Uni Compare

The objective

Increasing app installs with relatable and helpful content

The road to an academic degree is not always paved with clear guidance. With three attempts to find the right university and course, Owen O'Neill is a textbook example of the student struggle. In 2014, he turned his pain point into a passion and founded Uni Compare – a website and app that helps students research and compare universities.

On TikTok, the team had been sharing content about all things uni life under the handle @unicompare. To become the go-to spot for students, videos include advice from grads, what to expect from the different institutions, to even where the best meal deal is up for grabs.

In the UK, prospective students have trouble with Clearing every year – a period where universities and colleges fill any spots they still have on their courses. To help during this race for a place, Uni Compare conducted a survey to identify the students’ challenges and took the insights to build an ad campaign around it.

Their goal was to simplify the clearing process with problem-to-solution content and app installs as their measure of success. The business went for a TikTok solution that used machine learning with merit

The solution

Graduating to Automated Creative Optimization for the best-performing ad mix

Together with their partner agency 360-OM, the team targeted all genders in the UK, between 18 and 24, with App Promotion ads. These bring users from the In-Feed to a landing page, but up to 11x faster.

With a mix of 10 videos and 5 headlines, Automated Creative Optimization (now known as Smart Creative) allowed machine learning to determine the strongest asset combinations – a solution that makes manual A/B testing redundant. The ads with the objective App Installs also included download cards and countdowns as Interactive Add-ons.

Based on their potential to resonate with the target audience, Uni Compare carefully handpicked education-focused creators to collaborate with for this campaign. The UGC (User-generated content) ensured authenticity above polished presentations and followed trends on the platform with appealing sounds. Valuable advice from the TikTok account manager on budget and scaling sent Uni Compare on the right course and delivered transformative results for the company.

The results

Delivering outstanding results

The results were best-in-class with a 32.72% interaction increase, 38.18% more installs, and a 43.29% boost in registrations year on year. Compared to 2022, the cost per install (CPI) was 53.96% lower.

Advertising on TikTok allowed the small biz to effectively reach, relate and interact with their audience while tracking campaign success all the way from impressions to installs. However, Uni Compare knew they passed with flying colours when they made it to the App Store’s education category and even ranked 8th globally on Results Day.

In their own words, the Clearing campaign was a “game changer” and provided the blueprint for future approaches. The team learned how to be more strategic with budgeting and content creation while exploring new creative ways. All of this even showed a positive spill-over effect on their regular campaigns, improving their cost per install. A classic case of power studying.

Our Clearing campaigns help tens of thousands of students discover something that will solve a key pain point for them when they receive their exam results. Our creatives are modern and direct, and allow potential users to see the benefits of our product. At first, we spoke to our users to understand the problems they are facing and the benefits of our product, we then used this as a direction to create our ads. Our ads are always created by students and focus on the right influencers attracting the right audience.

Owen O’Neill, Founder

Uni Compare