Education and Higher Ed industry conversion rate trends, statistics and benchmarks

EDUCATION OVERVIEW

Key conversion rate insights for the education industry

When it comes to boosting marketing performance, even the smallest of changes can have a big impact on your average conversion rate.

After analyzing conversion trends and benchmarks in the education industry, we’ve gathered our top tips for digital marketers. Whether you’re trying to boost admissions for a higher education program or increase registrations for a free online course, you’ll leave with clear, actionable steps for creating higher-converting campaigns.

We’ve shared everything from where you should invest your paid media budget to how to write your highest-converting landing page copy.

Now let’s get into what the data says you should (or shouldn’t) be doing to boost your conversion rates in the education industry:

High-intent channels convert best

The channels with more potential for high-intent buyers, like email and paid search, see the highest conversion rates. Email in particular leads the way with a 14.1% conversion rate.

Mobile conversion rates are low relative to its traffic share

Landing pages in the education industry see 6x more traffic from mobile devices, but desktop converts 17.6% better.

Short copy matters most in education

Of all the industries covered in the Conversion Benchmark Report, education demands the lowest word count.

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Key insight: Industry subcategories

Education landing pages have an 8.4% median conversion rate—27% higher than the baseline

The median conversion rate for education landing pages is 8.4%, which is roughly 27% higher than the 6.6% baseline for all industries.

This is influenced by the high median conversion rates of online course pages (18.3%) and general course pages (13%). On the other hand, higher education landing pages convert at 6.3%—near the baseline—and primary education and tutoring pages convert at just 4.9%.

Conversion rates by industry subcategory

Conversion rates typically decrease as the “ask” increases

The three enemies of conversion are at play here—cost, commitment, and competition.
This isn’t entirely surprising, but the greater your ask—the lower your conversion rate is likely to be. Many online courses are free or low-ticket offers, hence the high conversion rates. Meanwhile, primary and higher education programs can often be more expensive or longer-term commitments, hence the lower conversion rates.

Each barrier means more consideration and more opportunities to convert elsewhere. When you’re up against these barriers, small improvements in areas like user experience, top-of-funnel engagement, and lead nurturing can significantly impact your conversion rates.

Key insight: Overall traffic channels

Email is the top performing channel for education at 14.1.%—almost double the 2nd best

Email is the highest converting channel by a wide margin. Beyond email, paid search is the next best channel at 7.3%. Paid social isn’t as important for driving conversions in education as it is in other industries, with paid social traffic converting at just 5.1%.

Conversion rates by traffic channel group

Consider the funnel stage of your campaigns when prioritizing traffic channels

Education decisions often take more time, so high-intent channels tend to bring in more direct conversions. That said, there’s a lot of framing and pre-work that often leads up to the eventual conversion. This is where lower converting channels (that are often intended for generating awareness) like display and paid social could still play an important role.

Key insight: Paid search traffic channels

Google is still the best bet by a wide margin for paid search campaigns at a 7.6% conversion rate

Google ads is the place to be if you’re running paid search campaigns. From a pure conversion rate standpoint, marketers in the education space should feel confident allocating the lion’s share of their PPC budget toward Google. Most traffic from Google ads is converting between 3.9% and 12.8%, and the top performing pages have conversion rates as high as 26%.

In fact, paid search ads on Google are so much more effective than Bing and Yahoo that even the top-performing pages running Yahoo ads still convert below the median page running Google ads.

Conversion rates by paid search traffic sources

Consider cost and competition in addition to conversion rate when selecting channels

We know Google ads convert the best, but before you blindly go all-in, consider the potential cost per click (CPC) and level of competition you may be up against.

For example, Bing ads may convert ~40% worse than Google ads, but if your CPC from Google is 3x higher than it would be with Bing, you may be better off shifting budget to Bing. As with most things, this is a great opportunity to experiment.

Key insight: Social traffic channels

X (formerly known as Twitter) ads convert the best in education at 13.2%

This is fairly surprising as X (Twitter) wasn’t even in the top three paid social channels for any other industry covered in the Conversion Benchmark Report.

Perhaps simplicity in paid social is key in education. You’ll see from the readability data that simple copy converts best in education—more so than any other industry in this report. If simple copy converts best, maybe it shouldn’t be surprising that X, which requires you to write posts and ads that are no more than 280 characters, would convert best.

With that in mind, conversion rates from paid X traffic vary widely, with most pages seeing conversion rates between 3% and 21.7%. Still, this range is greater than the ranges we see for Facebook (6%) and Instagram (10.7%) traffic.

Conversion rate by paid social traffic sources

The ceiling may be higher on Instagram and Facebook

While X traffic has the highest median conversion rate, the top performing pages only reached a conversion rate of roughly 24%. On the other hand, the top performing pages running Instagram ads reached a conversion rate of 39%, and the top performing Facebook ads pages reached 27.9%—both higher than the ceiling we found from X.

Key insight: Mobile vs. desktop

Mobile drives nearly 6x more traffic, but desktop converts 17.6% better

Mobile conversion rates in education are lagging behind the baseline across all industries (11.2%), even though roughly 85% of all traffic is coming from mobile.

In fact, the gap between traffic volume and the average conversion rate on mobile is the third largest we’ve seen in this report, behind only professional services and health and wellness.

This is why it’s so important to avoid fixating on conversion rates in isolation. If you were to simply compare the raw percentages here—10.2% vs 12%—you might not think it’s that big of a deal. But when you take into account the traffic volume associated, you’ll see how much that two-point difference can impact your bottom line.

Conversion rates for mobile vs. desktop visitors

Build your landing pages to be mobile-first

If 85% of your visitors are seeing your landing pages on their mobile devices, does it make sense to spend the bulk of your page-building time looking at the desktop version?

It’s an easy trap to fall into to spend 99% of your time building a desktop-facing landing page, then rush to make it “mobile-friendly” at the end. Instead, build with mobile in mind first-and-foremost.

Key insight: Readability

Shorter copy reigns supreme, but the impact of readability varies in education

Shorter copy works best for education landing pages, with word count having a clear impact on conversion rates. However, other aspects of readability vary drastically and should be tested.

Consider your audience when testing how different reading levels impact conversion rates

Readability needs vary widely due to the diverse range of subcategories—like primary education, higher ed, and online courses—all targeting audiences with different reading levels and commitment requirements. It’s essential to test to see what converts best for your specific audience and subcategory.

Conversion rates by reading ease score

Conversion rates by reading level may vary, but simple copy still converts best

Although we see a bit more variability between reading levels and conversion rates in education than we have in other industries, we can safely say that copy written at a 12th grade level or lower converts anywhere from 54% to over 2x better than copy written at a college/university or professional reading level.

Keep it short—really short

To hit the median conversion rate, aim for a landing page word count of 363—which also happens to be the lowest target word count across all industries in this report. Also, keep difficult words in check. The sweet spot for maximizing conversions is typically no more than 116 challenging words, though you can see that this does vary quite widely (anywhere from 34-116). If you see an opportunity to simplify, test it and see if your conversions rise.

Conversion rates word count and number of difficult words

Consider more (simple) touch points

While shorter landing pages can keep things simple for potential students, you still need to nurture them through their longer decision-making process (school is a big commitment, after all). Instead of cramming everything into one page, nurture them through multiple touch points that guide them toward enrollment—without overwhelming them from the start.

EDUCATION

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