The seat you did not fill is gone. The intake does not come back.
Enrollment is not a rolling target, it is a deadline. We work backwards from your intake dates, so demand arrives while there is still something to enrol into.
Three failures that look like a demand problem and are not.
01
Marketing starts when enrollment opens
By the time a prospectus is ready and the campaign is signed off, the people deciding this intake have been researching for two months. A course marketed in the enrollment window is being sold to people who already chose somewhere else — and the shortfall is blamed on the market rather than on the calendar.
02
The enquiry is answered after the decision is made
Somebody asks about fees, start dates or entry requirements on a Friday evening. The reply arrives Tuesday. In a category where three providers are being compared in the same week, response time decides more enrollments than course quality does.
03
Every course is marketed as though it were one product
A short professional certificate and a two-year programme are bought by different people for different reasons on completely different timelines. Advertising them together produces enquiries that fit neither, and a pipeline nobody can forecast.
4 questions, and a prospectus answers none of them.
What we would report on, and what each one is for.
Enquiry counts are easy to move and tell you nothing in December about a September intake. These are the numbers that do.
Enrollments per intake, against capacity
The only number the year is actually judged on. Reported against the seats you have, not as a raw count.
Cost per enrolled student, by course
Held separately per programme, because a certificate and a degree have different economics and averaging them hides which one is unprofitable.
Enquiry-to-application and application-to-enrollment
Two separate leaks with two different fixes. Most providers measure the ends and neither of the steps between.
Time from first touch to enrollment
It decides when a campaign must start. If the decision takes ninety days, a campaign launched in the enrollment window was launched sixty days late.
Response time to first enquiry
Measured in hours, reported weekly. In a comparison-heavy category it predicts enrollment better than anything in the ad account.
Deposit or acceptance drop-off
The students who said yes and never arrived. Cheaper to recover than to replace, and almost never actively worked.
Tick what is true. Three or more and this is your stage.
The stage you need is decided by what already works, not by budget. Switch stage below and the list changes with it.
Tick the ones that are true.
Nothing is submitted and nothing is stored — this is here so you can rule the stage out as easily as rule it in.
Tick the ones that are true.
Nothing is submitted and nothing is stored — this is here so you can rule the stage out as easily as rule it in.
Tick the ones that are true.
Nothing is submitted and nothing is stored — this is here so you can rule the stage out as easily as rule it in.
Foundation for Education, line by line.
Every line links to the service page it comes from, with its standalone price, so you can check the arithmetic rather than take our word for it.
Excludes ad spend, which you pay directly to the platforms.
One intake filled on purpose rather than by luckDemand that arrives early and is still there at the deadlineEvery intake, every course, planned as one year
Your intake calendar, worked backwards
Every deadline mapped against how long a decision has historically taken, so each campaign has a start date rather than a launch month. This alone reorders most providers' marketing year.
Part of CRO & Analytics → 02Paid search on the courses with seats
Up to $10,000 a month in ad spend, aimed at people already searching for what you teach — the shortest distance between a budget and an enrollment.
Part of Media Buying → 03A real page per course
Fees, entry requirements, start dates and the questions admissions answers on the phone all day. Most enquiries exist only because the page did not say.
Part of SEO & AI Visibility → 04Enquiry, application and enrollment tracked apart
Three events instead of one, so the two leaks between them can be told apart and fixed separately.
Part of CRO & Analytics → 05A monthly call against the calendar
Thirty minutes with the person running the account, reported against intake targets rather than impressions.
Part of Media Buying →Paid across two platforms, timed to the intake
Up to $25,000 a month in ad spend, with the schedule mapped backwards from each deadline rather than spread evenly across the year.
Part of Media Buying → 02Nurture across the whole decision window
The sequences that keep you present through ninety days of comparison, and that chase accepted students who have not yet confirmed. The cheapest enrollments a provider gets.
Part of Lifecycle Management → 03Creative per course, not per institution
Eight statics and four videos a month, written for the person who actually chooses that programme and pays for it.
Part of Performance Creative → 04Course pages built to be found
The technical and content work that puts each programme in front of people two months before they enquire anywhere.
Part of SEO & AI Visibility → 05Two experiments a month on the application journey
Run where applications are actually abandoned, with the result recorded either way.
