Case Study
Stephen F. Austin University Breaks Enrollment Records with 51% More Efficient CPA
“Quantcast has been a consistent driver of strong CPA performance, year-over-year. The streamlined platform combined with their proven machine learning models has yielded desirable outcomes for our agency and clients.”
Jessica Castillo, Senior Media Operations Specialist, StackRabbit
more efficient Cost Per Result over the campaign's duration
year-over-year increase in applications
Stephen F. Austin University (SFA) is a public university in Nacogdoches, Texas, with a rich history dating back to 1923. Known for its strong academic programs and vibrant campus life, SFA serves thousands of students across undergraduate and graduate programs.
Industry
Higher Education
Brand
Stephen F. Austin University (SFA)
Product
Quantcast Display, Quantcast Measure
Challenge
SFA sought to capture decisive moments in the student journey, such as increasing application volume and requests for information. The overarching goal of the campaign was to maximize these high-intent actions with engaged students and parents, rather than just generating general awareness. The university needed to execute this strategy efficiently, optimizing spend to keep acquisition costs steady during the most competitive months of the season.
Solution
StackRabbit partnered with Quantcast to activate a display campaign with a conversion objective focused on lower-funnel actions. The strategy used Quantcast’s Live Tag and predefined IBA keywords to prospect new converters, while applying lookalike expansion to reach audiences similar to high-intent site visitors. With Quantcast’s strong predictive modeling, backed by the Audience Graph, the campaign successfully optimized targeting against high-value profiles in real time, from prospective students to parents.
Results
The campaign surpassed its efficiency targets, delivering consistent performance gains throughout its duration. This success was driven by Quantcast’s powerful predictive modeling and Audience Graph, which continuously optimized the campaign toward meaningful engagement and conversions. With performance benchmarked against their historical campaign data, SFA recorded a lift across every stage of the student enrollment journey, achieving the largest summer orientation attendance ever and the largest freshman class in years.
- 51% more efficient Cost Per Result over the campaign duration (October vs. January)
- 32% efficiency gain achieved during the peak enrollment period (August-October)
- Nearly 3x the monthly results achieved at the September peak.
- 31% increase in freshman class size year-over-year
- 17% year-over-year increase in applications
- 13% year-over-year increase in transfer students
- 18% more efficient CPA month-over-month
- Brand reach expanded across 6 million unique devices
“The Quantcast team is consistently proactive in providing both platform updates and valuable campaign optimization recommendations. Our partnership has been strong, with our team's input valued since the initial streamlined onboarding, through every stage of the platform's development.”
Jessica Castillo, Senior Media Operations Specialist, StackRabbit
The Partnership
