Case study · Higher education · 2025
Immediate results in higher education
How The Apricot Agency earned over 26,000 clicks at an average click-through rate of about 15% within weeks, on limited budgets.
The problem
Prove PPC works, in as little as two weeks
A very large Canadian university decided to try digital ads to raise visibility within certain programs and in new countries, to grow student applications. The client had run limited ads, had a new Google Ads account, and had no data, metrics or audience statistics.
- Low budgets
- Short lead times: 14 days to show results, including setup and learning
- No historical data, metrics or audience statistics
- Limited client guidance, minimal content direction and no imagery
The strategy
Built from scratch, on small budgets
Efficient spending
Budgets were split into dailies and spent at the lowest level that let each campaign learn and target.
Research
Landing pages, program information, keywords, cultural facts, city densities and statistics. VPNs showed which ads ran in target countries.
Testing
Headlines, creative, tone and messaging were tested to find the assets that worked and build on them.
Search terms & keywords
Search term reviews revealed the popular terms and the negative keywords to add.
The results
Click-through rate far above the benchmark
Every campaign beat the 2025 education benchmark of 3.78% CTR, and cost per click came in well under the $2.40 benchmark average (source: StoreGrowers Google Ads benchmarks).
Clicks by campaign
| Campaign | Budget | Duration | Impressions | Clicks | CTR | Cost | Avg. cost / click |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $250 | 2 weeks | 2,570 | 272 | 10.6% | $235.76 | $0.87 |
| 2 | $1K | 1 month | 6,434 | 759 | 11.8% | $1,003.23 | $1.32 |
| 3 | $4K | 1 month | 63,374 | 11,988 | 18.9% | $3,597.58 | $0.30 |
| 4 | $1.5K | 4 months | 5,471 | 953 | 17.4% | $1,383.81 | $1.41 |
| 5 | $2K | 4 months | 79,231 | 13,015 | 16.4% | $1,899.51 | $0.15 |
Conclusion
First-party data, researched audiences and strong assets
A successful campaign needs all three, and a mature Google Ads account helps. Intensive research plus asset and media testing beat the education CTR benchmark with an average of about 15%.
The Apricot Agency — boutique B2B Google Ads and demand generation, Burlington, Ontario.