Client
Year
Deliverables
Digital Advertising
Situation
Utica Community Schools (UCS) has a strong focus on enrollment marketing for its Kindergarten, Young 5 and Schools of Choice programs. These efforts were designed to drive awareness and engagement across a diverse family population while supporting long-term district planning.
Historically, success was measured against aspirational benchmarks intended to support planning efforts. As enrollment marketing channels expanded and family decision-making behaviors evolved, UCS partnered with Franco to take its enrollment marketing to the next level.
Approach
Franco worked with UCS to refine its enrollment marketing approach by aligning goal setting and performance measurement with enrollment projections to enable clearer evaluation of campaign impact and more informed decision-making to optimize enrollment initiatives.
Enrollment goals were informed by third-party demographic and population projections to better reflect year-over-year enrollment potential. Separate baselines were established for Kindergarten, Young 5 and Schools of Choice initiatives, with success metrics tailored to the distinct purpose of each enrollment pathway.
To improve performance visibility, Franco implemented Google Analytics, conversion tracking and UTM-based attribution to better understand how families engaged across channels and which tactics contributed most meaningfully to enrollment engagement. This allowed awareness-focused and performance-focused channels to be evaluated based on their intended role.
With clearer performance signals in place, optimization decisions were guided by measurable contribution. Campaign timing and phasing were aligned to observed enrollment behavior, and ongoing optimization focused on tactics that consistently supported enrollment outcomes.
Results
With aligned goal setting and enhanced attribution in place, UCS exceeded its enrollment objectives across its key initiatives. During the most recent enrollment cycle:
- Schools of Choice applications exceeded the goal, with new applicants more than 35% over goal.
- Kindergarten and Young 5 enrollment exceeded projections and aligned with the district’s 10-year average, despite a declining population of eligible students in the community.
After comparing total expenses to a conservative estimate of $10,000 per pupil state funding, this approach resulted in a modeled return on investment of nearly 1,200%, reinforcing the value of data-informed decision-making and establishing a repeatable framework for future enrollment cycles.
By evolving from aspirational benchmarks to aligned, data-informed measurement, UCS gained clearer insight into what truly drives enrollment. Enhanced attribution supported smarter decision-making, more efficient investment and a repeatable framework for future enrollment cycles.
