Online Enrollment Campaigns: What Stats Should You Be Focusing On?

"What stats do I look at to know whether my ads are working?
How do I know I am getting inquiries from my ads -or at least building awareness?"
These are questions that we get pretty much daily...

To begin with, make sure you let your ads run for at least three to five days after setting them live.

I know this is a tough thing to do, but you've got to let your ads marinate in Facebook's algorithm before making a decision.

Now, here are the stats in order of importance:

1. Cost per lead: What is the cost for each inquiry?

Knowing the cost per lead of previous ad campaigns helps you compare and set a target for your budget.

Now, everyone wants to know what is a reasonable cost per lead. You're not going to like our answer. It varies, my friends, because a good cost per lead for one school might be terrible for another, and vice versa (depending on tuition).

If your campaigns are bringing in calls with your administrator, you should be shooting for something around $10 to $20.
For webinar registrations or something like an infographic download or building your email list, then I would say $7 and below.

2. Landing page conversion rate: What percentage of parents who land on your registration page are actually converting?

Here you want at least a 20% conversion rate.
The higher the conversion rate on your landing page, the lower your cost per lead will be, and vice-versa.
Also, if parents are getting to your landing page, and immediately hitting 'BACK', your ad delivery will be penalized.
Facebook's technology will capture this pattern and will bid-up your 'Cost Per Impression.'
So you want to make sure you have a good landing page experience.

If you are below 20% conversion, the first thing you should look at is the consistency between the ad and the landing page.
You want to make sure that when somebody clicks on your ad and goes to your landing page, they feel like they're in the right place (same type of copy headline image or video, etc.).

3. Click-through rate: What percentage of people seeing your ad are actually clicking on your ad and going to the landing page?

Here we'd like to see at least 1% and above. If you're a little bit lower than that and the rest of your stats are good, don't be super concerned.

4. ROI or return on ad spend: Not all leads are created equal...
Having a low 'Cost per Lead' is great, but only if they're turning into enrollments.

You should be tracking the first conversion you're optimizing for (webinar, lead magnet, scheduled call, etc.), but you also want to be tracking the enrollment.
To do this, you can set up an offline custom conversion and then attach a value to it.
Every time you convert a parent's email into an enrollment in your CRM, you'll be feeding the Facebook algorithm.

5. Frequency: the average number of times someone sees your ad.

We like to watch this metric very carefully to change our campaigns on time to avoid ad fatigue. If your frequency is getting to four and above, it is usually time for a change.

By piecing together these stats, you'll understand how your campaigns are performing.
It will become much easier to adjust your content according to what resonates most with your audience.