Marketing and Communications Fiscal Year 2020-2021 Annual Report Back
TOC Table of Contents
3 4 7 10 13 16 19 26
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Department Goals Website Performance News Content Performance
Social Media Performance Video Performance
Brand and Design Advertising Performance
Email Performance
2020-2021 Annual Marketing Report Back
Department Goals Supporting Merage School’s Strategic Priorities
Our Clients
The Marketing & Communications department works with all programs, centers, departments and the Dean’s Suite to carry out the Merage School’s vision of being at the forefront of education and research among globally preeminent business schools. Everything that the department puts dollars and efforts to further pursue the four goals of the school; Deliver Research and Teaching Excellence, Leverage Orange County and its International Reach, Value a Culture of Inclusivity and Be Operationally Innovative and Effective.
• Undergraduate Programs
1. Increase awareness of the Merage School brand regionally, nationally and internationally to our target audiences (prospective students, current students, alumni, the business community, donors, campus and other business schools).
• Graduate Programs » Full-Time MBA » Fully Employed MBA » MBA for Executives » Master of Professional Accountancy » Master of Finance » Master of Science in Business Analytics » Master of Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Key Performance Indicators • Website traffic (direct and quality of referral)
» Master of Science in Biotech Management
• Earned media value • Share of voice (benchmarking)
• PhD Program
• Owned media metrics (newsletter, email and social media)
• Executive Education
• Audience surveys
• Centers of Excellence
2. Provide expert marketing strategies to generate and nurture leads which support the enrollment goals of the degree programs and all other departments striving towards customer conversions.
» Beall Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship » Center for Digital Transformation » Center for Global Leadership
Key Performance Indicators:
» Center for Health Care Management and Policy
• Masters programs lead funnel reporting out top of funnel metrics (CPL, CPC, CVR)
» Center for Investment and Wealth Management
• Annual marketing plan per program outlining all channel strategy and spend
» Center for Real Estate
• Acquisition reports ran for those enrolled
• Advancement • External Relations
3. Provide consultative marketing services to internal school partners to achieve their goals and promote the Merage School brand
• Career Center • Dean’s Suite • Faculty and Research
Key Performance Indicators: • Employee surveying (feedback reports)
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2020-2021 Annual Marketing Report Back
Website Performance 4
2020-2021 Annual Marketing Report Back
Despite the tumultuous nature of 2020, we saw relatively consistent website performance. The following is a summary of benchmarking data, provided by Google Analytics and the marketing team’s project management platform of choice, Asana: • Requests: The web team serviced 1,078 requests of all sizes during FY 20-21 compared to 1,091 in FY 19-20.
majority of traffic comes from Los Angeles, then San Francisco, Washington D.C. and San Diego. California as a whole represents 73% of U.S. sessions.
• Traffic: 90% of website traffic was attributed to organic and direct traffic, slightly increasing from 86% previously. Overall, traffic stayed consistent year over year.
• Traffic Sources and Engagement: Over 90% of sessions came from either organic search or direct traffic. Of these sessions, average bounce rate was on the low end (53.26%) and average session duration was longer (2:32), indicating a user-base engaged with the content.
• Demographics: The Merage School website attracts a near-even split male-to-female demographic and skews younger and slightly more male. The largest age segment was 18-24 (33%) vs. the largest age segment from last period being 25-34 (35.6%).
• Content: Sessions began predominantly through the homepage (20%). The MSBA Index page accounts for 3.45% of entrances and the Undergraduate BA page comes in third at 2.75%. MFin’s Index page follows at 2.49%, followed by MSBA Admissions 2.16% and FTMBA Index 2.13%. The FTMBA Index page in particular, had among the lowest bounce rates at 30.17% and a longer session duration at nearly 4 minutes (3:52). Top content areas were Programs and Research & Faculty (faculty information followed by Centers of Excellence content), followed by the website’s Homepage.
• Device Usage: 29% of session traffic uses a mobile or tablet device to access the website while 71% accessed via desktop. On desktop, users have a lower bounce rate and longer session duration. This could indicate issues with the mobile experience, or could represent the nature of differences between desktop and mobile browsing. • Geo: More than 68% of sessions come from the United States, while China (9.09%) and India (5.40%) follow. When looking at specific regions, we see that the
The following is a summary of completed projects for FY 20-21: • Website Exploration and Defining Strategy – Expert Review: By providing critical user and expert data, the Expert Review helped define a powerful web strategy and roadmap spanning the next several years. Currently, we’re working on utilizing user data and feedback to create a cohesive and clear web experience for all users. Looking forward, we’re going to build on this established cohesive and accessible experience to further develop an intuitive and yet unique experience for our users.
