Inbound leads up 42% while paid social spend dropped 44%, proving platform diversification and responsive optimisation was worthwhile.
The Online Business School is a global education provider delivering flexible, online university pathway programmes with fully accredited undergraduate and postgraduate diploma awards. Through web-based learning modules, students can access high-quality education on their terms, fast-tracking their route to a UK university qualification in a more accessible, affordable, and engaging way.
Online Business School testimonial
The impact
Our paid social strategy delivered strong performance for OBS, expanding reach, engagement, and cost-efficient leads across Meta Ads (Facebook & Instagram).
244,000
Accounts reached
383,000+
Ad impressions
3,100
Clicks on Meta campaigns
+82%
Inbound leads MoM
0.82%
CTR
The challenge
Online Business School (OBS) were already running PPC with us, and seeing strong results across Google, but they wanted to expand their reach across paid social to diversify lead sources and tap into new student profiles.
With multiple audiences to reach (career changers, distance learners, stay-at-home parents, degree-pathway learners), OBS needed to understand which social channels could deliver cost-efficient leads at scale.
In addition, OBS wanted to know whether TikTok, as part of a broader paid social mix, could become a reliable recruitment channel, especially for younger demographics and early-career learners.
However, paid social isn’t set-and-forget. Creative fatigues quickly, audiences shift, and every course and audience has different demand cycles. OBS needed to run a controlled trial period to validate TikTok’s potential.
Our strategy
We built a paid social strategy designed to test, learn, and scale. By combining Meta’s proven performance with a structured TikTok trial, we could reach different learner profiles and understand which platforms delivered the strongest cost-efficient leads.
Audiences were mapped around real motivations, distance learners, career changers, stay-at-home parents, degree pathway candidates, and we crafted platform-specific creative to match how each audience behaves.
Our execution
We tested new formats, Instant Forms, new hooks, and new audience groups, using every insight to strengthen both Meta and TikTok performance. Cross-platform comparisons (Meta vs TikTok vs Google) helped us understand true cost-efficiency and guide smarter spend decisions.
This responsive, insight-driven approach kept leads growing, costs falling, and ensured OBS used each platform to its fullest potential.