THE CHALLENGE

Once every ten years, the residents of Brighton and Hove are called on to fill out an important community health and wellness survey, the results of which help to inform vital decisions about future health and well-being services that may be required to meet residents’ needs.

Having previously worked with the University of Brighton, the lead stakeholder for the survey, we were entrusted with ensuring that as many residents took part in the survey as possible.

The Health Counts 2024 survey was a quick survey with the potential to make a massive impact by shaping the services Brighton & Hove residents receive. Without it, their voices might go unheard, leaving their needs unmet by decision and policymakers.

As a local, independent agency, it was our duty to lend our expertise to this once-in-a-decade survey.

The main players

The survey was a collaboration of several agencies. The University of Brighton were commissioned by Brighton & Hove City Council to develop and promote the survey, and analyse the findings. In addition, the following organisations were key stakeholders in the campaign, and representatives were involved at each stage:

• • NHS Sussex

• • Healthwatch Brighton & Hove

• • Brighton and Sussex Medical School

• • Brighton & Hove Foundation

• • Brighton & Hove City Council

Our goals started with building awareness through a creative branding project, with the final goal to be survey completions with the following KPI’s:

• • Effectively reach our target segments at scale

• • Achieve 10,000 survey completions

• • Reach our goals within four short weeks

Building the Health Counts brand

The first mission was to create a strong identity for the 2024 survey to ensure it caught the attention of residents. Our Head of Creative met this challenge head-on by meeting with all the involved stakeholders across the campaign landscape in a creative ideation workshop.

Ideas began to come to life in the form of mood boards, which helped us determine an understanding of which illustration-led approach would be best for this campaign. We kept an open line of communication with our clients, constantly getting insightful feedback that allowed us to create assets that had a clear feeling of being for residents and not tourists, so that our campaign was not mistaken for promotional materials aimed at visitors.

Mood boards progressed into Stylescapes and soon, campaign illustration-led visuals were solidified. We landed on a graphic hand-drawn by our Head of Creative which resonated with Brighton & Hove’s bohemian culture whilst giving a nod to well-recognised colours in Brighton, like the blue railings along the seafront.

The Strategy

With an eye-catching creative in hand, we had limited time to make a huge impact. Having only four weeks to run our campaign, we hit the ground running by focusing on reaching our target segments via Facebook, Instagram, and Google Display. We devised a targeting strategy for our audience through interest-based communities, contextual, demographic, lookalike and geographic targeting.

To build up awareness, we utilised the vast targeting power of Google Display and Meta, focusing on interest-based targeting such as; local community news, different social causes, and health and wellness.

However, when we saw that this was restricting potential numbers, we quickly adapted and prioritised the budget to be more in favour of demographic targeting, opening up our search to the wider public.

Driving Survey Completions

Staying constantly in communication with our clients, we were able to share and receive real-time, data-driven result updates. Midway through the campaign, we were informed that the survey completions were heavily skewed towards older residents, not reflecting Brighton & Hove’s median age of 38.

We quickly pivoted to target 18-25-year-olds, using demographic targeting on Google Display and Meta. We also weighed budgets towards mobile devices for better conversion with younger users.

In addition, we optimised the messaging to appeal more to the younger generation and added a raffle for a £100 voucher as a monetary incentive, knowing that this would entice younger residents to participate.

Optimisation

As we continued to track the number of surveys completed, we noticed that certain postcode areas in the city had low survey submission rates. We couldn’t allow this as it was crucial to receive information from every postcode in Brighton & Hove to get an accurate representation of the needs of the cities’ residents. So, we got to work, building a new campaign to target residents within a 1km radius of these high-priority postcodes. Overlaying the map with the postcodes, we ensured our targeting was spot on, and felt confident that our campaign would now be effectively targeting each unique postcode of the city.

Results

Through our multichannel approach, the Health Counts Survey 2024 achieved over 26,014 survey completions – that is over a 940% increase in survey completions compared to the previous survey results.

Via paid media alone we also achieved:

1. 1. Over 1.06 million impressions

1. 1. 4.4k clicks

1. 1. 361 survey competitions

1. 1. A strong conversion rate of 8.21%

1. 1. CPA of £10.52

These 26k survey submissions will allow Brighton & Hove to make informed decisions through data-driven policy-making, improving the overall well-being of residents with long-term benefits, which will continue to be felt by future generations.

Despite a tight budget and just four weeks, we are proud to have contributed to making Brighton & Hove a place where all residents’ needs are addressed, including mental health services and support networks. Through Arke’s diligent and thorough approach, the Health Counts Survey 2024 stakeholders can now make data-driven decisions that will impact residents and future generations.