Part of CRO & Analytics →Paid across every channel that earns it
Budget allocated by which intakes still have seats and how close each deadline is, moved monthly, with the reasoning written down.
Part of Media Buying → 02Enquiries answered in minutes, including out of hours
Fees, entry requirements and start dates answered instantly, applications routed to the right admissions person, and unconfirmed acceptances chased automatically.
Part of AI Automation → 03Nurture across every course and every deadline
Different sequences for a certificate and a degree, because the decisions are not alike and the deadlines are not the same.
Part of Lifecycle Management → 04Organic and AI visibility as a managed programme
Including how your courses are described when a prospective student asks an AI assistant to compare providers — increasingly where the shortlist is formed.
Part of SEO & AI Visibility → 05Creative produced at the rate the calendar demands
Statics, video and the open-day assets each intake needs, produced against the schedule rather than in a rush.
Part of Performance Creative →The generic version speaks to none of them.
What this would cost you separately.
At $1,750 of fixed lines against $1,200, this stage genuinely costs less than the parts — because it is deliberately narrow. One channel, the courses with capacity, and the calendar work that decides when to start. It is the smallest honest version of this, not a discounted version of everything. Figures on the left are the closest equivalent line from the à la carte menu; a line inside a stage is never an exact copy of a standalone service, so treat this as a fair comparison rather than an identical one.
At $2,800 of fixed lines against $2,400, the saving is real and it is not the argument. The argument is that the campaign, the course page and the follow-up sequence all know the same deadline. In a category where the decision takes three months, that coordination is the difference between a full intake and a nearly full one. Figures on the left are the closest equivalent line from the à la carte menu; a line inside a stage is never an exact copy of a standalone service, so treat this as a fair comparison rather than an identical one.
At $4,370 of fixed lines against $4,200, the price is close to what the parts cost. What you are buying is one plan across every intake in the year. Budget moves toward the deadline that still has seats, the sequences know which course a student asked about, and nobody discovers an under-filled cohort in the last fortnight. Figures on the left are the closest equivalent line from the à la carte menu; a line inside a stage is never an exact copy of a standalone service, so treat this as a fair comparison rather than an identical one.
What this stage leaves out, on purpose.
Named here rather than discovered in month three. Each can be added, and each links to what it costs.
Nurture between enquiry and deadline
Foundation captures the enquiry. Staying present across a ninety-day decision is sequence work and belongs at Structure.
Lifecycle Management — $800/mo →Social as a demand channel
Considered study decisions are researched, and search is where that happens. Social earns its place once the search side is working.
Social Essential — $700/mo →A rebuilt website
We will write and improve the course pages. A rebuild is a separate piece of work with a separate price.
Business Website — from $1,500 →Automated answering of enquiries
Sequences run here; instant replies to fee and entry questions, including out of hours, are automation and belong at Ecosystem.
AI automation Care Plan — $350/mo →Corporate and B2B training campaigns
Selling cohorts to employers is a different buyer and a different message. Worth doing, and not inside this stage.
Social Growth — $1,400/mo →A rebuilt website
We will improve the pages that lose applications. A rebuild is separate work.
Business Website — from $1,500 →Academic or curriculum content
We market the programme. What is taught inside it is entirely yours.
Student records or admissions decisions
We do not touch records and we do not assess applicants. Campaigns produce enquiries; admissions decides.
Media spend itself
Every figure here excludes the money that goes to the platforms. It leaves your card, not ours.
What we will not do, whatever you pay us.
01
We will not promise outcomes on your behalf
No implied job guarantees, no salary claims, no suggestion of an outcome the institution cannot stand behind. Prospective students and their families make expensive decisions on this copy, and a claim you cannot support is a complaint waiting to happen.
02
We will not start a campaign too late to work
If a decision takes ninety days and the intake is in sixty, we will say so rather than spend the budget anyway. The honest recommendation is often to aim the money at the following intake and protect this one with something cheaper.
03
We will not route your ad budget through our account
It goes from your card to the platforms. We never hold it, float it, or take a percentage of it as margin. Management up to $10,000 a month of spend is a flat $900 — scaling your budget does not inflate our invoice.
Signature to first campaign: 5 to 10 business days.
