From Risky Experiment to Reliable Lead Source

The Situation

University of Phoenix wanted to use social media advertising to generate leads from prospective students. But as a new ad channel, paid social worked differently from the channels the team knew well, like TV, radio, search and display ads. On social, how people experienced an ad had a big effect on whether it performed.

To the larger marketing team, paid social was the Wild West: a big opportunity with a lot of risk. They brought me in to make it pay off.

Business Risks I Uncovered

• Wasting a $4M budget. Without someone who knew the channel, the University risked spending heavily on social ads that didn't produce enough leads to justify the cost.
• Too many hands, too little shared knowledge. The University was a large organization with many teams involved in every campaign, and most of them were new to social advertising. Without training, every team would learn the same lessons the expensive way.

Solutions I Implemented

I led a six-person social media team, managed our paid social agency and owned the ad budget. My first priority was cutting wasted spend.

• Implementing a creative testing cycle. We ran a small number of ads at a time. I brought the results from weekly agency meetings to our in-house creative team, who used them to make the next round of ads to test.
• Testing where to spend. I compared Facebook and LinkedIn to find which brought in leads more cost-effectively, and tested Twitter and YouTube for building awareness of the brand.
• Getting everyone on the same page. I shared what we learned from testing with a large team of brand marketers, copywriters and designers, so everyone improved together. I also organized a one-day workshop where experts from our agency and the social platforms taught best practices for social ads.
• Connecting social to the bigger picture. I sent monthly reports to the larger marketing team and brought social into the University's data strategy, so teams could see how it worked alongside their other campaigns.