We were thrilled to be a part of a critical campaign that may influence the well-being of Brighton & Hove residents, and look forward to the potential to bring positive change to our local community.

The Challenge

We’ve worked with Staffordshire-based institution Keele for three years now, helping them to increase their student intake and build awareness of Britain’s best university, as ranked by students (Student Crowd University Awards 2022). One of the biggest days in the student recruitment calendar is Clearing – the process after Results Day when students are able to apply to different universities. Keele asked us to support them with their Clearing, having been pleased with the results we achieved for them in their previous Clearing campaigns. This year, Keele University tasked us with:

Building awareness of their brand and their courses among prospective undergraduate students
Leveraging their data to drive conversions, making use of Google Analytics 4 and conversion funnel tracking
Increasing the number of students applying through Clearing versus 2021 figures

While we have experience working with over 120 education institutions and creating Clearing campaigns, this year was a bit of an unknown as it was the first year following the Covid-19 crisis that was unaffected by the pandemic. Being aware of the landscape was key to our strategy. For example, as exam results were not impacted this year, we expected demand and competition levels to be high, which helped to inform our foreplanning.

The Strategy

Having a wealth of experience in the education sector, our team knows that the key to a successful Clearing is planning. We devised a series of campaigns, flighted between three distinct stages in the conversion funnel; Learn More & Register for Clearing Updates, Request a Callback, and Apply. These were chosen to reflect key dates throughout the Clearing cycle.

We devised a multi-channel approach, as we know it to be the most effective at engaging prospects at multiple stages of the funnel to build up awareness. Therefore, we chose Google Search, Google Display, Google Discovery, Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and Sky AdSmart to advertise the university.

Once we had decided on channels, we built out prospect data at scale ahead of key recruitment periods, allowing us to maximise Keele University’s budget and use it at the most effective periods for the lowest costs, rather than funnelling it into periods when CPMs and CPCs were their highest.

Our experts also devised multiple tactics within each channel to target prospects at different stages in the conversion funnel. Each tactic used different bidding strategies, from brand terms to generic terms. This also leant into our overall full-funnel targeting strategy, with the objective of reaching those students in the research phase and those further down in the funnel.

The Strategy Continued

Throughout the three months leading up to Clearing, we used a test-and-learn approach, refining our strategy regarding ad types, our approach to bidding and testing keyword lists. This allowed us to build up a winning combination in time for the busiest time of the Clearing period: Results Day.

Our agility and diversity within this campaign were essential to its success. Throughout, we monitored performance across the various channels and weighted budget towards the best-performing platforms. In particular, we were attentive to trends on the day, monitoring peaks in search activity and optimising the campaign according to that data.

Recent changes to the advertising landscape highlighted the necessity of agility to succeed in this campaign. For example, we were cautious of using Meta due to the reduction in targeting capabilities. As such, we split budgets among the channels with such considerations in mind, reallocating resources into other platforms more likely to achieve the desired outcomes.

This year, we surpassed many of the successes achieved in 2021, with a lifetime CPC 87% lower in 2022 (£0.83 vs. £6.60), and a conversion rate 43% higher (5.35% vs. 3.75%). As a result, we achieved a 260% increase in Apply Now clicks than in 2021 (6,617 vs. 1,837).

What made this year’s campaign more successful than ever was a result of early planning and campaign activation. This enabled us to establish Keele University’s brand ahead of their competition and activate robust retargeting and lookalike segments ahead of Clearing. This allowed us to build up historical data, allowing us to analyse the results and use this to guide smart bid strategies.

Results

1.16% CTR
£0.83 CPC
123,673 link clicks
6,617 apply clicks
164% increase in phone calls
5.37% conversion rate

See Your Success

Want to find out how the right higher education marketing partner can help you surpass your goals? Let’s have a chat.

The Challenge

We were tasked by London-based film distributor Kaleidoscope to increase awareness of their children’s film Mia & Me: The Hero of Centopia, the hit television series watched by millions of children globally.

Kaleidoscope required an agency that could provide fast turnaround times, navigate short advertising windows, and be well-versed in increasing ticket sales through paid media. Due to our experience working within the film and entertainment industry; and our multi-award-winning paid media campaigns, they decided that we were the right agency to deliver the results they needed.

In particular, they wanted us to:

Build up awareness of the film in the week prior to the launch of the film, subsequently increasing ticket sales

Retarget their current YouTube audience on multiple digital platforms

Increase awareness of the film among their target audience’s influencers – their parents and guardians

Our Approach

Our Paid Media and Creative teams worked together to devise a campaign that would successfully drive views within the two-week advertising window. In order to do this, we required agility, robust strategic planning and close collaboration among our teams.

