The Middle Funnel Problem in Education Advertising

Here’s a scenario that plays out at education institutions across the country: strong lead volume from search and social, but disappointing enrollment rates. Leads are coming in, but they’re not converting. The admissions team is working hard, but too many prospects go cold between inquiry and enrollment decision.

This is the middle funnel problem — and CTV (connected TV) and programmatic display advertising are the tools that solve it.

At Colling Media, CTV and programmatic are core components of every full-funnel education advertising strategy we build. They’re not add-ons or nice-to-haves; they’re the infrastructure that converts inquiry volume into enrollment yield.

Connected TV: Television’s Power, Digital’s Precision

CTV advertising delivers video ads on streaming platforms — Hulu, Peacock, Paramount+, YouTube TV, and thousands of others — as well as smart TVs and streaming devices. For education advertisers, it offers something traditional TV never could: digital-level targeting with television-level impact.

Why CTV Works for Education

• Reach: 80%+ of U.S. households now have at least one connected TV device
• Targeting: Reach specific demographics, geographies, and behavioral audiences — career changers in specific zip codes, working adults 25-45, recent job changers
• Format: Video ads on the big screen build brand familiarity and emotional connection that display ads can’t match
• Completion rates: CTV ads have 90%+ completion rates — far higher than digital video on mobile
• Attribution: View-through attribution connects CTV exposure to website visits and enrollment events

CTV Creative for Education

The most effective CTV creative for education advertising is program-specific and outcome-focused:

• Student success stories — real graduates, real career outcomes, real salary data
• Day-in-the-life program content — what it actually looks like to be a student
• Career outcome spotlights — “HVAC technicians in [city] earn $X starting salary”
• Institutional brand stories — what makes your school different

CTV is particularly effective for reaching career changers and working adults — audiences that are difficult to reach through search (they’re not actively searching yet) but highly valuable (they have the motivation and means to enroll).

Programmatic Display: The Nurturing Infrastructure

Programmatic display advertising — automated buying of banner, native, and video ad inventory across thousands of websites and apps — is primarily a nurturing and retargeting channel for education advertisers.

The Three Programmatic Use Cases in Education

1. Inquiry Nurturing

Reaching people who submitted an inquiry but haven’t applied or enrolled. This is the highest-value programmatic audience. These prospects have already expressed interest — programmatic keeps your institution present and relevant during their consideration period, providing additional reasons to move forward with enrollment.

2. Website Retargeting

Reaching people who visited your website but didn’t inquire. These are warm prospects who showed enough interest to visit — programmatic retargeting keeps your institution visible and provides additional reasons to take the next step.

3. Lookalike Prospecting

Reaching new audiences that resemble your enrolled students. Using your enrolled student data as a seed audience, programmatic platforms can identify and reach people with similar characteristics — extending your reach beyond people who are actively searching.

Attribution: Measuring CTV and Programmatic’s Contribution

Measuring CTV and programmatic contribution to enrollment requires view-through attribution — crediting enrollments to ads that were seen but not clicked. This is the only way to accurately measure the impact of awareness and consideration channels, since most CTV and programmatic ads drive brand familiarity rather than direct clicks.

At Colling Media, we integrate CTV and programmatic data into our full attribution model — giving our education clients a complete picture of how every channel contributes to enrollment alongside search and social.

Budget Allocation: Where CTV and Programmatic Fit

Education advertisers typically allocate 15-25% of total digital budget to CTV and programmatic. The right allocation depends on funnel health:

• Strong lead volume, low enrollment yield: Increase programmatic nurturing investment — the problem is in the middle funnel
• Low lead volume: Prioritize search and social before investing heavily in programmatic
• New market entry: Invest in CTV brand awareness early to build the familiarity that makes search and social more effective

The Full-Funnel Picture

CTV and programmatic don’t work in isolation — they work as part of a full-funnel advertising system. The institutions that achieve sustained enrollment growth are those that invest across all funnel stages: brand awareness (CTV), demand generation (social), performance (search), and nurturing (programmatic).

This is the architecture that drove 325%+ enrollment growth for MTI and Delta Technical College over 9 years — not any single channel, but the full system working in concert.

Learn more about our education advertising approach and how CTV and programmatic can help your institution convert more leads into enrolled students.