Industry · Education

An enrolment isn't a lead. It's a multi-touch decision that takes months and rewards whoever shows up in every one of those touches.

Students seated in a university lecture theatre

Enrolment starts with a decision.

The Landscape

Where this market stands

Australia's education and training industry is valued at an estimated $173.5 billion in 2026, underpinned by international education, which alone contributes more than $51 billion annually to the national economy, though international enrolments have softened recently, down 7.7% year-on-year to 622,043 students as of February 2026 amid tighter visa settings.

That volatility is pushing providers (universities, vocational RTOs and training organisations alike) to rely less on a stable pipeline of overseas demand and more on building genuine domestic enrolment funnels, at exactly the moment digital competition for prospective students has never been higher.

$173.5bn

Australian education and training industry, 2026

SRC · IBISWorld

$51bn+

Annual economic contribution of international education to Australia

SRC · Australian Government Department of Education

622,043

International students studying in Australia, YTD February 2026 (down 7.7% YoY)

SRC · Australian Government Department of Education

The Signal

What the data says

Education converts unusually well once a prospect engages. Google Ads conversion rates for the sector sit around 7.91%, and Meta lead campaigns perform even better at roughly 10.05%, among the strongest of any industry measured. Email outperforms both, converting at 14.1% and remaining the highest-performing channel in the funnel.

But that performance comes at a price that keeps climbing: average cost per inquiry runs $128 for undergraduate and $157 for graduate programs, and Google Ads CPCs for education rose 40% year-on-year. The providers winning aren't the ones spending the most. They're the ones with nurture sequences long enough to match an enrolment decision that rarely happens on the first visit.

7.91%

Average Google Ads conversion rate for the education sector

SRC · Industry education marketing benchmarks

14.1%

Email conversion rate in education marketing, the highest-performing channel

SRC · Industry education marketing benchmarks

$128-$157

Average cost per inquiry for undergraduate vs graduate programs

SRC · UPCEA / higher education marketing benchmarks

The Friction

What gets in the way

Four provider types share one 'education marketing' label and almost nothing else. Universities juggle brand campaigns against course-level demand capture across hundreds of programs. RTOs and VET providers fight lead-quality wars against aggregator sites while navigating strict rules on funding, job-outcome and accreditation claims. Independent schools sell a decade-long parental decision built on open days, catchment reputation and word of mouth. Short-course and online providers run near-e-commerce funnels where price and start-date flexibility decide. Each needs a different funnel; most get the same one.

The domestic/international split doubles the complexity: a school-leaver deciding over weeks and an international student deciding across a visa cycle with agents and family involved can't share campaigns, messaging or proof points, yet blended campaigns remain the default, and agent-channel recruitment stays opaque to the marketing team entirely, so half the pipeline is invisible to the people funding the other half.

Then the funnel leaks where it's most expensive: inquiries answered in days (education leads decay as fast as any), no nurture mapped to the actual intake calendar, application abandonment unmeasured between 'inquiry' and 'enrolled', and attribution stopping at the form-fill, so a $128-$157 cost per inquiry gets judged on volume while enrolment economics go unexamined.

Our Approach

How we work in Education

01
Map campaigns to the intake calendar, not a generic funnel: application deadlines, open days, offer rounds and census dates set the media plan, with domestic and international campaigns fully separated by platform, message and proof point.
02
Build nurture that matches the decision: email and SMS sequences per course interest area, application-abandonment recovery, parent and student tracks for schools, and CRM automation that gets counsellors to inquiries within minutes, because email converts at 14.1%, the sector's best.
03
Capture course-level demand: Google Ads and SEO built around '[course] [city]' and career-outcome searches, landing on course pages engineered to convert, not a homepage with 400 destinations.
04
Win the story layer: student-outcome video, campus content and short-form social where school-leavers actually research (TikTok, Instagram, YouTube), with credibility-first creative that survives platform education policies.
05
Measure to enrolment: attribution wired from first click through application to commencement, so budget follows enrolled students, not inquiry counts inflated by aggregators.