Introduction
We all want to achieve success—be successful! But it’s not a one-day process. It’s a considerable process. Checking your progress periodically is essential—every education marketing company recommends it. Are you doing it right? Is there something that needs to be fixed? [Your question here.] But what do you measure? That’s the most crucial question. Every business needs to track some general metrics, and then there are some that are specific to its niche. This blog dives deep into the metrics you need to track as an educational institution to know if you are all set for success.
- Lead Conversion Rate
This is a very general but vital metric to measure. The most essential element in advertising is leads, i.e., people interested in you. The more critical element is conversions, i.e., people that encash their interests. It is crucial to know what fraction of the leads get converted. It helps you conclude if your efforts are going in the right direction. Because the whole point of your efforts is conversions, no matter how many leads are coming through. To calculate the rate, just divide the total number of enrollments by leads and multiply the quotient by 100.
Lead Conversion Rate = (Number of Enrollments ÷ Number of Leads) x 100
- Cost Per Lead (CPL)
We just discussed how essential leads are in your digital efforts. And, as an educational institution, you already know the importance of finance. Every lead comes with a cost attached to it. And only some leads convert. So, that cost should never go out of your limits. To find out the cost per lead, divide the total marketing spend by the total number of leads.
Cost Per Lead (CPL) = Total Marketing Spend ÷ Number of Leads
- Website Traffic and Engagement
This is a vast topic to be covered in a subsection. You need to calculate and track many numbers—metrics like page views, session duration, bounce rate, etc. The tracking of such metrics gives you the conclusion of whether the visitor traffic that comes to your website is engaging and the effectiveness of your content, SEO, and user experience.
- Click-Through Rate (CTR)
Engagement is a huge success. But clicking through an ad is also an outstanding achievement. That’s why it is essential to track the click-through rate, i.e., the number of people that click through your ads, email campaigns, or website CTAs (Call-to-Action). We are talking very specifically about the people who only click; engaging is another matter. A click signifies that the message tailored resonated with the audience. To calculate, divide the number of clicks by impressions and multiply that by 100.
Click-Through Rate (CTR) = (Clicks ÷ Impressions) x 100
- Email Open and Click-Through Rates
You definitely know how many emails just go through and remain unread in the inbox. This concludes that if an email is opened, it is a success. So, email open rates are defined as the percentage of people who open the email out of the people who received it. Open rates signify good subject lines. Emails can also consist of several call-to-actions (CTAs). You can calculate CTR for the same. It means the email matter was engaging.
- Social Media Engagement Rate
Again, It isn’t a direct metric you can calculate, but a very important one. Social Media has become the king of all digital marketing efforts. Every institute is online. In such cases, it becomes essential to track the engagement. You might be gathering many views but have negligible people sticking around for liking and commenting. That’s just bad social media engagement. You need to find the percentage of people who engage in such actions out of those who view it.
- Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
We discussed CPL previously. Alongside this, we mentioned the importance of conversions. CPA calculates the cost per conversion. What does acquiring one student cost for your institute? That’s a question that CPA aims to answer. It is crucial when you’re calculating unit economics. To calculate the CPA, divide the total digital marketing spend by the number of new enrollments.
Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) = Total Digital Marketing Spend ÷ Number of New Enrollments
- Organic Search Traffic
Since the introduction of paid methods, organic methods to attract traffic have been given less attention. However, it is equally essential to work on organic search traffic. Metrics related to organic search traffic show whether your SEO efforts have been reaping benefits. The results might lead you to take steps linked to keyword research and the targeted landing pages.
- Student Acquisition Funnel Conversion Rate
This metric hints at how your student acquisition funnel is performing. Simply put, it aims to answer one question: how many students move from one stage of the funnel to the next stage of the funnel? The information in the form of an answer will tell you where your funnel is lacking and at what stage of the funnel you are losing potential students. It is expected to lose a percentage of students while switching funnels, but you should know the limit.
- Return on Investment (RoI)
We are precisely discussing the return on investment relative to the cost of your digital marketing efforts. It measures the profitability of your digital marketing efforts with respect to the revenue generated from new enrollments and compares it against the cost of digital marketing. It concludes if your digital marketing efforts are generating or losing money. To calculate, divide the difference between the total revenue from students and marketing costs by marketing costs and multiply the end result by 100.
Return on Investment (RoI) = (Revenue from Students – Marketing Costs) ÷ Marketing Costs x 100
Conclusion
The blog lists 10 metrics you should regularly check as an educational institution. Recording some of these metrics could be manual, but most are automated with the platforms you would use for regular digital marketing tasks. If you have hired an education marketing agency, it is their task to track all such metrics, and you could ask them for the same. However, the most crucial part is to improve. Just tracking these metrics isn’t the only task. Check where you are lacking and optimise for success.