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2020-2021 Annual Marketing Report Back
• Homepage Redesign: One of the key takeaways from the Expert Review was how critical the Homepage is as a landing page. Not only does the Homepage serve as a window to the Merage School, it’s the largest landing page on the site by far. With this data came the powerful opportunity to redefine the Homepage as a tool to retain users and prospective students. In the new design, we leverage captivating video footage, straightforward and engaging brand storytelling and userfocused design elements to invite users into the soul of the Merage School and look at all the School has to offer. • Redesigning the Web Request Intake Process: The web request system was not working for anybody. In particular, the event intake process was cumbersome and frustrating for all parties. We worked with our partner, Asana, to redesign and restructure the intake process, resulting in a convenient, streamlined user experience.
Recommendations for Next Year The focus for FY 21-22 will be on projects that will continue to raise the profile of the School’s web presence as effectively and efficiently as possible. These are the projects we recommend and will be focusing on for the coming fiscal year: • Accessibility Focus: Updates and changes to our accessibility tracking software, Site Improve, have identified opportunities to dig into this subject matter and create positive changes on the website that will benefit all user bases. An expert audit and resulting recommendations list will be top-of-mind this year, in addition to our daily efforts to minimize any speed bumps in the overall user experience. • Centers of Excellence Template Redesign: From our content drill down and engagement data, we see the opportunity to re-engage Centers of Excellence users. High bounce rates (64%) on these pages indicate users are interested in the subject matter, but likely find the user experience lacking. The goal for this project is to use the design elements and ideas established in the Academic Programs Template and Homepage Template to create a more consistent and engaging user experience. • Landing Page Template Design + Integration into CMS: A redesign of the landing page template presents an opportunity to integrate into our CMS (content management system). This would mean we have more control over the user experience and managing updates. The design will be structurally similar (basic elements will still be there), but with a layer of design that is updated and more cohesive with the current direction of our main website design. • Rethinking Web Reporting: The web team is dedicated to user and data-driven decision-making, and that means reporting on metrics that matter to our stakeholders. Currently, we are working on stakeholderspecific web reporting templates that will be updated on a quarterly basis. 6
2020-2021 Annual Marketing Report Back
News Content Performance 7
2020-2021 Annual Marketing Report Back
This year, our Newsroom performance improved significantly. In selecting stories for our Newsroom, we use a scoring system to vet the relevance of the proposed article. The themes we look for are: DEI, LDDW focus, entrepreneurship, Brilliant Future, faculty research, relevance to current news cycle. The more themes the story checks off, the more likely our team is to pursue the lead and produce an article. All our top stories in our newsroom met one or more of these themes. Of course, there will always be stories we feature that have none of these elements, but the goal is to stay as on brand and on message as we can. Another measure of a good story is: is there a clear beginning, middle and end? For example, did an alum have a story of humble beginnings, learning and growing period at the Merage School, and then achieved success? What role did the Merage School play? These are the questions we want to answer in our newsroom as we tell the central brand story of Why Merage. Our newsroom and social media represents a portion of our owned media. This year we also began tracking our earned media (mentions in the news, internet, etc) through Cision. We had 420 media mentions:
By tracking our earned media, we can learn the kind of stories that we should be pitching and circulating to the media. We also use Cision to track the earned media of our competitors, to learn where they are successful. 8
2020-2021 Annual Marketing Report Back
KPIs In FY 20-21, the newsroom received 40,382 pageviews, average time on page is 1:53 minutes. We posted: • 72 stories • 5 press releases • Average of 6 news stories a month compared to last year's average of 5 • 24 were digitally driven stories, 21 were DEI stories, 28 featured faculty, and 20 covered events at the Merage School Our top 5 best-performing stories: 1. Three Times an Anteater (1,448 views) 2. GMAT/GRE Waiver (1,145 views) 3. Dr. Cyrus Shahpar (1,063 views) 4. Espi Elio (746 views) 5. BMA Announcement (684 views) That's a vast improvement over last year's top story with 247 views. Stories can be found in the Newsroom Tracker.
Year-Over-Year Performance In FY 20-21 the newsroom received a total of 6,898 views (485% increase).
Recommendations for Next Year Last year we were able to double our newsroom views, this year we improved almost fivefold. It is difficult to pinpoint exactly what caused this year’s success, however, there are some clues. First, it is possible that the year before we set up a cadence that was regular and predictable, priming our audience for this kind of story. Next, the effects of the pandemic and new interest in investing in education cannot be discarded. People had more time to read (as shown by the two-minute average per page) and more interest in possibly investing in their education. This is also shown by the sudden interest in our 2017 story about GMAT/GRE waivers. To some extent this also explains why Vivian’s story resonated with our audiences. Finally, launching the zot version of our newsletter unlocked a new audience for our stories. For next year, I recommend continuing our aggressive 6 articles a month average, especially on stories surrounding student success. 9
2020-2021 Annual Marketing Report Back
Social Media Performance
Our social media strategy complements our newsroom strategy. It is our main method of disseminating school news and student/alumni features. Our strategy this year has focused on promoting digitally driven stories and featuring underrepresented minority (URM) groups. Our strategies vary per platform. Our LinkedIn platform is a great way to promote events, alumni and our faculty. Instagram thrives when we feature our students and stories that have a strong visual impact.
