Target the always-connected prospective student with mobile-first advertising
June 9, 2025
How can higher education keep up with the always-connected prospective student? The answer lies in mobile-first advertising, an approach that prioritizes how and where your ads appear on the devices they use the most.
Why mobile-first advertising matters
Mobile advertising is any form of advertising that appears on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. With high school teens spending an average of 5.6 hours on their mobile devices each day, embracing mobile-first advertising allows you to meet your prospects where they are in real-time, whether they are in the high school parking lot, at a sporting event or gaming online.
In addition to reaching your audience where they are, there are other benefits to mobile advertising. When you leverage your student database, you can strategically segment your audience and develop customized ads tailored to their demographics, increasing the likelihood of engagement. This enhances the effectiveness of marketing efforts and creates a deeper connection.
The mobile experience
The success of engaging and retaining prospective students comes from the mobile experiences your ads provide.
4 best practices for your mobile presence to increase awareness and enrollment:
1. Prioritize mobile-friendliness
With search engines emphasizing mobile-friendliness in their rankings, your school websites and apps must be ready for mobile devices. Make it easy for prospective students to find and use your college or university website with their mobile devices to drive more traffic and increase application rates.
2. Captivate attention
Since most teens have a smartphone, and nearly half say they’re online almost constantly, capturing potential students’ attention within the first few seconds of seeing your ads is crucial. Review their search behavior and tailor your ad content to appeal to them and encourage action.
3. Simplify mobile content
Design mobile content that fits on smaller screens with using bold visuals, concise text and clean formatting. Simplicity is the key to conveying your message, which improves engagement and maximizes the impact of your content on mobile platforms.
4. Optimize for speed
Mobile users prioritize speed and instant access to information. Make sure your ads and landing pages have quick page loading times to deliver a positive experience and prevent prospective students from leaving your site due to slow performance.
Strategies for mobile-first success
From analyzing website traffic patterns on mobile devices to crafting compelling ads for social media platforms, your mobile advertising strategy plays a role in keeping the attention of prospective students. To succeed in mobile advertising, you need strategies that make a difference:
Research traffic: Analyzing your website’s mobile traffic shows how prospects use your site while on mobile devices. Discover where they spend the most time and verify they are taking the action you intend.
Leverage social media platforms: Create platform-specific advertising that fits naturally into prospective students’ social media feeds. Be sure to research the demographics and best practices of the platforms so your ads are where high school students will see and interact with them.
Use location-based targeting: Take advantage of geotargeting to deliver ads based on where they are, their demographics and behaviors.
Embrace video storytelling: Video consumption for ages 11-26 is 3.4 hours a day. Create short, engaging videos with bite-sized content to capitalize on where they will see them.
Partner with Forum Communications: Our mobile advertising experts help you target prospective students and their parents to make the most of your ads and maximize your return on investment. We bring our advanced data analytics and insights, access to technology and platforms and flexibility and customization to your multichannel advertising.
How to set up your mobile-advertising
Your mobile advertising has the potential to yield strong results as long as you have a clearly defined advertising plan.
4 steps to set your business up for success:
Establish clear goals: Start by setting specific, measurable goals for your mobile advertising. What outcomes are you aiming for? Whether it’s increasing new freshmen enrollment or driving website traffic to campus visit day registration, clear objectives will guide your advertising strategy.
Define your target audience: Understand your audience and tailor your mobile ads to resonate with them. Identify where you need enrollment growth and create compelling messages and visuals that speak directly to their needs and preferences. Personalizing your ads to suit your target audience increases engagement and conversion.
Set a budget: Determine the amount you’ll spend on your mobile advertising. When you set a budget, you manage your expenses and optimize your ad spend to maximize your return on investment. Your budget should align with your goals and allow for testing and adjustments to improve ad performance over time.
Analyze and optimize: Regularly monitor the performance of your mobile ads and review key metrics to determine effectiveness. Use data-driven insights on what works and what doesn’t to optimize your advertising. Experiment with different approaches, test new strategies and refine your tactics based on real-time data to achieve the best results and continuous improvement.
Types of mobile-first advertising
When it comes to mobile ads, picking the right type should align with your goals, budget and audience. When you understand these formats, your advertising resonates with your audience while staying aligned with your marketing objectives. Here’s a breakdown:
Banner ads: Banner ads are static or animated images placed within mobile apps.
Interstitial ads: These are full-screen ads, appearing during key moments of interaction, like between app pages or web content.
Native ads: Blended seamlessly into the app or website, native ads fit in with the surrounding content using images, videos or text.
Mobile video ads: These video ads play on mobile devices and appear before, during or after video content.
In-app ads: Displayed while consumers navigate an app, these ads promote the app itself or other products and services.
Interactive media: Multimedia ads that include video, audio, animation or text.
Audio ads: Perfect for music and voice platforms like Spotify, audio-only ads deliver your message directly to listeners through their headphones or speakers.
Measure your mobile-first success
Tracking essential key performance indicators (KPIs) helps you measure the success of your higher education advertising. By keeping an eye on metrics, you gain insights into what works and what needs adjustment in your ad strategy. Monitoring KPIs helps you make informed decisions, update your campaigns in real time and drive better results with your mobile advertising efforts.
Keep track of these KPIs:
Mobile traffic: Monitor how much traffic comes from mobile devices versus desktops. This comparison helps you spot trends and prioritize efforts for mobile optimization.
Bounce rate: A high bounce rate means visitors leave quickly, which might mean your landing page or site experience needs to be adjusted. Focus on creating an experience that provides value to keep visitors around longer.
Conversion rate: Track how many mobile users complete your desired actions, like filling out a form or sending an email to admissions. Identify which advertising channels drive the most conversions to maximize return on investment.
Measure engagement: Look at how prospects engage with your site or app – average time on page, number of pages per session and click-through rates. These insights reveal how well your site or app captures attention and keeps prospective students exploring.
Mobile-first advertising meets prospective students where they spend a lot of their time: their phones. By understanding your audience, setting clear goals, using the right platforms and tracking KPIs, your advertising increases awareness and drives enrollment growth.
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