Estácio

The Objective

New students from ENEM

Estácio already knows by heart how to create brand awareness and consideration campaigns on TikTok. The brand has even been successful on our platform, with proven ROI in a Media Mix Modeling study conducted alongside our measurement partner, Uncover. However, the same analysis revealed that there was still potential for growth on the channel—meaning TikTok could generate even greater results.

With the ENEM approaching, the educational institution identified an opportunity to boost its presence on TikTok. To achieve that, they wanted to do something different: a campaign aimed at increasing conversions, i.e., enrolling new students in their higher education courses.

The university understood that the strategy needed to encompass not just the upper and middle funnel, but the entire funnel, with actions and content tailored for each stage of the student's journey. Additionally, the brand would need to enhance their results measurement to better understand TikTok's real impact on conversions. Last-click attribution? Not in here!

If a brand wanted to promote and sell a single product, doing so would be simple. But what about a university that offers a few dozen courses? How can they build a successful campaign?

The Solution

Developing a talented class

First and foremost, Estácio needed a content grid to cover the upper, middle, and lower stages of the sales funnel. That means they had to scale the creative output properly—and quickly—which posed quite a challenge. But TikTok had a solution up its sleeve: TikTok Creative Exchange, our TTCX.

At TTCX, brands can quickly connect with creative talent specializing in TikTok. And they take care of everything, you see. From scripting to video completion, offering support throughout the project.

TTCX was the key to repurposing a lot of the videos they had produced months before ENEM, in a project carried out by Estácio in our Creators Hub program. There were 4 episodes recorded by native TikTok creators, with lots of content to help 'Enenzeiros' (ENEM takers) study for the exam.

The talents discovered by the brand through the Creative Exchange helped them edit and remix those videos, resulting in a series of new pieces. They also introduced a variety of completely new creatives, effectively addressing the scalability issue across the upper, middle, and lower stages of the sales funnel. In the end, Estácio had a mix of longer, in-depth content and shorter content designed to cater to different stages of the students' journey.

The longer content featured careers and classes related to various higher education courses at Estácio, aimed at building awareness and consideration For a second impactful moment focused on retargeting, those same videos were condensed into a few seconds of essential information, accompanied by a call-to-action leading to enrollment at the university.

Different ad formats were used to promote this content. TopView, which positions the brand at the top of TikTok, was utilized at strategic moments, such as the campaign launch on the day the ENEM results were released. Top Feed, which showcases the advertiser in the first advertising position of the feed, was used during enrollment periods. Finally, the majority of the performance-focused ads utilized the In-Feed Ads format to drive conversions.

To measure the results, Estácio relied on comprehensive studies. But in this case, there were 3 Brand Lift Studies and 3 Conversion Lift Studies conducted sequentially to monitor the entire campaign and track the evolution of results as new optimizations were implemented.

These types of analysis show TikTok's incremental impact on brand metrics and conversions. In their own way, each was key for the educational institution to not focus solely on last-click attribution results during campaign measurement.

The agency Artplan was responsible for planning the campaign, while Monks managed the media.

The Results

An A grade strategy!

By scaling creative production, leveraging data connections, and focusing on incrementality to gain clearer insights into results, Estácio not only achieved but exceeded their goals on TikTok.

A Brand Lift Study to track branding metrics already showed signs of success: the university recorded an incremental increase of +3.6 points in ad recall in October and +2.8 pp in January, as well as lifts of +3 pp in brand awareness in October and December. A sign that the new content had really stuck in the community's minds, right?

But the icing on the cake was provided by the Conversion Lift Study, which revealed a 15.3% increase in the number of unique users redirected to Estácio's website during the campaign period. And the best part: with an incremental cost per user acquisition 50% lower than the target set by the brand for this campaign. It's worth noting that these results are incremental, meaning they wouldn't have happened if it hadn't been for the campaign delivered on TikTok.

Measuring results correctly is just as important as having the right strategy for your campaign. Ready to find out more about the measurement techniques offered by TikTok, and see how much the platform can really boost your brand's business?