Case Study: TikTok Ads for Student Recruitment 

With prospective students making up 38.5% of users, TikTok has become an essential tool for universities aiming to attract more candidates to their programmes. TikTok’s highly engaging platform allows institutions to showcase campus life, engage with prospective students, and create dynamic content that resonates with a younger audience. A recent campaign run by Next Level Marketing highlights just how effective TikTok Ads can be in student recruitment, delivering more than 8.2 million impressions and 55,000 clicks over just four months, at an impressive cost-per-click of only €0.09.

Prerequisites to Run TikTok Ads

Universities looking to succeed with TikTok Ads must first have a well-established TikTok presence, for at least a few months and a few organic posts. A TikTok account allows universities to share authentic, engaging content, from fun student challenges to glimpses of life on campus. Whether it’s students creating interactive games or hosting mini campus tours, the platform provides an opportunity to showcase your institution’s vibrant student culture. However, TikTok’s real power for universities lies in its advertising potential, which can significantly boost visibility and engagement.

Setting Up a TikTok Ads Account

The process of creating a TikTok Ads account is simple, much like other social media platforms. The main difference is that, before your ads can start running, you need to add balance to the account. Payment works similarly to other networks, and you will receive receipts that include VAT, just as you would for Google, Meta or LinkedIn Ads.

Once your account is set up and funded, it’s time to tailor your campaigns. TikTok Ads offer a variety of objectives to meet your recruitment goals. Whether you’re focused on driving traffic, increasing video views, encouraging user interaction, generating leads, or pushing website conversions, the platform’s flexibility ensures that your campaigns can be aligned with your university’s specific needs.

Targeting Your Ideal Audience

Like Google Ads, TikTok Ads use ad groups, allowing you to fine-tune your targeting. For university recruitment, key targeting parameters include:

• Location: You can target an entire country or specific cities (depending on the country), although TikTok currently does not allow radius-based targeting as Meta Ads and Google Ads do.
• Age Groups: You can target age groups from 18-24 and beyond (13-17 is currently unavailable in the EU due to legal restrictions).
• Gender: Targeting by gender is also an option, as is focusing on users with high spending power (though this feature is unavailable in the EU).
• Custom Audiences: Universities can upload their own audience lists to include or exclude specific groups from seeing their ads.
• Interests & Behaviours: You can target users based on their interests, like higher education, economics, or management, as well as their interactions with specific hashtags and content creators.

Budgeting and scheduling your campaigns is straightforward. You’ll choose a lifetime or daily budget and set start and end dates. You can also define a cost cap per click to keep your campaign within financial limits.

Successful Video Ads Campaign: A Case Study

In one of our most recent campaigns for a university client, we helped drive significant engagement using TikTok Ads. Over a four-month period, the campaign spent around €5,000 and resulted in more than 8.2 million impressions and 55,000 clicks, translating to an outstanding cost-per-click of just €0.09. 

These results were achieved using 1080×1920 video ads featuring students enthusiastically discussing their experiences in the programme they’re enrolled in. The ads combined humour, personal insights, and key programme details, capturing the attention of prospective students and encouraging them to learn more by visiting that programme’s page on the university website.

By leveraging TikTok’s ad platform, our client saw a massive boost in traffic to their undergraduate programmes’ pages. The ad’s format, which felt authentic and approachable, resonated with TikTok’s audience, proving the effectiveness of using student-led content in marketing.

More than 8.2 million impressions, 55,000 clicks, and an average cost-per-click of €0.09. Next Level Marketing’s TikTok Ads campaign for a university delivered amazing results over just four months! Ready to attract more students? Contact us at hello@nextlevelmkt.net to find out more!