Cost per enrolled student cut from 3,800 to 1,100

The challenge

A Delhi-based UPSC coaching platform was paying Rs. 3,800 in ads for every student who enrolled, and had no way of telling which ads produced them. The only conversion tracked was a thank-you page loading. Google could see that someone had filled a form. It could not tell an aspirant who paid for the full course from one who only left a phone number.

YouTube was the bigger drain. The ads were long course trailers that took their time getting to the point, and gave viewers every reason to skip. The platform was paying 80 paise a view.

The approach

Webzenia moved conversion tracking to the server. A paid enrolment was recorded when the payment went through, and that event went back to Google Ads and GA4 with the course fee attached. For the first time, the campaigns could bid for students who paid.

YouTube was rebuilt around 15-second creatives. Each one opened on a question aspirants already ask, such as how to cover current affairs for Prelims or how much answer writing is enough for Mains, and answered part of it before asking for anything.

Three landing-page variants ran side by side, each opening with a different reason to join. Traffic was split between them until one clearly won, and the budget followed it.

The results

Cost per enrolled student fell from Rs. 3,800 to Rs. 1,100. The campaigns were finally told which clicks became fee-paying students, and they bid for more of them.

Paid enrolments went from 34 to 147 a month in 4 months. Total ad spend rose by about a quarter over the same period. The rest of the growth came from spending the money better.

YouTube cost per view dropped from 80 paise to 22 paise. Short hooks held attention long enough to count as views, and YouTube began charging less to show them.

The stack behind it

• GAGoogle AdsAds
• YAYouTube AdsAds
• SGServer-side Google Tag ManagerTracking
• GAGA4Analytics