Background
USJournal is an education focused site that offers efficient and effective services for international students aspiring to study in the US. Depending on the course chosen, the prospective student is provided with an extensive list of institutions offering that course in America. USJournal launched creative campaigns, both online and offline, to reach a broader spectrum of prospective students from around the world. mKhoj and USJournal collaborated to create a campaign in Indonesia.

Campaign Objectives

• Increase mobile site traffic: Increase share of traffic driven by the the mobile site.
• Reduce bounce rate: Reduce the percentage of users who visit the site, but drop-off quickly without filling the registration form.
• Reach qualified audience: Target users who could afford the tuition fee of $10,000 and above.
• Target specific countries: Increase traffic from countries which currently did not have a steady flow of prospects. mKhoj and USJournal decided to have a start off with a campaign in Indonesia to give a feel of the effectiveness of mobile campaigns.

Problem Statement

• The traffic coming from mobile web was very low and the bounce rate of this traffic was quite high.
• The current web page had a lot of information on landing pages and required long and elaborate forms to be filled. This made it hard for mobile web users to browse the page.
• The content of the advertisement was for a serious cause like education. This demanded audience which was really interested and looking to study abroad. It was not content that would attract a majority of the population. This required the advertisement to be served to a very qualified audience.
• The low turnovers and figures from the mobile market had made USJournal sceptical of the success of these campaigns. Moreover, common practices had led USJournal to believe in certain success parameters. A paradigm shift on where an advertisement should be shown, how the ad should look etc. was essential.

Solution

• mKhoj worked in tandem with USJournal to redo the website to improve the whole mobile user experience.
• The landing page was redesigned to remove some of the unnecessary information
• Information presentation was layered so it was shown only to students who were interested and would click to see the additional information.
• The number of questions asked on the registration form was reduced to keep it as small as possible. Mobile users do not appreciate elaborate forms. Few fields could be filled automatically by retrieving the user’s profile information like the country. This reduced the number of fields to be filled by the user.
• The advertisements were served to a more qualified audience. Previously it was being displayed only on search pages. The ads were now extended to communities, news and portals, entertainment pages etc.
• Since Opera is widely used in Indonesia, handsets with this browser were added into the targeting parameter list.
• Handset models were also segmented on pricing to enable a mapping with the economic status of the user.
• Ads were served in English as well as Bahasa, the local language, to give users more context and increase the chances of a click.
• mKhoj and USJournal spent time in conceiving ways to maintain a steady traffic flow even when a campaign is not active. Different methods like referral incentives were put in place to achieve this.

Highlights

• February to March saw the number of impressions increase to 1 Million.
• USJournal achieved leads at a mere $2.29, well below their standard cost per lead.
• The number of mobile users who visit as well as register has shown a consistent increase over the past few months!
• The focused targeting, campaign management and regional insights ensured USJournal with a consistent RoI.
• USJournal and mKhoj collaboration is being expanded to Thailand, Turkey, Malaysia and Singapore.