Case Study
Northeastern University

How We Shifted Northeastern University’s International Acquisition Engine From Lead Volume to Student Quality

Northeastern University is a global university with a strong experiential-learning proposition, built around integrating academics with real-world professional experience. Its global footprint spans campuses across the U.S., U.K. and Canada, alongside learning and professional experiences across the world. (Northeastern University)

 

For its student acquisition efforts across Southeast Asia and South America, however, the performance challenge wasn’t simply generating more enquiries.

 

International student acquisition has a long consideration cycle. Program relevance, career outcomes, university credibility and the commitment involved in studying abroad all influence whether an enquiry eventually becomes a serious applicant.

 

Optimising media towards inexpensive form submissions could therefore make the campaigns look efficient while sending admissions teams more prospects with limited enrolment intent.

Key Business Challenge

Build a full-funnel acquisition system that could expand international demand while simultaneously increasing the proportion of Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) - making lead quality, not simply lead volume, the real performance metric.

Campaign

Education - Southeast Asia & South America

Industry

Higher Education

Key Growth Levers

Performance Marketing

Before Re-architecting, We Diagnosed
Where Efficient Lead Generation Wasn’t Enough

Existing Demand vs New Demand

Students actively searching for programs required a very different acquisition journey from relevant prospects who knew the career outcome they wanted but hadn’t yet considered Northeastern.

Multiple Markets = Multiple Student Personas

Audiences across Southeast Asia and South America differed by program interest, motivation and decision stage. Generic international-student messaging left relevance on the table.

The Funnel Broke After the Click

Media efficiency alone couldn’t solve conversion. Landing-page friction and the disconnect between ad-platform signals and CRM outcomes limited the system’s ability to learn from genuinely qualified prospects.

From Lead Generation to
A Full-Funnel Acquisition Engine Optimised for Student Quality

Google = Capture Existing Education Intent

Search campaigns focused on prospects already demonstrating program and study intent, allowing us to intercept demand closer to the consideration stage rather than manufacture it.

CRM Events Closed the Quality Loop

Integrated downstream CRM signals back into the ad platforms, progressively teaching algorithms what an MQL looked like instead of rewarding every form submission equally.

#ROI

Landing Pages Optimisation

Continuously worked on landing-page journeys and website conversion rates so that stronger traffic translated into more enquiries.

Meta = Create Demand

Built persona-led audience and messaging structures to introduce relevant programs to students who matched the desired profile but weren’t necessarily searching for Northeastern yet.

Market-Level Learning

Performance across Southeast Asian and South American markets was evaluated beyond CPL, allowing budget decisions to reflect lead quality and enrolment potential rather than inexpensive volume alone.

We connected media, messaging, landing-page behaviour and CRM outcomes into one performance system. Google and Meta were given different jobs, while deeper-funnel MQL data was fed back into acquisition decisions.

Within 4 Months of Launch
Here Were Our Results

Leads Generated
0 +
Marketing Qualified Leads
0 %
Cost per Lead
0 X

The strongest outcome wasn’t that MQLs increased or that CPL declined independently. They moved in the right direction simultaneously.

The system generated more than 4,000 enquiries while increasing qualified lead volume by 44% and reducing CPL by 28% – demonstrating that international education campaigns don’t necessarily have to choose between acquisition scale and student quality.

Our Learnings
We Don't Just Scale Leads

We Scale Admissions By Optimising for the Students, Admissions Teams Actually Want

01

In international education, CPL can hide poor economics. Media becomes substantially smarter when the optimisation signal moves from enquiry to qualified prospect.

02

Search and social solve different demand problems: Google captures students already expressing intent, while Meta can create consideration among the right students before that search exists.

03

Landing-page optimisation is a media lever. Better audience selection loses its value if qualified prospects encounter unnecessary friction after clicking.

04

CRM feedback changes what algorithms learn. Connecting downstream qualification to acquisition creates a compounding loop where platforms progressively find more of the prospects the business actually values.

For us, international education marketing isn’t about generating more enquiries – it’s about making every layer of the acquisition system better at finding students with a genuine intent to enrol.
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