KPIs Social media KPIs include: • Follower counts
• Engagement
• Impressions
Year-Over-Year Performance Facebook
• Page Like Growth: +157, 2.5% growth
• Followers: +3274 (17% growth)
• Engagement: -42%
• Impressions: -29%
Analysis: As noted last year, we are struggling to find our target audience on Facebook. Posts that do well tend to be about faculty. We can try a faculty spotlight series to engage our alumni there. However, our younger audience does not seem to be connecting with us on the platform. If we are looking for ways to cut down for our launch of TikTok, this may be a platform to think of keeping on autopilot. Also, our fans tend to be online after 3 p.m. We will adjust our posting times to reflect that.
Analysis: Overall LinkedIn continues to be our strongest platform. Increased time here engaging with our followers would be a great way to maximize our strengths. Additional information: • Average engagement rate for our organic Linkedin posts is 4.13%, comparable to the average engagement rate of 0.054% for company pages and average 2% engagement rate on Linkedin in general. This means we are performing twice as well as most other LI pages.
• Average CTR for our organic Linkedin posts is 2.84%, which matches the Linkedin average CTR.
• Followers: Growth +482, 13% growth • Engagement: -12%
Analysis: With Instagram’s statement that they are no longer a photo sharing app, it is imperative that we start posting reels to increase our engagement. Additional information:
• Followers: +.65 % • Impressions: -50%
• In July 2021, we reached 43,892 accounts on Instagram. Of these accounts, 41.9K are non-followers and 1,982 are followers. It's important to note that we are reaching a high percentage of individuals who do not already follow us.
Analysis: This year we have tried to make our Twitter feed more engaging by liking posts and interacting with others. Unless we spend time participating in popular memes and devote significant resources here, it will be hard to grow on Twitter.
• Each organic post on our main Instagram feed averages out to 1.3K impressions, with the highest performing posts reaching over 2K in impressions. Videos do slightly better than our picture posts on average. Stories have about half the reach as compared to our main feed posts. • Our best performing video is the stop-motion one with welcome-back Merage gear showing high engagement. • Our holiday posts this year have received significant traction and tend to be some of our best performing posts. • Our followers tend to be online after 4 p.m. 11
2020-2021 Annual Marketing Report Back
Recommendations for Next Year 1. Launch TikTok. Our younger audiences are not on Facebook, they are on TikTok. This has the added bonus of allowing us to repost our TikToks to Instagram Reels for content.
3. LinkedIn: Instead of doing a daily focus on Twitter, I recommend a daily focus on LinkedIn, where our professional and older audience is at. Focus on commenting and engaging with our community. Career announcements and great place to hype up our student and alumni accomplishments.
2. Instagram focus on video: In order to allow us the time to focus on adding a new platform, we will be moving away from career and student features on our main Instagram feeds. DEI specific features will be in our instagram stories. We will be much more active on our stories rather than our main feed. Main feed will be for major announcements and posts appealing to the younger demographic (undergrads and SMP).
4. Twitter and Facebook: Until we have more resources available, I recommend leaving these on autopilot. Definitely keep them, but mostly do what we are doing now: posting content that we also post on our other channels.
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2020-2021 Annual Marketing Report Back
Video Performance 13
2020-2021 Annual Marketing Report Back
Throughout FY 20-21, our video production team worked with all our programs, departments, Centers of Excellence, and the Dean’s Suite to provide pre-production strategy, filming/photography, and post-production needs in both an in-person and remote environment. Outside of individual client needs, we also supplied school-associated webinar production and content, ensuring the promotion of the overall mission and the main four goals of the school. We also ensured a smooth commencement for FY 20-21 by providing each program with a personalized celebration video. While working with each school program, we identified specific video needs at the beginning of FY 20-21. This allowed us to establish a production plan on how to handle and produce projects equally for all programs throughout the year. During the year, we produced student/alum features, full program webinars as well as YouTube Ads for our programs. We also established video coverage timelines and video content needs including animation features for our departments, Centers of Excellence and the Dean’s Suite virtual events and programs. The video team successfully managed the production, promotion and coverage of all virtual events that were required throughout the year. The virtual event coverage, video features and promotional pieces listed above were shared through social media channels and video hosting services such as YouTube, Vimeo and MBATube, and/or internally with our clients via .mp4 files. During FY 20-21, the video production team produced over 23% more videos than we did in FY 19-20, including but not limited to, 60+ rebranded webinars, 30+ client videos, 8 commencement celebrations and 1 fully animated promotional video. Our main goals for videos content were: 1. Increasing awareness of both the Merage School and our programs to our target audiences (prospective students, current students, alumni, the business community, donors, campus and the local business community) through our video content. 2. Increasing engagement of our content by utilizing clients' stylistic preferences and messaging that fits specific target audience's unique needs. 3. Building upon our brand messaging of “Leadership for a Digitally Driven World” throughout our video content. 4. Building safe environments and good vibes with all of our productions. With FY 20-21 being a year of uncertainty we made sure to bring the juice with every production to make talent feel both comfortable and safe.
