Keyword Targeting in Higher Education PPC
October 6, 2024
Sarah Gilbert
Higher education institutions are now competing for less and less students, making per-per-click (PPC) advertising an important marketing tool to reach prospective students. However, clicks are costly, and without proper targeting, costs per acquisition start to creep up quickly. Managing keyword strategies in higher ed pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is complex, often requiring expertise, time, and attention to the account beyond what many in-house marketing teams possess.
Balancing Broad and Specific Program Keywords
Effective keyword targeting in higher education PPC campaigns involves balancing broad and specific program keywords. Broad terms like “online degree programs” or “graduate studies” can attract a wide range of prospective students. These are useful for institutions aiming to increase brand awareness or promote various programs. However, competition for these keywords is often high, which can increase costs and potentially reduce lead quality. If your institution wants to bid on “broad match” keywords, you should consider having a skilled enrollment specialist ready to answer these inquiries and help guide the prospective student to a particular degree program.
On the other hand, specific program keywords such as “online MBA in healthcare administration” or “data science certificate program” target a more defined audience. While these terms may have lower search volumes, they often attract highly motivated prospects who are closer to making a decision. The challenge is finding the right mix of broad and specific keywords that align with an institution’s enrollment goals, budget, and program offerings. This is where a PPC agency’s expertise becomes valuable, bringing experience and data-driven insights to develop a keyword strategy that optimizes both reach and relevance.
It’s important to note that often, Google’s recommendations for optimizing your institution’s Google Ads account will be to increase ‘broad match’ keywords, which will often make you reach or exceed your budget quickly, without improving your lead quality.
Adapting to Changing Search Trends in Education
Another challenge in keyword targeting is the constantly changing landscape of higher ed search trends. Recent years have seen significant shifts in how prospective students search for educational opportunities. Increased interest in online and hybrid learning options has changed keyword preferences. Additionally, emerging fields of study and evolving career paths continually introduce new search terms.
Staying current with these trends requires more than occasional keyword research; it demands constant monitoring and the ability to quickly adjust strategies. You’ll need to use advanced tools and methods to track search trends, analyze competitor strategies, and identify new opportunities. This proactive approach helps ensure that your PPC campaigns remain effective as the educational landscape evolves.
Using Negative Keywords to Optimize Budget
An often overlooked aspect of keyword targeting in educational PPC is the strategic use of negative keywords. With ad spend, precision is always crucial, but in higher education PPC, it is even more important because search intent really matters. Your campaign should exclude irrelevant search terms as well as target the right ones. Effective use of negative keywords requires:
- A thorough understanding of higher ed and search behavior
- Insight into searcher intent – journey mapping is helpful here
- The ability to anticipate potential mismatches between ads and user expectations
- Ongoing refinement of negative keyword lists
- Analysis of search query reports to identify new negative keywords – this should ideally be done daily
Daily and weekly attention to this process will garner the best results. A PPC specialist will continuously refine negative keyword lists to improve campaign efficiency and return on investment (ROI). For example, an institution offering only graduate-level programs would want to exclude terms like “associate degree” or “undergraduate courses” to avoid wasted ad spend. Similarly, adding negative keywords such as “free” or “scholarship” can help focus ad delivery on prospects more likely to become paying students.
Those are just the basics – many accounts we audit have lots of spend going to keywords that should be negatives.
In-House or Agency?
If you have an in-house marketing team, it can be tempting to give them control of the PPC accounts. If you have someone experienced who can focus solely on PPC, this may work. However, if the members of your marketing team wear multiple hats, then bringing in outside help to manage the day-to-day changes and ups and downs of a PPC account will be valuable.
Beyond technical expertise in managing keywords, agencies offer a broader perspective gained from working with multiple institutions, degree programs and geo-locations. This experience allows them to benchmark performance, identify industry-wide trends, and apply best practices that may not be apparent to teams focused solely on their own institution.
Whatever you choose, you’ll want to make sure that your ads accounts are paid attention to on a daily basis. This is not an area you want to ‘set it and forget it’ as it is really easy for an ads account to go off the rails, and waste time and money.
Final Thoughts
The goal of an institution adding PPC campaigns to their marketing wheelhouse is to grow enrollments. If your ads aren’t doing that, keyword targeting may be a core reason. We are happy to do an audit of your ads accounts to identify opportunities to optimize and grow, so you can stay competitive in the higher education PPC landscape.