THE CHALLENGE
At Arke, we’re more than an agency – we’re an extension of our clients teams. So, when The Abbey School came to us to help spread the word of an exciting offer for their nursery ‘Little Knellies’, we couldn’t have been more excited to get stuck in.
The team at Little Knellies wanted to raise awareness of their government-funded nursery offering, allowing eligible families to take advantage of a funded nursery place, with the ultimate goal of driving eligible families to submit an application. As the nursery often acts as a feeder for students coming into The Abbey, enrollments needed to be strong. Little Knellies is the first step in a young girl’s journey into education with The Abbey, with an incentive offering fully funded government places, allowing more access to private nursery to all eligible families.
Arke are passionate about education marketing at all levels, and this project offered the opportunity to support widening participation for nursery places. So, in order to make sure the project was a success, we were tasked with:
- Attaining 839,472 impressions on the campaign
- A Cost-per-Impression (CPM) of £6.85
- 6,340 clicks to the ‘apply now’ landing page
4. A Cost-Per-Click of £0.91
BUILDING THE FOUNDATIONS
One of our main goals was to bring brand awareness to the government-funded places, however to effectively target the correct audience with the ‘free’ nursery places, our targeting had to be executed through a full-funnel strategy.
The wording surrounding “free” raised some concerns about attracting low-intent leads due to ‘free’ offer possibly attracting families who may not fit the requirements for placement at Little Knellies. To combat this, we prioritised high-intent keywords for funding, as they generated more intent leads than simply mentioning “free nursery,” avoiding those that didn’t meet the criteria for conversion.
The campaigns had a broad focus, aiming to connect with two key groups: Young Parents (aged 25-38) and Grandparents (aged 45-65+), all residing within a 10-15 mile radius of Katesgrove. This distance was essential to get right, as marketing to a nursery is incredibly specific due to how far parents can travel to take their children to school, especially if the goal of the nursery is to continue the students through to the partner school The Abbey. Little Knellies supplied us with pre-created ad graphics and we got straight to work. We employed a sophisticated targeting strategy, using a combination of parental, interest, and demographic factors to engage our audiences effectively.
At the initial stage of our marketing efforts, we utilised YouTube and Google Display tactics that leveraged keyword targeting, layered demographic criteria, and interest-based parameters.
We strategically leverage visually dynamic platforms like YouTube and display ads during the awareness and consideration stages. The power of captivating visual content not only grabs attention quickly but also efficiently conveys information, making it a potent tool for boosting brand awareness and recall. After all, a visually appealing presentation sticks in your memory much more effectively than just text-based information. This approach allowed us to reach our target audience on a large scale and create awareness of Little Knellies’ fully funded term-time nursery spaces.
GETTING TO WORK
As we moved further down the marketing funnel, our strategies on Google Display, Facebook and Instagram aimed to build on the initial exposure. We focused on maximising engagement within these platforms and driving high-intent traffic to the Little Knellies landing page. Once we had gathered sufficient data, we targeted two key audience segments: the top percentile of Nursery website page visitors, who were most likely to convert, and lookalike audiences based on the Little Knellies CRM data, specifically parents of Nursery/Reception pupils.
In the realm of nursery education, private institutions that are fully funded tend to have less intense competition compared to their counterparts. However, generating applications for specialised, niche-oriented private nurseries often necessitates connecting with the right individuals at precisely the right moment. It was crucial to prioritise interactions with high-intent individuals who met the specific admission criteria, rather than competing on broader competitive keywords, accessing people who may have lower intent and fail to satisfy the necessary requirements.
At the bottom of the funnel, we employed Google Search to nurture these high-intent audiences towards conversion. This involved actions like clicking to ‘Get in Touch,’ submitting a form, downloading the information sheet, and initiating calls. Our approach encompassed various keyword targeting strategies, including Brand, Competitor, and Generic Keywords. Additionally, we implemented dynamic search and retargeting techniques. All of this was backed by the wealth of data accumulated during our top-and-mid-funnel tactics, enabling us to retarget people who were likely to convey but had yet to make the conversion.
RESULTS
Our full funnel strategy proved incredibly successful, generating a fantastic Return-On-Ad-Spend (ROAS) of 1292.53%. Across all channels, we served a total of 1,247,349 impressions, generating 8,674 clicks through to the Little Knellies landing page, with 20 Nursery Contact Form Submissions being directly attributed to our campaigns.
We conquered targets and most importantly we had a happy client who informed us this was the most applications they had ever received on a single campaign! We achieved:
1. 20 form submissions and contributed 13 registrations to their internal target.
- 1,257,314 impressions, and increase of 50% of the target
- A Cost per Impression (CPM) of £4.43, a decrease of 35% of the target
- Generated 8,753 clicks, an increase of 38% of target
- A Cost-Per-Click of £0.64, a 30% decrease from target
We were incredibly pleased with the results of our fully-funded nursery campaign, allowing greater access to private childcare. Arke were exceptional in getting our campaign in front of the eyes of thousands, helping bring the next generation of women to The Abbey school.
Pete H, Director of Marketing and Admissions
Little Knellies