KPIs 1. Increasing awareness
2. Increasing engagement
YouTube
Vimeo
MBATube
Total*
# of Videos Published
86
10
N/A
96
# of Views
185,377
246
14,861
200,484
Avg. View Duration (MM:SS)
1:33
10:48
N/A
Avg. 6:11
Total Watch Time (Hours)
4839
22.5
N/A
4861.5
YouTube
Vimeo
MBATube
Total*
Shares
792
N/A
N/A
792
Subscribes
175
0
N/A
175
Likes
318
0
1
319
Comments
67
N/A
N/A
67
*YouTube Sponsored Videos
*Numbers do not include social media videos.
*Numbers do not include social media videos.
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2020-2021 Annual Marketing Report Back
Recommendations for Next Year
3. Building on our brand messaging • Key Messaging: include tagline and keywords such as Digital Leadership, Digitally Driven, Digital World
As we begin FY 21-22, we continue to: • Increase awareness of both the Merage School and our programs by targeting the local business community, rather than solely marketing towards our current student population. We will extend our reach by using new channels such as TikTok to promote content that brings attention to the value the Merage School extends to the community.
• Featured Stories: focus on how we live the Leadership for a Digitally Driven World tagline, shown in features like In-Person & Remote Instruction. 4. Building Safe Environments and Good Vibes • Providing a Safe Filming Environment: to ensure we stay ahead of the curve with safety while filming. Provided options for our talent via remote and inperson alternatives to filming. We proudly made it through FY 20-21 without a single outbreak from a marketing filming session and had fun while doing it!
• Increase engagement by featuring stories that draw positive emotions intertwined with our brand messaging while maintaining program-specific stylistic preferences targeted toward our various audiences. We plan to increase research video pieces to engage and provide thoughtful information to our audiences from a different perspective.
Year-Over-Year Performance July 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021
July 1, 2019 to June 30, 2020
% Increase or Decrease
Views
185,377
33,803
448%
Avg. View Duration (MM:SS)
1:33
3:37
133%**
Total Watch Time (Hours)
4839
2,037
137%
Impressions
573,799
297,115
93%
Subscriber
175
134
30%
Likes
379
318
19%
Shares
792
819
3%
• Build brand identity of “Leadership for a Digitally Driven World” under our new leadership by producing video features of students, alumni and faculty that are using digital transformation to positively impact their communities both locally and globally. In-Person vs Remote Learning video
** The average length of our top five performing videos in FY 20-21 was 1:14 vs the average length of our top five performing videos in FY 19-20 which was 9:42.
Merage School Consulting animation video
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2020-2021 Annual Marketing Report Back
Brand and Design 16
2020-2021 Annual Marketing Report Back
We continued our efforts to unify and elevate the Merage School brand across all mediums in FY 20-21. Working remotely throughout this year required us to think innovatively to bring back some of our most popular events and even some new ones. The 1st annual Black Management Association Conference was very successfully held entirely on the Remo platform. We designed an all-inclusive floor plan where conference attendees could join speaker events, interact with each other in breakout areas and visit sponsor booths without leaving their sofas. In order to allow greater delivery access to more people around the world, we’ve pivoted away from print to more digital pieces saving us time and money. We now host our marketing collateral on the issuu. com platform bringing our creative to life in an interactive flip-book style layout. Issuu gives us the opportunity to embed links on our website and measure the success of each piece by tracking clicks, reads, devices used, the average time readers are spending in a publication and where the readers are located around the world.
BMA conference floor plan Black Manage ment Associa tion
The Paul Merage
School of Business
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Event Spons
Click on logos
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to see offers
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Research in Action on the Issuu platform
Marketing & Communications web page
We continue to promote our faculty research through the Research in Action publication and the new Research & Faculty web page. Clever and captivating illustrations bring a new perspective to our faculty’s cutting-edge research. The brand onboarding piece turned into a Marketing & Communications web page – beautifully designed and formatted by Callie. All things marketing can be found on this page including marketing project request forms for all your needs. You can also find links to the Apparel Store and the Brand Guidelines which remains the most useful brand tool for all our stakeholders. A comprehensive Social Media section was recently added to help you better share, follow and like social content.
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Merage School Apparel Store
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2020-2021 Annual Marketing Report Back
KPIs Creative team KPIs are subjective and more difficult to track. We planned on conducting Brand Audits in FY 20-21 which would have provided a clearer picture of KPIs based on the outline below, but we moved it to the back burner anticipating it would be initiated when we returned to our offices. This initiative will be prioritized for FY 21-22. Data on the following KPIs will be collected during the Brand Audits:
The estimated time is calculated for a maximum of 3 proofs. Often that number is surpassed which extends the time spent on those projects. • Estimated vs. actual project budget – produce good work within budget; provide and communicate estimates for approval. While in-house design services are provided at no cost to our departments, management of other expenses (printing, writing, photography, etc.) is essential to make sure we are fiscally responsible. Occasionally, it is necessary to send projects to outside designers. In those cases, the cost for that service will be provided to the client for approval prior to the start. Any outside expense will receive estimates for prior approval unless declined by the client. We pledge to get the best price for the best quality work for our clients.
