As their book of business grew, the firm needed an agency partner that could run several universities’ digital programs in parallel without copy-pasting the same playbook across institutions that were genuinely different from each other.

Past agency partners had broken down in the same four places:

1. No real customization. Strategies were generic across institutions even though each program competed in its own market.
2. No continuity between channels. Paid, SEO, and content were stitched together loosely. Nothing compounded.
3. Reporting was opaque. No honest line from activity to enrollment outcomes.
4. Bottom-line goals went unmet. Enrollment targets stayed out of reach.

The firm needed a partner who could quickly onboard each new institution, target the right prospective students through PPC, paid social, and programmatic, run a recurring technical + on-page + link-building SEO program, and capture the unique voice of each university and its programs.

The approach

After discovery with the OPM firm and individual conversations with each partner institution, we launched fully-integrated campaign programs for three of their university partners simultaneously. The shape of each program was the same — paid media, SEO, and content working as one — but the execution was bespoke to each campus, program, and competitive set.

• Paid media tailored to program intent. PPC, paid social, and programmatic campaigns built for the specific student personas each program was trying to reach. New keywords, audience refinements, creative testing, and landing-page optimization on a continuous cycle.
• Technical SEO for visibility at scale. Audited and improved the site structure of each partner site to surface degree programs, then targeted broader, higher-volume keywords that funnel traffic to specific program pages with low applicant counts.
• Content built for voice and conversion. Captured each university’s voice, tone, and brand standards, and built supporting content — pillar pages, blog programs, and in one case an entire microsite of new service pages — to feed the SEO program and arm enrollment teams.
• Consistent senior team across institutions. Five of the six Elevato people on the engagement have been the same since launch over a year ago. That continuity is most of why the program compounds.

Results

Within six months we saw lift; within twelve months the numbers compounded.

Paid media (across partners):

• +134% YoY increase in paid lead volume
• −27% YoY decrease in cost-per-lead (despite higher spend as new partners came online)

Organic search (across partners):

• +230% surge in new organic users
• +223% increase in engagement
• 415 additional qualified leads vs. the prior year

Per-partner highlights:

• +589% YTD increase in organic traffic for one partner institution
• +115% increase in SERP features for another
• A new microsite of service pages and a blog program for the third

Services delivered

• Paid Media — Cross-platform program built per institution
• PPC Management — Google + Bing search
• Paid Social — Persona-based audience testing
• Programmatic Advertising — DSP-driven reach for high-intent prospects
• Technical SEO — Site-structure and crawlability work across partner sites
• National SEO — Broad-keyword targeting at program-page depth
• Content Marketing — Pillar pages, blog programs, microsite build