Improving Media
Efficiency While
Targeting “Completers”

Challenge

San Jacinto College is an established community college in the highly competitive Houston market facing significant changes to its funding model because of new legislation. With the shift from an enrollment based model to one that prioritizes degree completion, the college needed to adapt to ensure continued financial support—particularly in programs specified by House Bill 8 (HB8). These programs are considered higher value because they align with workforce needs and lead to in-demand, well-paying careers.

Our Assignment

Steel was tasked to apply our expertise with the community college target demographic.

Our goal was to:

1. Increase the targeting to “completers”— students more likely to persist and earn a degree.
2. Fill HB8-designated programs—aligning recruitment with the new funding priorities—all while improving the cost-to-conversion ratio.

Here’s How We Did It

Foundational work included a performance analysis of past media plans. Applying our experience in higher education, we constructed a detailed, yearlong media plan with tactics to target the key registration time periods of fall, spring, and summer with specific media mixes and creative. We shifted the messaging focus from holistic to program-specific to align with HB8 funding criteria. We negotiated lower CPC and higher bonus levels in traditional media channels and leveraged the Steel Education Bonus Program for better rates across all media.

At launch, we combined the digital channels and ad groups into a single budget, sharing dollars and data to create a larger pool for optimization. We used existing San Jacinto College data to inform the campaign at launch and set the campaign platform goals to deliver the highest-intent leads possible to maximize program completion among acquired students. Aggregated cross-platform metrics facilitated optimization and improvement of lead volume quality.