• Lead time per project – the amount of time it takes from the start of a project to final delivery. Below is a general outline followed for design projects with the understanding that some projects may take longer if they are larger or the design is more involved. 1. Respond to design requests within 24 hours 2. Produce initial drafts with 72 hours of acceptance 3. Respond to review comment (edits on proofs) within 24 hours
• Client satisfaction – did the work provided meet/ exceed the client’s expectations.
4. Deliver complete document by agreed completion date/time
Overall, the consensus is that the team consistently provides work that meets client satisfaction year-over-year.
• Estimated vs. actual project time – compares what the team said we would do to what we actually did.
Year-Over-Year Performance While this year was another unusual one, the school as a whole has innovated and adjusted through the new postCovid work reality. As a result, the creative team produced more than 642 design projects in FY 20-21 and that’s not including collaborations on other marketing initiatives and
projects. We continue to look for new ways to creatively meet our clients’ needs in a more digital environment. PostCovid means using technology to reach our audiences and prospective students where they are most comfortable.
Recommendations for Next Year Our goal is to guard our brand and maintain brand integrity by translating marketing objectives into clear creative strategies. To further live out the Leadership for a Digitally Driven World brand, the following initiatives/projects are in the works for FY 21-22:
• Building decor updates – updating the faculty posters, courtyard flags and display case posters as well as looking at other ways to improve and “brand” our physical spaces. • Next Stage Design Evolution – roll out of our new 5-year creative strategy plan.
• Brand audits – meeting with each client to track successes and find out what else is needed.
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2020-2021 Annual Marketing Report Back
Advertising Performance 19
2020-2021 Annual Marketing Report Back
All Graduate Programs
We saw much growth in our advertising efforts for our graduate programs this year. In Google Ads we initially invested in three different ad types – Search, Display and Retargeting – and then later invested in a fourth ad type, Video ads through YouTube. As a School, we spent 99.4% of our intended allocated Google Ads ad budget. Google had the most optimizations and the most improvements over the past year. Overall leads increased by 95% compared to the previous year, the cost per lead (CPL) decreased by 42%, click through rate increased by 67% and clicks increased 9%. These are huge wins. A detailed list of ad performance is broken down by program and ad type below.
Campaign
Type
Impressions
Clicks
Conversions
CVR
CPL
School
Search
44.4K
6.1K
281
4.6%
$106.51
All MBA
Search
150.9K
2.6K
129
4.8%
$154.41
Display
1.2M
7.7K
208
2.7%
$28.01
Retargeting
3.79M
11.4K
104
3.3%
$19.58
Search
25.7K
863
147
3.3%
$0
Retargeting
1.4M
7.8K
348
4.4%
$25.12
Video
189.1K
21.8K
496
18.2%
$6.21
Search
46.1K
5.5K
125
2.2%
$96.76
Display
1.1M
6.6K
88
1.3%
$58.28
Retargeting
396.3K
11.4K
1.2K
10.8%
$8.92
Video
30.3K
409
51
12.5%
$10.03
Search
35.8K
2.4K
139
5.9%
$87.01
Display
479.6K
7.6K
140
1.9%
$38.74
Retargeting
6.5M
40.5K
93
0.2%
$73.66
FTMBA
FEMBA
EMBA
39% decrease 39% increase
7% increase
44% increase 51% increase
6% decrease
43% increase 311% increase
16% decrease 38% decrease 62% decrease
4% increase
38% increase 1343% increase
283% increase 116% increase 36% decrease
86% increase
67% decrease 4229% increase
48% decrease 8096% increase 20
66% increase 138% increase
584% increase 584% increase 1239% increase
79% increase
78% increase 9.5% increase
88% increase 1390% increase 745% increase
2020-2021 Annual Marketing Report Back
15% increase 57% increase
4% decrease 0% increase 7% decrease
53% decrease 191% increase 71% increase
1.1% increase 2689% increase 89% decrease
38% decrease 52% decrease
93% decrease 0% decrease 62% decrease
56% decrease 87% decrease 21% decrease
52% decrease 99% decrease 43% decrease
MPAc
MFin
MSBA
MIE
MSBTM TOTAL
Search
53.7K
2.1K
81
3.8%
$164.49
Display
606K
8.5K
202
2.4%
$28.85
Retargeting
555.4K
9.7K
813
8.4%
$13.22
Video
283.9K
35.5K
424
4.8%
