Raising awareness and attendance of Open Days - City of Glasgow College

The City of Glasgow commissioned a two-pronged marketing project aimed at boosting awareness of the college’s Open Day and courses on offer in 2025. The project's first campaign focused on driving attendance at the college's Open Day from residents within Glasgow and agreed catchment areas, with subsequent activity focussing specifically on the Nautical sector. 

The second campaign sought to raise awareness of the college's courses prior to the application window opening, again, with a strand dedicated specifically to the Nautical sector.

To accommodate volume and strategic targeting, we planned activity across Meta, TikTok and Google, using both display and search campaigns on the latter. Our campaigns were focused on a more targeted audience, and made more strategic use of affinity audiences. We also utilised keyword research, and took a more strategic use of stronger keywords, resulting in more specific ad headings and descriptions. We made better use of affinity and in-market audiences within our targeting, to reach the right people with the right messages.

Across Meta and TikTok, combined impressions totalled over 229,000, resulting in over 2,200 clicks for the Open Day. Meta Ads stood out with a higher click-through rate, indicating stronger engagement with the target audience on that platform. However, Google Ads achieved a remarkable 27.68% CTR, indicating that the responsive search ads used had an effective mix of strategic keywords and strong messaging, reaching an engaged audience.

The Nautical Open Day campaign achieved a combined 437,000 impressions and over 860 clicks on Meta and TikTok, demonstrating ability to effectively target and connect with this niche audience.

The pre-awareness activity played a significant part in the Open Day campaigns success, with the general campaign achieving 3.9million impressions across Meta and TikTok, resulting in 85,000 clicks. 

The Nautical Open Day also benefited from a strong pre-awareness campaign, reaching over 970,000 potential students across Meta and TikTok, with Meta Ads delivering a 2.6% CTR.