Vocational and training marketing
Student enrolment marketing, measured in enrolments.
Student enrolment marketing should be measured in enrolled students, not enquiries. An enquiry is a form fill. An enrolment is a student who paid and started. Half of course enquiries never enrol, so buying more of them fills your inbox and leaves the cohort half empty.
By Ivan Janku, Founder of Digital Rocket. We manage over $1.5M per month in ad spend across immigration, franchise and vocational accounts.
The short version: bing return on ad spend 3.12x; google, same offer 2.14x; 21 straight months 2.99x; every lead graded GAR.
What should a training provider measure instead of cost per enquiry?
Cost per enrolled student. An enquiry is a form fill, an enrolment is revenue. Two providers can pull identical enquiry numbers and fill very different numbers of seats, which is why enquiry volume tells you almost nothing about whether the cohort will run.
Why do course enquiries not turn into enrolments?
Because most enquirers are researching, not buying, and many arrive outside the intake window. Cheaper enquiries usually mean less qualified. The platform optimises for the event you tell it to chase, so tell it to chase form fills and it will find people who fill forms.
The fix is to grade every enquiry before sales chases it, then feed the enrolment data back so the platform hunts buyers instead of browsers.
From our accounts
Cohorts have a start date, which makes course marketing unlike almost anything else we run. An enquiry that arrives two weeks before intake behaves nothing like one that arrives four months out, so we grade by intake window as well as fit. Green, amber and red, fed back into the platforms, so the algorithm learns to find people who enrol for the cohort that is actually filling.
Is Bing worth running for course ads, or just Google?
For the right audience, yes. For myTTConline, an online training provider we run ads for, Bing returned 3.12x on ad spend against Google 2.14x on the same offer, a 46% edge. Work computers ship with Edge, Edge defaults to Bing, and professional buyers rarely change it.
How do you fill a cohort before it starts?
Work backwards from the intake date. Grade enquiries by intake window and funding readiness, prioritise the ones who can start on time, and hold budget back for the final push when late deciders convert fastest. Filling seats late costs more than filling them early.
How does Digital Rocket lower cost per enrolled student?
The Rocketship Method: diagnose first, fix the tracking and intake leaks, grade every enquiry green, amber or red, then scale only what enrols. Not more enquiries. More enrolled students.
Digital Rocket is a profit leak fixer, not an ads agency. We diagnose before we pitch, because scaling spend on broken tracking just scales the waste.
What proof backs this up?
For Elec Training, the client data shows cost per lead falling from GBP 257 to GBP 5.28. Per the myTTConline account data, the account held 2.99x return across 21 consecutive months.
Proof, sourced. The numbers behind this come from an immigration practice we still run. Per the client data: a 6.39x return on spend, and acquisition cost down 55% per case. Blended return 6.39x. Consult quality improved 55% once grading moved ahead of intake. Digital Rocket manages over $1.5M per month in ad spend and holds 4.9 across 9 verified client reviews on Clutch.
A test worth running this month
Pull last quarter. Count enquiries, count signed matters, divide. That single percentage tells you whether your problem is volume or conversion. Almost every firm we audit assumes volume and finds conversion. Run it before you approve another budget increase.
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