Executing an effective clearing campaign for the University of East London

Our effective strategy

We developed a detailed campaign plan using a range of conversion and awareness platforms. Media spend was split between search (Google and Bing), display, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok, Spotify and Pinterest.

We created individual search campaigns for each school, and the allocated budget took into account the varying priorities of each school’s recruitment. A branded search campaign was created alongside it to capture users actively searching for UEL, whilst ensuring that they also appeared for broader clearing terms to reach those searching more generally.

Search activity was complemented by a paid social campaign using highly engaging video content to reach the target audience, raise awareness of UEL to prospective applicants, and encourage them to apply.

The campaign’s successes

As well as reaching the core target audience, our analysis showed an increase in search intent from mature students and parents researching universities on behalf of their children.

As such the age targeting across all channels was not restricted to ensure that we reached this wider audience. The campaigns ran for over three months to cover pre-clearing, clearing day itself and post-clearing. This was to capture and drive early awareness and interest and applications on the day.

And so...

Because of the positive results from the clearing campaign and other domestic and international recruitment campaigns, the University of East London decided to continue to work with us after a rigorous tender process. We have taken the learnings from the 2019/2020 and used these within our current recruitment campaigns.