*Creative work has been anonymized for client privacy
Higher Ed in the Trades | 2025
Higher Ed in the Trades | 2025
Simplifying Enrollment, Amplifying Results Through Customized Digital Experiences
Advancing battery intelligence with a future-ready digital presence that reflects technical leadership and supports rapid evolution.
Delivering a unique user experience, paired with precise deployment and smart audience targeting, transforms enrollment marketing into a more efficient and effective engine for qualified leads.
Overview
A New York Trade School sought a solution to close the gap in identifying, targeting and enrolling candidates in their programs. The goal was to elevate the user experience through increased awareness and a shaper funnel to target and capture new leads efficiently.
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Opportunity
The previous agency focused on remarketing, leveraging inconsistent static ad creatives and radio to attract potential students. There was a clear need to establish a firmer brand identity and expand marketing efforts to a larger, focused audience pool.
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Narrowing Audience Focus for Direct Impact
By conducting extensive research using first-party data from Apex Technical School, as well as APIs to the U.S. Department of Labor and Education, it was identifying the student population primarily composed of younger adults from within New York State. These insights were imperative to the selection of marketing channels, and the development of audiences that convert.
Creating Opportunities for Success
Following initial discovery, a competitive media plan was developed. Seven immediate competitors in the New York metropolitan area and their marketing efforts became clear. These competitors maintain a consistent presence in the digital advertising landscape. In order to combat this, six key opportunities were identified to win in the competitive space.
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Competitive Landscape
To win in the competitive space, six opportunities were outlined.
- Prospective students are searching for various types of schools, including diesel mechanic, electrician, plumbing, motorcycle mechanic, HVAC, auto mechanic, welding, business management and engineering schools.
- Searches focused on programs and certifications, highlighting customer goals.
- Career pathways are a significant focus, with queries centering around “how to” become a mechanic, electrician, plumber or auto technician as well as general career training programs.
- Strong interest in different course formats, such as online courses, hands-on training and options for both part-time and full-time study.
- Location-based searches are prevalent, with many individuals looking for schools specifically in New York City, Queens and Long Island.
- Additional features that attract interest include affordable and approved trade schools as well as schools that offer job placement service.
Thinking Outside the Box(car)
Afternoon classes were underutilized, despite being a unique opportunity for working students. In reviewing potential causes for low attendance, transit accessibility was identified as a possible barrier for students balancing work and study. By utilizing New York City 2020 Census data, Boxcar Digital was able to determine demographic areas with high recruitment potential. These areas were then overlaid with relevant subway lines across New York City. Using these insights refined the digital campaign’s geographic targeting to boost afternoon enrollment.
Paid Media Engine
Paid Media Engine
Establishing the Apparatus
In the competitive digital landscape that exists today and in preparation for macro shift that may occur in digital advertising by the year 2030, a unique approach to paid media activation was established, driven by mobile-first content. The use of variable testing is applied based on industry best practices, and allows bespoke messages to be applied to discrete personas, quickly uncovering the most optimal messages and assets for use against client goals.
Media Plan
Media Plan
Establishing Timelines for Evergreen Success
The most immediate priority upon accessing client ad accounts was optimizing the campaign setup for budget efficiency and ensuring the ability for adaption to fluctuations in monthly enrollment. This led to the buildout of a program-based media structure, in which campaigns were set up in accordance with high-level campaign goals, in this case web leads, and then the subsequent adgroups were developed based on program and other client-prioritized marketing initiatives, such as instructor acquisition.
Design
The creative delivered to the client provided significantly different creative concepts. To increase engagement and impact bold colors, lifestyle images and
graphic variations were chosen to highlight a variety of diverse messaging.
The design team chose the brand’s red color as the primary color to set Apex apart from competitors and create a distinctive visual identity. Three ad creatives were designed to test in each program: one being a testimonial creative, another incorporating the Apex “A” as a window showcasing images of the trades and a third design that takes the form of a wheel, also serving as a window to display trade-related imagery.
These ad designs maintain consistency across programs, with the images and copy changing to align with each specific program being promoted.
Website Development
Website Development
Maintaining Cohesion and an Engaging Experience
The landing page for the ad creative held equal importance to ensure a positive, consistent user experience. It uses the brand color scheme and creative assets from the advertisements to ensure a unified user experience.
Each landing page features similar elements to maximize conversions, like “Enroll Now” buttons, high-contrast headlines, compelling creative, and form submission inputs, creating a seamless connection between the ad and site design.
Deployment
Deployment
Deploy, Optimize, Review, Repeat
Following approvals, the campaign was ready to go live. This approach resulted in the simultaneous launch of over 15 landing pages and 200 individual activations. Web activations were launch first, following by a Media Phase I and Phase II.
From day one to present, real-time monitoring and optimizations take place, ranging from new keywords to adding, testing and deploying new conversion actions.
Results
Results
The New York City Trade School saw a significant increase in performance across key metrics in the first sixty dats of campaign delivery. A 97% boost in total impressions and 51% increase in clicks, creating a highly efficient digital activation.
Team: Serena Tolar, Alexis Link, Simran Rao, Campbell Briggs, Anthony DiGrigoli
$0M
Tuition Revenue
0K
Leads
0K
Clicks
*Statistics span the first 11 months of partnership.
