Rasmussen College integrated Google Analytics

Overview

Rasmussen College, founded in 1900, is a private, regionally accredited, careerfocused college with 24 campuses in MN, ND, IL, WI, KS, and FL, and online throughout the nation. Rasmussen.edu provides prospective students with information about degrees and other credential programs offered at Rasmussen College, as well as associated tuition costs.

Goals: The importance of tuition in higher education marketing

Rasmussen College wanted to know the importance of tuition costs to prospective students, and if that information was a factor in their higher education selection process. Although Rasmussen College had created a tuition cost estimator for prospective students to use on the site, there was no way to track engagement. This lack of knowledge regarding a prospective student’s use of the tuition estimator tool limited the ability of Rasmussen College to accurately position the value of an investment in a college education.

Approach: Events and offline analysis unlock significant insights

Rasmussen College integrated Google Analytics events and custom variables with the tuition estimator to capture geographic and programmatic information as prospective students interacted with the widget. Specific business questions Rasmussen College sought to answer included:

Results: Price and ROI key drivers to new student inquiry conversion

Rasmussen College exported custom event and variable information from Google Analytics and analyzed the data. They developed price interest metrics across program and geography using the Google Analytics data. For example, they determined students interested in some schools of study were more than twice as interested in price as student interested in other schools.

In addition, tuition estimator users were four times more likely to complete the website inquiry form. Those who went on to perform a separate ROI calculator were 7.3 times more likely to complete the website inquiry form. As a result, Rasmussen College found a correlation between tuition information and a prospective student’s readiness to take the next steps.