As Kaleidoscope’s target audience was children, we had to devise a strategy that would allow us to target their biggest influencers – their parents and guardians. Once we understood their motivations and built out an audience persona, we set about creating a targeting strategy that would engage this group.

Based on our expert’s experience and research, we knew that the best advertising platforms to achieve the brief’s goals were YouTube and Google Display. We identified that these would be the best platforms to retarget Kaleidoscope’s current audience (those engaged with the ongoing YouTube series) while also engaging their parents and guardians – this is where Google Display came in particularly useful.

The Strategy

The timing of this campaign was also important. It ran throughout half-term, a key period for parents and children to spend time together. This solidified our decision regarding advertising channels, as we knew that parents would be looking for activities to do to occupy their children – and watching YouTube or heading to the cinema was perfect for just that. For this reason, we weighted the advertising budget more towards YouTube, channelling 66% of Kaleidoscope’s media budget into YouTube versus 34% on Google Display.

As this campaign ran for just two weeks, we had to carefully prepare and plan our optimisation strategy to allow reactivity to trends. To further increase our agility, we created adverts of two different lengths with different placements in mind. To adhere to tight turnaround deadlines, we produced animated banners for Google Display, allowing us to provide that video feel while saving time creating numerous video ads.

We also knew we wanted ads to only be shown against relevant content and on devices where users were most likely to view-through and engage. We did this to increase the campaign’s impact within the short advertising window while ensuring that Kaleidoscope’s paid media budget was used effectively and channelled into the best-performing advert variants.

The Strategy Continued

We manually optimised the campaign every 48 hours, reacting to performance metrics  that we could harness to increase performance. For example, we found that 15-second video ads performed best, generating the highest view rate. Having identified this, we pulled the longer format and pushed the 15-second version instead.

We also noticed that placement targeting was the most effective method, so we pulled budget from other targeting options to drive more conversions through this targeting tactic.

Aside from this, we adjusted our bidding strategies in accordance with the best conversion results. For example, when we noticed that the number of conversions via computers increased, we favoured computers in our strategy and channelled budget towards those devices to drive results.

Keeping a close eye on the campaign and being flexible to optimise towards best performance allowed us to achieve above and beyond our initial predictions for our client.

Results

We’re proud to say that Mia & Me: The Hero of Centopia ranked 16th in Box Office sales in its first week. Over the short lifetime of the advert, we served 6,751,540 impressions (+295% above target), which resulted in a whopping CPM of £1.10 – almost half what we had expected!

 

The Challenge

Leading video-on-demand (VOD) platform Curzon Home Cinema tasked us with increasing film sales and expanding the customer base & registrants by innovatively improving campaign relevancy, utilising Google Analytics & outperforming competitors for film releases.

Five objectives:

Ensure Google Analytics is reporting accurately and implement enhanced e-commerce features for reporting and targeting purposes

Increase the number of direct release purchases

Increase purchases across Curzon Home Cinema back-catalogue

Increase the number of customer registrations across the Curzon Home Cinema website

Reduce media spend wastage to improve ROI 20%

The Strategy

One of our Google Analytics IQ Certified Partners audited the Curzon Home Cinema analytics accounts to understand the accuracy of their current reporting; discern whether the data was deep enough to inform marketing decisions and accurately capture relevant audiences.

A detailed measurement framework was created which instructed the implementation across the whole site, meaning detailed performance stats were now available down to film, genre, director and platform.

The Strategy Continued

Analytics was then synced to all ad platforms to enabling smart optimisation techniques, allowing for customer journeys to be analysed to inform campaign strategies. This also informed our SEO and Paid Media strategy to ensure paid supported organic activity.

From this, a variety of remarketing models have been produced, alongside granular new audiences and lookalike segments to vastly improve outcomes against objectives. A/B testing of creative has been critical in not only driving ROI but also improving customer experiences, engagement and brand awareness.

Results

The campaign expanded Curzon’s audience to new regions. Smashed 3 sales records in 2019 making it their highest grossing year.

The number of registrations increased by 200%, with the highest ever number of organic visitors.

Conversion rates improved by 16.3%.

CPC reduced by 29%

The challenge

The strategy

We devised a paid media strategy across Google Search, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. Having tested this platform mix for Keele University on previous campaigns, we knew it to be a formula for success.

