Marketing Consultant for EdTech and Online Education

It depends on the product type and student profile. Meta Ads (Facebook and Instagram) is the most effective channel for mass-market online courses and academies: it allows targeting by interests, behaviours and lookalikes. Google Ads captures high-intent demand — users already actively searching for specific training. LinkedIn Ads is essential for masters and executive training programmes where the student has a defined professional profile. The optimal mix varies by ticket and decision cycle of the programme.

Dependence on discounts arises when the funnel does not have enough qualified leads that reach the decision stage without needing a price incentive. The solution goes in two directions: build a consistent volume of demand all year (not only urgency campaigns) and improve conversion in the stages before the discount — nurturing content, alumni success stories, programme demos. When the student arrives well-informed and convinced, the discount becomes less relevant.

The primary metric is cost per enrolled student (CPE), not cost per lead or per registration. Conversion rate from lead to enrolled student, student LTV (probability of buying other programmes), course completion rate and post-training NPS are also relevant. The most common mistake is optimising for lead volume without looking at final conversion rate or quality of the acquired student.

Online masters have a longer decision cycle than short courses (weeks vs. days) and a higher ticket, which justifies more investment in the relationship with the prospect before close. The usual strategy combines Google Ads to capture high-intent demand, LinkedIn Ads for professional profiles looking for specialisation, and an email nurturing system that keeps contact during the programme evaluation cycle. Retargeting is especially relevant to recover candidates who visited the master page but did not request info.

I work with three main profiles: online academies and course platforms that need to scale student acquisition profitably; institutions offering digital masters and postgraduate programmes that want to reduce dependence on intermediaries and education portals; and companies offering corporate training or upskilling programmes that need a well-structured B2B marketing strategy.

The audit covers: analysis of the acquisition funnel from first click to enrolment, review of active campaigns across all channels, evaluation of tracking and attribution setup, analysis of the quality of generated leads (conversion to enrolment), review of the post-registration nurturing sequence and diagnosis of the improvement opportunities with the highest estimated impact. The result is a report with prioritised recommendations and an action plan.