What happens, and what we need from you at each point. The second column is the one most agencies leave vague.
We take access to what exists in your name and map your intake calendar backwards — every deadline, and how long a decision has historically taken before it.
Approve access requests from your own logins, and the intake dates for the year.
Enquiry, application and enrollment become three separate tracked events per course, so the two leaks between them can finally be told apart.
Point us at whatever holds applications — the CRM, the student system, or the spreadsheet it honestly is.
Copy is written per course rather than per institution, and checked so nothing implies an outcome you cannot stand behind.
One round of comments from whoever owns admissions.
First campaigns go live against the intake that is still far enough away to influence, with the spending schedule mapped to its deadline.
Confirmation of capacity per course, so we are not filling seats that do not exist.
First full report: enquiries and applications by course, cost per enrolled student where the intake has closed, response times, and what we got wrong.
45 minutes, and a decision on what changes.
What you are committing to.
The same terms apply to all three stages and every service on the site.
- Invoiced monthly in advance. Three-month minimum, then month-to-month with 30 days’ notice. Three months is the shortest honest term for anything measurable.
- Ad budgets are paid by you, directly to the platforms. We never hold, route or mark up your media spend, and the management fee is the only thing we are paid.
- Platform subscriptions stay on your billing. Advertising accounts, email platform, messaging, hosting — all in your name, so none of it is hostage to the relationship.
- You own every account, asset and piece of data created during the engagement, including after we part ways. That is not a courtesy at the end; it is the arrangement from day one.
- Onboarding is 5 to 10 business days from signature to first launch, depending on which services are in the plan.
- Custom scopes are always available. If none of the three stages fits, tell us the goal and the budget and we will price the actual work rather than sell you the nearest box.
- The $95 strategy session is credited in full toward your first invoice, so if we work together the session costs you nothing.
The questions that decide it.
Our intake is in eight weeks and we are under target. Can you help?
Partly, and we will be straight about which part. In eight weeks the work is recovery: re-engaging people who already enquired, chasing accepted students who have not confirmed, and buying the highest-intent search there is. What eight weeks cannot do is create considered demand from scratch for a decision that normally takes three months. We would run the recovery and start the real campaign for the following intake.
Can you guarantee a number of enrollments?
No, and in education that promise usually means buying the cheapest enquiries available and letting admissions absorb the disappointment. What we will do is report cost per enrolled student by course once an intake closes, and tell you before the next one whether the number is heading somewhere sustainable.
We have several courses. Do they all need separate campaigns?
The ones bought by different people on different timelines do. A short professional certificate and a multi-year programme share a brand and almost nothing else — different decision length, different objection, often a different person paying. We would rather run two honest campaigns than one that fits neither.
Does this work for corporate and B2B training?
Yes, with a different shape: the buyer is a company, the cycle behaves like a considered purchase, and the metric becomes cost per booked cohort rather than per student. The intake logic is the same — there is a date, and after it the seat is gone.
What happens if we stop?
Every account, asset and piece of data created during the engagement is yours, including after we part ways. Paid campaigns stop when the spend stops; the course pages, the content and the tracking keep working. That is the arrangement from day one, not a courtesy at the end.
Who this works for, and who it does not.
A good fit if
Most of this work looks like the following.
- You have intake dates and know roughly how many seats each one holds.
- There is at least one intake far enough away to influence properly.
- Somebody answers enquiries about fees and entry requirements the same day.
- You can tell us what an enrolled student is worth over the programme.
- You will let us write per course rather than per institution.
The wrong choice if
Said plainly, so nobody spends a call finding out.
- Every intake is already oversubscribed with a waiting list.
- The only intake that matters is closing in a few weeks.
- You want claims about jobs or salaries the institution cannot stand behind.
- Enquiries wait several days for a reply and nobody intends to change that.
- Nobody records which enquiries became applications.
A paid strategy session, credited back.
45 minutes. $95, credited in full toward your first invoice.
Bring your intake calendar and the last two intakes’ enquiry, application and enrollment numbers. We will work out your real cost per enrolled student and when each campaign has to start to matter — including if this intake is already too close.
- Your real cost per enrolled student, by course
- The date each campaign has to start to influence the next intake
- An honest read on which stage fits, or that none of them does yet