Keele University’s pride and joy is their campus, and they’ve got good reasons for it. It’s a 600-acre estate in Staffordshire that is breathtaking and filled with wildlife – hence their mascot – a squirrel!

The platforms used

Google Search

We planned campaign and ad-group structures to effectively personalise messaging against Brand, Generic, and Competitor UG Open Events terms. With the addition of our secret weapon (Dynamic Search Ads), we could also maximise coverage and get ahead of the competition. With this strategy in place, we secured low CPCs, maximised high-intent traffic to key landing pages and drove conversion at scale through machine-learning assisted bid strategies.

Facebook & Instagram

Facebook and Instagram was largely used for top-of-funnel awareness and to retarget warm prospects who needed a little nudge to convert.

It’s no longer possible to target under-18s with interest, affinity, demographic, or custom audiences. Instead, we focused the delivery on parents; who we know are supremely engaged in the Meta family of apps.

However, we also ringfenced a percentage of the budget to reach prospective students using broad audiences (such as age and location). This achieved fantastic results and enabled us to secure an exceptionally low CPM of £0.45, alongside a very modest CPC of just £0.54.

Snapchat

Having tested Snapchat substantially among youth audiences within Education and beyond, we activated interest, lookalike, and retargeting audiences for a full-funnel approach.

Results

Our efforts successfully captured the attention of prospective students and optimised budget for our client.

We achieved:

• £0.39 CPC
• 1,568,813 impressions
• 4.03% conversion rate
• 429 open day form submissions
• £9.80 CPA
• 10,645 clicks

The Challenge

Keele University has offered Foundation Year programmes for over 70 years. The Foundation Year offers September starts across all subjects, and January starts across all science, humanities, social sciences and business routes. Keele University Foundation Year students often outperform their classmates – many go on to gain a first class or upper second class honours degree.

In 2020, as part of wider marketing activity, Keele University tasked Arke to:

Raise awareness to support the university’s recruitment objectives for Foundation Year January 2021 entry and grow the number of enrolled students

Attract additional talented applicants who would benefit from a Keele University education – aiming at those who might like to “trade up” to Keele University or who would prefer the Keele University campus experience

Attract mature students who may be looking for a career change, especially following the COVID-19 pandemic

The Solution

As part of an integrated marketing communications strategy, we delivered a one-month long Spotify Audio campaign (with companion banners), targeting 17-22-year-olds in key recruitment areas surrounding Keele University. In order to reach as many prospects as possible, we kept targeting fairly broad, restricting delivery only to those with a demonstrated interest in:

Education

Studying

Focusing

Podcasts

Audio ads can offer a more personal feel than on-screen text ads, and digital audio is much more targeted than traditional radio, not to mention engaging a younger audience.

Spotify research suggests that users 18-24 spend 2+ hours per day on the platform, and among all UK Gen-Z listeners, there is a high concentration in Northern areas within Keele University’s key recruitment area (Birmingham, 16%; Nottingham, 11%; Manchester, 10%).

The Solution Continued

Through Spotify’s self-serve platform, we wrote a script in-line with Keele University’s tone-of-voice and key messaging, and sourced highly relevant voice-over artists to record an audio advert.

The outcome was a 30 second studio-quality recording, in a friendly, inviting tone-of-voice that matched Keele University perfectly – even down to the localised accent.

Results

90% Ad completion rate

90,522 Impressions

Unique reach of 9,858

Average CTR of 0.14%

The Challenge

Attributing enrolled students to their marketing investments became a new focus across the marketing team as enrolment targets grew but budgets remained the same.

• • Lack of in-house resource to crunch multiple data streams & analyse efficiently

• • Identified that training would improve their marketing analytics efforts & therefore provide timely insights

• • The need to digitally track students throughout the conversion journey

The Solution

Custom analytics implementation:

Bespoke on-site training

• • As confidence using Google Analytics to its full potential was low amongst the team, we conducted hands-on training to empower them with practical skills, training check-ins and a training manual reflecting their bespoke accounts, so they could use the new data available to them for decision making

• • The team wanted to work in an agile manner, therefore, Arke also implemented Google Tag Manager and provided configuration training

• • The training also focused on the everyday activities they could conduct in order to enrich the data further and give an even deeper context

The Challenge

UCA underwent a digital transformation project throughout 2019, which was fully supported by a new recruitment campaign concept, designed to inspire, engage and convert students throughout their journey into Summer 2020.