$11.39
Search
43.3K
2.3K
176
7.6%
$66.13
Display
729.2K
6.4K
307
4.8%
$20.70
Retargeting
265K
6.6K
1.2K
18.9%
$6.13
Video
192.9K
28.1K
146
2.3%
$32.66
Search
56.4K
2.1K
188
9.4%
$31.95
Display
654.5K
8.9K
454
5.1%
$13.22
Retargeting
456.9K
5.6K
964
17.1%
$5.79
Video
271.2K
3.5K
445
12.8%
$10.80
Search
106.3K
2.4K
76
3.1%
$78.61
Display
341.9K
4.3K
176
4.1%
$17.98
Retargeting
456.9K
5.6K
964
17.1%
$5.79
Video
271.2K
3.5K
445
12.8%
$10.80
Search
161.3K
7.3K
498
6.8%
$20.19
22.3M
212.7K
10.9K
5.1%
$23.84
86% increase 84% decrease 44% decrease
50% increase 12% decrease 49% decrease
49% decrease 64% decrease 78% decrease
73% increase 69% decrease 78% decrease
34% decrease 35% decrease
10% increase 3% decrease 30% increase
86% increase 24% increase 41% increase
9% decrease 60% increase 19% decrease
72% increase 36% decrease 19% decrease
52% increase 9% increase
4% decrease 122% increase
166% increase
38% increase 47% decrease 60% increase
39% decrease 1095% increase 40% increase
58% increase 87% increase 40% increase
103% increase 94% increase
Recommendations for Next Year With the assistance of our digital ad vendor, 454 Creative, we recommend pivoting all Display and Retargeting Google ads from static GIF ads to dynamic Smart Display ads. Smart Display campaigns automate and then optimize targeting, bidding, and ads. Powered by Google's machine learning, a Smart Display campaign can automatically find new and existing customers, set the right bids and create engaging ads that adapt to any screen or ad space across the web and apps. By loading Google with several variations of ad copy, headline and image/video assets, its AI capabilities find the most optimal combination to serve up, always evolving to ensure lowest CPL.
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2020-2021 Annual Marketing Report Back
12% decrease 229% increase 104% increase
28% decrease 57% decrease 12.8% increase
32% decrease 652% increase 73% increase
8% decrease 191% increase 73% increase
12% increase 79% increase
12% increase 60% decrease 32% decrease
47% increase 42% increase 3% increase
9% increase 86% decrease 16% decrease
36% decrease 58% decrease 16% decrease
67% decrease 42% decrease
Linkedin Ad efforts have also had great improvement over the past year. Overall conversions increased 107.4% compared to the previous year and cost per conversion decreased by 35.7%. Clicks increased by 123.3% and impressions by 392.5%. More great wins for the School. During FY 20-21, we increased our spend and focus on InMail efforts for all three MBA programs with the strongest emphasis on FEMBA. This year we tried out two ad types with the Specialty Masters Programs – Sponsored Post and Text Ads. We learned that Text Ads do not yield high returns on leads and that the sponsored post Update ads are good for impression counts but yield no leads which make KPI reporting less supported. Campaign
Type
Impressions
Clicks
Conversions
CVR
CPL
School
Update
99.9K
570
NA
NA
NA
All MBA
Update
151.6K
639
35
5.5%
$193.80
FTMBA
InMail
40.2K
25.1K
70
0.3%
$155.33
FEMBA
InMail
157.1K
91.8K
296
0.4%
$190.22
Update
212.5K
287
NA
NA
NA
EMBA
InMail
49.5K
25.7K
152
0.6%
$144.30
MPAc
Update
183.8K
277
NA
NA
NA
Text Ad
1.1M
105
3
2.9%
$333.33
Update
108.7K
216
NA
NA
NA
MFin
6% increase
7% decrease
211% increase 220% increase
220% increase
216% increase 172% increase
210% increase
67% increase 253% increase 84% increase
215% increase
79% increase 6% increase 3% increase
33% increase
79% decrease 6% increase 54% increase
39% increase
Text Ad
857.6K
84
3
3.6%
$256.00
MSBA
Text Ad
803.8K
101
3
3.0%
$333.33
MIE
Update
40.1K
103
NA
NA
NA
Text Ad
712.5K
52
2
3.8%
$259.53
657,215
61,946
355
0.57%
$220.84
TOTAL
393% increase
123% increase
22
107% increase
2020-2021 Annual Marketing Report Back
7% decrease
367% increase
Recommendations for Next Year Based on returns seen in LinkedIn during FY 20-21, we recommend continuing efforts in InMail for the FEMBA and EMBA programs and continued testing of InMail for the FTMBA program. We recommend continuing the ALL MBA Display ad campaign while continuing to optimize the efforts. We advise SMP to no longer allocate funds to this platform.
Expand traditional LinkedIn and Facebook campaigns with newer ad types (For example: Linkedin Conversation ads) as well as leverage custom audiences for additional impact.
