Synapse SEM Helps Stone Academy Reach New Levels of Success with Paid Search Campaigns
Overview
Company:
Stone Academy
www.stone.edu
Industry:
Higher Education
Headquarters:
East Hartford, CT
Stone Academy is a leading career college in Connecticut that specializes in offering accelerated LPN, Medical Assisting, Medical Office Administration, and Certified Nursing Assistant degree and certification programs. With plans to supplement an intensive media campaign, Stone Academy reached out to Synapse SEM to strengthen and expand their existing online marketing efforts.
Testimonial
“Synapse SEM has elevated our paid search marketing efforts to the next level. With quick turnaround times, strong expertise, and constant attention, they have helped increase qualified traffic by over 400% without increasing spend. Enrollment for key programs has increased, and they have proven to be an invaluable partner to our school.”
– Joe Bierbaum, Corporate Admissions and Marketing Director, Stone Academy
Challenges
Keyword Coverage and Low Search Volume: Stone’s existing paid search efforts failed to capitalize on high volume relevant search terms. In addition, several major academic programs were losing impression share.
Ad Quality: Existing ads included generic ad copy with no call to action or differentiation. The average click-through-rate for these ads was just 0.66%.
Branded Keywords and Competition: Existing paid search efforts did not cover branded keywords. In such a competitive industry, this allowed major competitors to usurp a majority of the available above-the-fold page rankings, even on terms specific to Stone Academy.
Solutions
Keyword Coverage and Low Search Volume: Synapse SEM implemented full scale campaign restructures. This included adding keywords relevant to all major academic programs so that more quality traffic could be captured.
Ad Quality: To improve ad quality, Synapse rewrote ads for every ad group. New ads featured specific information about the relevant academic program including program costs, scheduling, and duration. In addition, sites links were implemented across all ads to increase engagement. Post restructure average click- through-rate increased 90% from 0.66% to 1.26% (not including branded terms).
Branded Keywords and Competition: To regain dominance in the above-the-fold rankings for branded terms, Synapse SEM built a campaign targeting all “Stone Academy” specific search queries. Ad copy for these branded terms was aligned with the brand positioning emphasized in Stone’s media campaign.
Results
Without increasing budget, Synapse SEM increased qualified traffic by over 400%. Synapse SEM also increased account level click-through rate from 0.66% to 3.69%, an increase of 450%.
