Online courses have been doing great for the last few years, but the COVID-19-related market situation has made internet workshops even more attractive. Due to new circumstances, people have become highly interested in organizing and participating in such courses.
If you have ever wondered how to advertise an online course and get participants, you should read carefully the story of Żaneta Żywiałkowska’s Akademia Makijażu Permanentnego (Permanent Makeup Academy) and learn how to get 1046 leads for PLN 1000 (USD 270) in one month.
For starters – meet the client
Żaneta Żywiałkowska is an International Permanent Makeup Champion with 10 years of experience in her profession. In her everyday job, she does stationary training. To share her knowledge on a wider scale, she has turned them into online courses.
The Academy offers permanent makeup courses online. They include basic eyebrows drawings as well as advanced pigmentation techniques. Our client wanted to reach those who were interested in the offer and to get participants for online training courses. At Landingi, we knew how to make it possible with some effective activities. The goal was achieved with our support and a comprehensive Lead Generation campaign prepared for AMP.
First, all-or-nothing
Lead Generation is an extensive service, which works great in the context of the difficulties our client was encountering. Hence, we got to work with copywriting, landing page design, analytics set-up, graphic ads (banners), and the development of the advertising campaign. The goal was to get hot leads – with a high potential to join courses offered by Permanent Makeup Academy.
While creating a landing page for online courses advertising, we followed the rules we’d used successfully many times before. We specify them in our article ‘How to use landing pages in online courses advertising’. Both content and graphics were prepared with a campaign goal and the target group in mind.
The AMP campaign was scheduled to start on March 31 and finish on April 30, 2020. At that time, we implemented marketing activities in Google Ads (Search, Display, Video, Remarketing), and Facebook Ads (Target, Retargeting). The budget was only PLN 1000 (PLN 600 for Google Ads and PLN 400 for Facebook Ads).
The campaign preparation stage is a great opportunity to plan the customer path. What makes leads acquisition easier is elongating the customer path to purchase by offering them a free sample. Landing pages are a great tool for achieving this goal, which is why they serve as a key element of our marketing activities. They move customers into further sales funnels: newsletter campaigns, other landing pages, or remarketing actions.
Each subsequent marketing activity for such a target group makes achieving our goal quicker because the brand is no longer anonymous – customers know our values and quality. With this very approach to the lead generation process, we launched the campaign.
Second, fill the gaps
To strengthen the lead acquisition process on the landing page, we created an exit intent pop-up. The window would appear when a user’s intent was to leave the page. That way, we got rid of an unnecessary distraction during users’ visits. Moreover, the pop-up was shown when the visitor hadn’t accomplished a goal planned for them (filling out the form) and wished to close the page. It was the last chance to state the biggest benefit, that is, a free tutorial downloadable after sharing the visitor’s email address, which then went to a separate segment of subscribers.
Landingi offers a wide range of pop-up usage. Other than the exit intent option, it is possible to display a window at the beginning of a user’s visit (when they are not focused on content yet), after a few moments of the visit (e.g. after 10 seconds) or after clicking on an icon, image or button.
However, keep in mind that it is easy to discourage users and distract them from the main goal, that is, filling out the page form. Thus, do not overdo pop-ups.
Third, the results
Campaigns resulted in 2068 unique visitors in 2561 sessions. 1025 leads were gotten through the form and 21 from the pop-up. It totaled a high conversion rate: 40.02%. The campaign budget was rather small (for the record: PLN 1000/month), yet it was possible to get 1046 leads, 95% of which were acquired through Facebook Ads (with a budget of PLN 400).
However, was Facebook dominance unambiguous? In terms of lead generation – absolutely. However, notice that Google Ads campaigns generated 18% of valuable traffic on the landing page. The ads reached the recipients who were searching for permanent makeup courses during campaigns and who were actively interested in such training.
Also, those campaigns increased the range of advertisement and brand identification of Akademia Makijażu Permanentnego, being broadcasted to over 200 000 people in the target group.
An interesting phenomenon is session time. On average, it totaled 1 minute and 20 seconds. This statistic allows us to infer that Facebook Ads recipients were much more engaged in the page content than Google Ads recipients, who spent only a third of that time on the page.
Photos 4 and 5 show the analysis of Google Search and Video, Display, Search, and Remarketing campaigns. In auction analysis of the Search campaign, we noticed that despite a relatively small daily budget (PLN 10/campaign), our campaign got the best result (compared with competitors) and covered 40% of inquiries. 90% of these cases made advertisements display in TOP4, and 63% placed them first!
The Google Ads budget (PLN 600/month) resulted in 216 691 views bringing 5428 interactions with advertisements.
Recipients in Target group were defined by the following features:
- Location: Poland
- Age: 20-45
- Sex: female
- Language: Polish
- Activities: i.a. small business owners, makeup and beauty
- Employers: i.a. licensed cosmetologist, cosmetology, makeup, business owner, beauty therapist, makeup artist, self-employed, MAKEUP
- Profession: i.a. salon owner and stylist, licensed cosmetologist, licensed esthetician, cosmetology, makeup and hairstylist, beauty therapist, own business, spa manager, makeup artist, makeup girl, master esthetician, beauty advisor
- Additional, must apply: Hobby – permanent or eyebrow makeup
The description was accurate and advertisements could be broadcasted to people with the highest potential of interest in the offer. Altogether, Facebook Retargeting and Target campaigns reached over 13 thousand recipients.
Promising results were seen also on the Landingi platform charts. They were presented as follows:
Fourth, further communication and sales funnels
The first stage of advertising the AMP online courses was focused on the acquisition of valuable subscribers. They could get access to a free tutorial after sharing their email address. It was a low entry threshold (just an email address), so over 1000 leads were gotten at a low cost. Next, the potential customers were being warmed in further newsletter campaigns and email marketing activities.
Further communication and keeping a continuously high temperature of leads is possible. Gradually, special offers will enable direct acquisition of customers interested in Żaneta Żywiałkowska’s training courses.
What have we learned from this campaign?
Such a high number of conversions calls for a Lookalike campaign. With it, the Facebook Ads system would find recipients with features and purchase potential similar to those who have already been interested in the offer. This, in turn, may result in an even higher number of visits and conversion rate.
Additionally, it is worth considering a bigger budget and a professionally-shot spot advertisement to increase the engagement to use the offer. Video campaigns in Google Ads and Facebook Ads have huge potential which is growing day by day. Video on its own may not lead to direct conversion on a landing page, but it will impact advertisement reach, supported conversions, as well as brand identification enhancement.
