The Objective
Newcastle University is one of the UK’s leading higher education providers, and a member of the prestigious Russell Group. As part of their undergraduate recruitment campaigns they offer a wealth of information for prospective students who are hoping to study at university. For young people in 2020, the application process to university faced a new challenge with the outbreak of the pandemic. To help students on their journey, Newcastle University prepared a downloadable guide to writing the perfect Personal Statement through lockdown, and decided to launch an upbeat campaign through TikTok to reach as many young people as possible.
The Solution
Newcastle University made a suite of TikTok In-Feed Auction Ads to deploy through TikTok Ads Manager. Featuring student ambassadors clearly explaining the guide alongside upbeat and attractive footage of the university campus, the In-Feed Ads spoke directly to the target audience for maximum engagement, appearing natively in users’ For You feeds next to other user-generated content from across the community. A call to action at the end of each In-Feed Ad then drove users to a landing page on their website.
When you’re trying to reach a particular group, TikTok In-Feed Auction Ads are easy to set up and offer a lot of flexibility. By allowing you to control the costs of your campaign through the Ads Manager, they can help brands reach the right audiences for the most efficient spend. And what’s more, all you have to do is choose your targets, then let the platform’s algorithm find the best way to reach the campaign’s goal.
The Results
The Newcastle University Auction Ads reached more than 1.1 million young people in the 2 weeks they were live, fulfilling the institution’s campaign budget in the most efficient way possible, to a highly targeted audience within the education space. The click-through rate for the In-Feed Ad was also very impressive, resulting in over 7,000 clicks to visit the personal statement guide download page.
Matt Horne, Newcastle University Paid Media team, said, “TikTok is a channel we've been keen to test since the Ads Manager platform launched. Although we don't tend to measure success by impressions, the exposure we've received on the platform has been huge considering the spend. What was most surprising was the CPA on TikTok was competitive when compared with more established channels when it came to direct response lead generation. We're looking forward to running further tests, including more TikTok-specific creative, as the platform matures and develops more features to become an established placement for our digital campaigns.”