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2020-2021 Annual Marketing Report Back
Facebook and Instagram Ads did not improve this year, most likely due to the fact that, as a School, we paused our ads during the Facebook Boycott. We also saw hateful comments on our ads targeting certain racial groups. We removed such comments and acknowledged that this platform is far more polarized and politicized than any other digital ad channel. Facebook and Instagram Ads have typically served well for the Specialty Masters Programs and decent for our MBA programs. As we’ve seen through demographic targeting, it would appear that those in their 20s and 30s (typically FEMBA and FTMBA prospects) migrate away from Facebook and towards LinkedIn, most likely with the intent of advancing further in their professional vs personal lives. Click-throughs are now being directed to in-platform Lead Gen forms which increase conversions and reduce bounce rate. Campaign
Impressions
Clicks
Conversions
CVR
CPL
All MBA
239.8K
704
68
9.7%
$96.95
FTMBA
204.8K
623
24
3.9%
$206.76
EMBA
180.3K
769
63
8.2%
$118.97
MPAc
587.9K
3.8K
145
3.9%
$106.19
MFin
396.2K
2.2K
154
7.0%
$68.29
MSBA
415K
2.9K
217
7.5%
$44.28
MIE
297.3K
1.2K
121
9.9%
$86.91
TOTAL
3.3M
13.2K
1.2K
8.8%
$61.77
45% decrease 41% decrease 46% decrease 21% decrease 29% decrease 25% decrease 25% decrease 28% decrease
25% decrease 45% decrease 43% decrease 8% decrease 17% decrease 24% decrease 17% decrease 33% decrease
12% decrease 9% increase 24% decrease 29% decrease 22% decrease 34% decrease 18% decrease 64% decrease
18% increase 99% increase 34% increase 23% decrease 5% decrease 34% decrease 1% decrease 46% decrease
7% decrease 12% decrease 19% increase 26% increase 26% increase 37% increase 20% increase 126% increase
Recommendations for Next Year With the assistance of our digital ad vendor, 454 Creative, we will continue to optimize all running Video Display and
Lead Gen campaigns. We will continue to introduce new assets and copy to the ads when available.
Advancement, Centers of Excellence, Career Center and Executive Education LinkedIn advertising helped to reach our target audience, whether it was for brand awareness for a certificate, registering for an event or contacting our Career Center. • Executive Education – Sponsored ads are directly linked to the respective Certificate websites on the Merage School website.
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2020-2021 Annual Marketing Report Back
Campaign
Clicks
Conversions
CTR
Exec Ed: CAM Retargeting 2021
158
87
55.06%
Exec Ed: CAM Video Lookalike
527
299
56.74%
Exec Ed: CAM Industries R2
14,915
57
0.38%
Exec Ed: CLHM Titles
15,004
89
0.59%
Exec Ed: CLHM Companies
18,499
106
0.57%
Exec Ed: CAM Titles and Interests Lead Gen 2021
9,022
38
0.42%
Exec Ed: CAM Titles and Interests Video 2021 r2
10,035
34
0.34%
Exec Ed: CWL Info Session 2021
30,403
166
0.55%
Exec Ed: CWL Info Session 2021 Alumni
22,516
244
1.08%
Exec Ed: CRE 2020
12,317
70
0.57%
Exec Ed: CLHM in Mail
363
189
52.07%
Career Center: Lead Gen 06.20
21,832
102
0.47%
Career Center: Conv Ads 11.20
4,772
3255
68.21%
Career Center: Single Image Sponsored Ad 11.20
25,093
79
0.31%
Career Center Lead Gen 12.20
41,033
190
0.46%
Career Center - Alumni Volunteer Guide 03.21
30,847
207
0.67%
Career Center HR Sponsored Ad 06.20
20,541
90
0.44%
Career Center: Alumni Sponsored Ads 06.20
17,084
148
0.87%
Career Center: Lead Gen Form 05.21
24,824
68
0.27%
Career Center: Sponsored Single Image Ad- Alumni TechNight 11.16.20
9,180
67
0.73%
Career Center: InMail Sponsored Alumni Ads TechNight 10/23 -11/16
149
100
67.11%
External relations: InMail for Gaming, Tech, etc
834
426
51.08%
External relations: InMail for Marketing, General
1,667
883
52.97%
External Relations: InMail for Finance | MAR01-APR30
2,468
1339
54.25%
CHCMP: HFC 2021
35,316
30
0.08%
CHCMP: HFC 2021 r2
17,243
19
0.11%
CHCMP: Speaker Series Spring 2021
10,054
26
0.25%
Year-Over-Year Performance
Recommendations for Next Year
This is the second year we utilized LinkedIn marketing, but for different certificates and programs. Our Certificate in Arts Management and Certificate in Women’s Leadership maintained a significant growth YoY with more ad spend allocated to the campaigns.
With the addition of retargeting, we are now able to better target our audience. With either lead gen form opens, website visits or video views, we can focus on targeting a warmer audience with a direct InMail linked to a lead generation form. We recommend utilizing retargeting and lead gen forms going forward.
