East Asia University of Technology

The Objective

Building the East Asia University of Technology (EAUT) into a prestigious multidisciplinary university in the system of higher education institutions in Vietnam, EAUT strives to develop comprehensive professional knowledge and vocational skills in their students to serve the rapid demand in industrialisation, modernisation and international business of Vietnam. Offering a wide variety of majors in graduate and post-graduate programmes, they wanted to amplify their presence on TikTok to reach their target audience and improve enrolment performance. In their 2024 student recruitment campaign, they wanted to test new Lead Generation solutions offered by TikTok for Business to attract more inquiries from prospective students and better engage them in the recruitment process.

The Solution

As part of their advertising strategy, EAUT launched a Lead Generation campaign in two formats – an Instant Form with Qualifying Questions and TikTok Direct Messaging Ads. The Instant Form allows them to collect information provided by prospective students who wish to find out more, which would allow EAUT’s admissions team to reach out and provide more information about their programmes. Additionally, a Qualifying Question was also added to allow them to measure and lift lead quality, where they would be able to filter through prospects who are more eligible for their programmes or have higher intent in enrolment.

With TikTok Direct Messaging Ads, EAUT was able to engage their prospective students in an interactive manner. Engaged users who click on the ad would instantly start a conversation with EAUT through direct messaging within the TikTok app, and be able to receive customised replies based on their needs. This allows EAUT to better engage their target audience, encouraging them to send more enquiries and increase their confidence towards enrolling for their programmes.

To improve their campaign performance further, EAUT wanted to maximise their budget spend on users who are better engaged with their content. By running an ad campaign with the Video Views objective simultaneously, EAUT would be able to segment audiences who have watched their video for at least 6 seconds, and retarget them with the lead generation ads. By reaching users who are familiar with their programme offerings would thus have a higher likelihood of starting a conversation with them, or submitting inquiry forms.

The Results

EAUT’s lead generation campaign on TikTok recorded over 1,600 form submissions on their Instant Form and more than 1,500 conversations started through TikTok Direct Messaging Ads (DM). Compared to a previous campaign without the use of direct messaging, they have reached more potential customers and engaged them in more interactive ways. 

The successful lead generation campaign, combined with the strategy of retargeting users from their Video Views campaign, saw a 300% increase in their overall enrolment performance in 2024 than in 2023, showcasing the effectiveness of customer-centric approaches through native lead generation solutions on TikTok. By engaging with users through instant forms and in-app direct messaging, EAUT was able to reach higher intent audiences while making it easy for prospective students to gain more information about their programmes, aiding their consideration process to apply for EAUT’s programmes.