Plateaued UK undergraduate numbers within the creative arts subjects, circa 125,000 per annum

To challenge perceptions & attitudes that creative degrees are only for ‘art types’ whilst, raising awareness of the ‘need for creative thinkers & doers’ across all industries

Develop a campaign concept which accelerates the institution towards their domestic & international student recruitment objectives, for 2020 intakes

The Solution

Produced the THINK AGAIN! recruitment campaign concept & accompanying concept guidelines to cover all digital, social & print channels

Produced custom typography, messaging & digital assets (video, animations, banners, social stories etc.) to allow story-telling throughout the 4 stages of the student recruitment cycle

Put forward a custom content toolkit to allow UCA to develop content further in-house, whilst adhering to all appropriate concept formats & specifications, for various video, social, outdoor & print environments

Results

This campaign left all higher education benchmarks behind, obtaining CTRs of over 120% vs the industry averages, reducing Google’s CPCs by 53% and Instagram’s Cost per Impression down by 76%. With 50,000 students and their families engaging with the content 160,000 times.

The Challenge

With a global pandemic forcing the UK into lockdown, and with enrolment targets growing, but budgets remaining the same, the College of West Anglia marketing team reached out to Arke to undergo paid media training to upskill their team and ultimately help raise awareness of the institution in an increasingly competitive landscape. They sought to:

• • Raise awareness in the local area of the college and its offering

• • Increase applicant and enrolment numbers

• • Gain an understanding of the different advertising products that Google and Facebook offer

• • Learn how to structure campaigns, target desired audiences and develop engaging ads which drive action and help achieve their institutional objectives

The Solution

Bespoke offsite training:
The project began with a discovery stage, aimed at understanding CWA’s specific needs so that the bespoke training could be tailored to them to help achieve their objectives. From this session, we devised 3 x 3-hour training sessions that followed a pathway to help bridge skills gaps and enable maximum ability to achieve goals and objectives for future digital advertising campaigns.

Next Steps

As confidence using Google Analytics to its full potential is low amongst the team, we will be conducting training to empower them with practical skills, training check-ins and a training manual reflecting their bespoke accounts, so they can use the data available to them for decision making.

The Challenge

With COVID-19 bringing unknowns into the world, the Higher Education & Clearing landscape was volatile and unpredictable. Having started working together in May 2020, & set amongst increasing competition and an increase in the number of students entering Clearing, Keele University tasked Arke with:

Increasing brand awareness and undergraduate recruitment

Reducing the predicted deficit due to COVID-19 through an integrated performance marketing campaign for Clearing 2020

Launching a new creative campaign to improve relatability which truly represents the institution and allays student concerns

The Solution

The first thing Arke did was analyse Keele’s data and paid media platforms, and conducted an in depth CRO audit. Relevant pixels were set up on Keele’s website and landing pages, whilst all advertising platforms were connected with analytics providers, with a strict set of rules created to ensure tagging conventions were adhered to..

We used existing student cohorts, admissions data and web data to create lookalike audiences, which were then split tested based on messaging, content and likelihood of conversion. As a result of this, we were able to identify certain patterns and were able to layer on top of existing campaigns. We also undertook detailed audience segmentation, looking for the geographic, demographic and socio-economic factors that were most indicative of Keele’s enrolled students over the last 3 years.

With all this data behind us, advertising campaigns began in June. This meant that platforms had refined learning behind them, plus specific defined audiences for the niche that we were going for and targeting. It also meant that, on the day of Clearing, campaigns were optimised to their fullest extent, so the tap could be opened & spend could be as aggressive as possible.

The Solution Continued

The creative concepts for this campaign utilised nudge marketing techniques and revolved around safety and reassurance. Content and messaging were split tested to determine what would perform best, and, from this, a messaging framework based upon clear approaches to COVID-19 was developed.

Robust planning and sign off processes were put in place. To provide reassurances in a timely manner, Arke provided multiple creative and messaging options reinforcing Keele’s approach to COVID-19 and Clearing, so that Keele had confidence in choosing their official messaging, which was approved by the Chief Operating Officer within 24 hours.

Media was planned with priority courses in mind, whilst being careful to make sure audiences were large enough to serve content, but avoided overlapping. Robust budgeting plans were also put in place to track spend, with a contingency pot created…just in case!

The Overall Approach

The campaign was an omni-channel approach comprising both paid & organic activity across the following channels:

• Google Search
• Google Display
• Social (TikTok, Instagram & Facebook)
• YouTube
• The Student Room
• UCAS

Results

Arke’s campaign for Keele University brought record number of enquiries, reaching 1.5M prospective students, generating 175,000 clicks and on clearing day a CTR of 3.14% whilst reducing CPC benchmarks by 52%.

If you’re looking for a higher education marketing agency, hit that contact button and let’s discuss your requirements.