A Personalized Web Experience to Drive Student Engagement

27%

click-through rate

35%

conversion rate

Ithaca College case study hero

Personalized web experiences turn student engagement into measurable enrollment momentum.

To increase engagement and drive enrollment growth, Ithaca College partnered with Carnegie to implement a personalized web strategy that delivers timely, relevant content based on each student’s interests and stage in the enrollment journey.

Student Type

Undergraduate

Solutions

Enrollment

Digital Advertising

The Challenge 

Ithaca College needed to increase student engagement on their website, knowing that increased student engagement would lead to their enrollment success. Ithaca leaned on Carnegie to provide a solution that would drive website engagement, conversions, and ultimately drive enrollment numbers.

Our Approach

Ithaca College leveraged our website personalization tool, Carnegie Clarity™, to create tailored web experiences based on users’ historic web interactions, website behavior, position in the enrollment journey, and academic programs of interest. Ithaca’s homepage delivered a customized experience for their students, including content promoting next steps for accepted students (discover Ithaca, visit campus, enroll, etc). Additionally, using a direct integration with Ithaca’s Slate instance, the site’s main introduction paragraph, button, and hero image were all customized to reflect the academic interests of individual applicants. Website personalization was leveraged to increase engagement, affinity, and action throughout the college search process.

The Results

Ithaca’s website personalization efforts generated strong results that ultimately led to fall enrollment growth and increased engagement. Of Ithaca’s enrolled fall 2021 class, 133 students (roughly 11% of the class) had interacted with Clarity campaigns. In this campaign 397 unique views generated 108 clicks, for a 27.20% click through rate. Additionally, 140 total conversions were captured for a conversion rate of 35.26% and the lift in conversion rate from the personalization of content (against a control group) was significant at 34.65%!

Following the success of its prospective student campaign, Ithaca adjusted other Clarity campaigns to target newly enrolled students and minimize summer melt, promoting next steps such as accessing portals and new student checklists, registering for summer courses, and preparing for orientation. This interaction has also seen strong performance so far, yielding a 44.09% click rate (clicks/unique views).

27%

click-through rate

35%

conversion rate

+35%

lift in conversion rate

Services That Drive Success

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