25
2020-2021 Annual Marketing Report Back
Email Performance 26
2020-2021 Annual Marketing Report Back
All Graduate Programs At the beginning of FY 20-21 in September, we worked with each graduate program to polish and refine each of their respective drip campaigns. We also scrubbed each list of prospects, removing all email addresses for recipients who had not engaged with an email from the Merage School in over 18 months. All leads, inquiries and AIPs were nurtured with highlevel drip campaigns that were program specific in content and delivered every 7 days. In addition to the passive running drip campaigns, all grad programs sent ad hoc emails throughout the year that promoted upcoming deadlines and program hosted events. These were sent on Tuesdays where appropriate and spoke to timely matters. Overall, we saw huge gains this year in open and click through rates. This indicates that we have a healthy engaged list. We also began scoring all Pardot prospects based on meaningful engagements (defined by each program) and are now able to properly measure lead quality and serve up qualified leads more seamlessly.
KPIs Ad Hoc Emails (Events and Deadlines) Emails Sent
Open Rate
CTR
Leads in List*
FTMBA
35
8.8%
6.4%
36,130
FEMBA
37
10.1%
10.1% 5.0%
9,213
EMBA
37
17.9%
8.0%
5,539
MPAc
23
14.7%
5.6%
24,954
MFin
27
16.6%
6.7%
38,402
MSBA
23
16.8%
6.2%
24,022
MIE
23
15.8%
6.2%
20,040
55% decrease 31% decrease 31% decrease 5% increase 108% increase 53% increase 92% increase
5% decrease
20% increase
202% increase 98% increase 202% increase 286% increase 50% increase 6% increase 82% increase 65% increase
121% increase 26% decrease 31% decrease 18% decrease 20% decrease
*These are dynamic lists and change daily. The number recorded was number of leads as of 7/1/21
Drip Emails (Nurture) Emails in Drip Open Rate
CTR
Unsubscribe Rate
FTMBA
10
14.7%
5.1%
43,462
FEMBA
9
15.9%
7.2%
12,271
EMBA
11
14.9%
6.9%
6,225
MPAc
8
15.4%
5.1%
29,387
MFin
8
16.0%
4.8%
44,153
MSBA
8
14.9%
3.9%
27,555
MIE
7
14.0%
4.0%
23,200
298% increase 498% increase 202% increase 134% increase 195% increase 309% increase 266% increase
182% increase 383% increase 202% increase 82% increase 124% increase 205% increase 134% increase
27
2020-2021 Annual Marketing Report Back
Recommendations for Next Year Segmentation will be the key to continued improvements in open rates, growing healthier lists and better serving our prospective students. To best do this, we recommend adding additional emails to each running drip that are specific to segmented demographic items such as veteran
specific, CA resident specific, etc. We will continue to build upon our current practices and content creation and to build out action-based items for prospects who score a high enough lead score and become a “likely prospect”.
Advancement, Centers of Excellence, Career Center and Executive Education The clients all utilize the Mailchimp platform for email marketing. The past year, 328 emails have been delivered, with a 28.31% open rate and 4.10% CTR.
Alumni and Community Newsletter The strategy around alumni and community newsletters has continued to evolve. Currently they are released on the first Thursday of the month. This year we have also introduced zot newsletters. This began in December 2020 and a total of seven zot newsletters were sent FY 20-21. We saw a slight dip in our stats, but overall we reached a new audience through the zot version of the newsletters. Our stand-out month was November 2020 which featured a subject line announcing the BMA (alumni newsletter saw a 29% open rate). Interestingly enough, our worst performing subject line (at 14% open rate) was “Alumni News: Celebrating Black History Month,” which leads us to believe our audience wants specifics, not general statements. February was an interesting month because an email from Ian to alumni (Happy Lunar New Year – Year of the Ox) had a huge open rate of 32.3%, meaning almost a third of our audience was interested in this subject. This was not a newsletter email and not included in the stats above, but it is interesting nonetheless. This year we also used a standardized subject line (Alumni News: Example Subject Line). This may have an effect on the open rate but the difference is too small to say definitively.
KPIs Emails Sent
Open Rate
CTR
Alumni
12
21%
1%
Community
12
15.36%
1.04%
Year-Over-Year Performance Open Rate
CTR FY 19-20
FY 20-21
Alumni
23.9%
21%
Community
15.06%
15.36%
28
FY 19-20
FY 20-21
Alumni
1.18%
1%
Community
1.11%
1.04%
2020-2021 Annual Marketing Report Back
CONTACT If you have any questions, please contact the Marketing Department: Levi Eastwood Director, Marketing & Communications leastwoo@uci.edu Callie Brazil Associate Director of Web Communications brazilc@uci.edu Maureen Bresse Associate Creative Director mbresse@uci.edu Daina Hanamura Associate Director of Marketing dhanamur@uci.edu Xanat Hernandez Associate Director of Communications xanath@uci.edu Tyler Robinson Manager of Video Production Services ttrobins@uci.edu
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2020-2021 Annual Marketing Report Back
