108% increase in leads YoY For WaterBear The College of Music
Joined us in 2022. Running Paid Social & Paid search.
Our Work with WaterBear
Achieving 108% Year-on-Year Growth in Lead Generation
We are the performance growth team behind some of Shopify’s leading DTC brands.
At DGX, we partner with ambitious founders to build scalable growth systems in one of the fastest-moving industries in the world.
Where others talk about ROAS, we focus on what actually matters: profit and long-term growth.
View Our Work
→
About The Brand
WaterBear The College of Music was founded by music education pioneers Adam Bushell and Bruce John Dickinson, who have over 30 years of professional music experience.
WaterBear is now the UK’s fastest growing music university, offer BA Hones and Master's degree courses for forward-thinking musicians.
WaterBear partnered with DGX in 2022, after feeling burnt by their previous agency. Agency confidence was of huge importance to them, and our partnership over the past 4 years reflects a huge success.
the challenge
In higher education, lead volume and lead quality rarely move in the same direction. Scaling enquiries is straightforward, but filling courses with students who actually enrol is a different challenge entirely.
The task was building a paid media system across Meta, TikTok and Google that could generate leads at scale, whilst improving the quality of those leads, standing out creatively against much larger university budgets, and adapting to an AI-driven search landscape changing the way students make decisions.
our plan to action
- Improving Lead Quality over Volume
Through improving WaterBear’s targeting and creative output, we have successfully increased their conversion rate from leads to offers by 30%.
We focused on quality over quantity, resulting in real business growth.
- Increasing search impression share in a highly competitive market
We restructured the Google Account to allow for a more segmented approach, ensuring we could bid aggressively on top performing keywords.
Our account structure reflects the conversion path, from awareness to the conversion stage.
- Developing a creative strategy that stands out from the crowd.
Within a highly competitive market, our creative had to be cutting edge.
Using iteration cycles, we scaled spend behind the best-performing video and static content across Meta, TikTok and Performance Max.
- Adapting to the AI landscape
With AI transforming the way students make educational decisions, we worked closely with WaterBear to prepare for this momentous shift.
Introducing AI-led campaigns on Google and utilising ad copy to increase relevance with longer-style search terms.
During Our six years together we achieved
108%
Increase in leads year-on-year since partnering
30%
Improvement in lead-to-offer conversion rate
300%+
Increase in lead volume through paid social
“Since working together we have reduced our average PPC lead cost by £50 and are scaling on Meta, converting 100's more additional leads throughout the cycle. Their communication is incredibly frequent and unlike anyone we've worked with previously. ”
Eve Masaad, Head of Marketing at WaterBear
Next Case Study
→
Ready to scale your brand? Get in touch today.
DIGITALXPANSION
108% increase in leads YoY For WaterBear The College of Music
Joined us in 2022. Running Paid Social & Paid search.
Our Work with WaterBear
Achieving 108% Year-on-Year Growth in Lead Generation
WaterBear is the UK's fastest-growing music college, offering BA and MA degrees across Brighton, Sheffield and online. We partnered with them to build a paid media strategy that could compete with established universities, attract genuinely qualified prospective students, and scale lead volume without sacrificing quality - delivering a 108% increase in leads year-on-year.
About The Brand
WaterBear The College of Music was founded by music education pioneers Adam Bushell and Bruce John Dickinson, who have over 30 years of professional music experience.
WaterBear is now the UK’s fastest growing music university, offer BA Hones and Master's degree courses for forward-thinking musicians.
WaterBear partnered with DGX in 2022, after feeling burnt by their previous agency. Agency confidence was of huge importance to them, and our partnership over the past 4 years reflects a huge success.
The challenge
In higher education, lead volume and lead quality rarely move in the same direction. Scaling enquiries is straightforward, but filling courses with students who actually enrol is a different challenge entirely. The task was building a paid media system across Meta, TikTok and Google that could generate leads at scale, whilst improving the quality of those leads, standing out creatively against much larger university budgets, and adapting to an AI-driven search landscape changing the way students make decisions.
our plan to action
- Improving Lead Quality over Volume
Through improving WaterBear’s targeting and creative output, we have successfully increased their conversion rate from leads to offers by 30%.
We focused on quality over quantity, resulting in real business growth.
- Increasing search impression share in a highly competitive market
We restructured the Google Account to allow for a more segmented approach, ensuring we could bid aggressively on top performing keywords.
Our account structure reflects the conversion path, from awareness to the conversion stage.
- Developing a creative strategy that stands out from the crowd
Within a highly competitive market, our creative had to be cutting edge.
Using iteration cycles, we scaled spend behind the best-performing video and static content across Meta, TikTok and Performance Max.
- Adapting to the AI landscape
With AI transforming the way students make educational decisions, we worked closely with WaterBear to prepare for this momentous shift. Introducing AI-led campaigns on Google and utilising ad copy to increase relevance with longer-style search terms.
During Our four years together we achieved
108%
Increase in leads year-on-year since partnering
30%
Improvement in lead-to-offer conversion rate
300%+
Increase in lead volume
through paid social
“Since working together we have reduced our average PPC lead cost by £50 and are scaling on Meta, converting 100's more additional leads throughout the cycle. Their communication is incredibly frequent and unlike anyone we've worked with previously. ”
Eve Masaad, Head of Marketing at WaterBear
