UP Education achieves 64% lead growth and 28% CPL reduction with Wondaris
UP Education partnered with D3 and XPON to unify customer data across multiple schools, deploy Wondaris as a composable Customer Data Platform, and build dynamic course information feeds into Search Ads 360 - turning a fragmented data landscape into a precision audience and activation engine.
A wealth of customer data, fragmented across schools and unable to activate
UP Education, a leading multi-sector education group, had ambitions to improve the effectiveness and personalisation of marketing across a diverse portfolio of schools and courses. But the data landscape made it hard.
Despite having a wealth of data about students and courses, three connected issues held them back:
- Lack of unified first-party data strategy - schools managed data independently, resulting in fragmented collection and storage. Siloed data hindered campaign performance and lead-quality measurement.
- Inefficient paid media spend - without an audience view across all brands, UP risked showing irrelevant ads to students or competing with themselves in the auction.
- Limited personalisation in campaign messaging and targeting - rich data about courses (start dates, prerequisites, career outcomes) could not be effectively integrated into marketing.
A composable CDP, automated audience activation, and live course feeds into SA360
UP Education partnered with D3, an innovative New Zealand agency, to tackle the data challenge. D3 conducted a data maturity audit that revealed customer acquisition costs would rise significantly over time if the challenges were not addressed.
Following the audit, D3 partnered with XPON to implement a comprehensive solution built around Wondaris, a composable Audience, Enrichment and Activation Platform. The solution had four parts:
Unifying customer data with Wondaris
XPON and UP Education implemented a daily CRM data push into Wondaris. SHA256 hashing was applied to encrypt personally identifiable information (PII) end-to-end.
Automating audience creation and activation
D3 and UP could now build customer segments based on course, campus, and lead stage for each school in the group, and sync those segmented lists daily to Google Ads and Meta.
Live course information feed into Search Ads 360
A custom feed was developed for SA360 that enabled automatic ad and keyword generation based on available courses, with dynamic content including next available start dates. The system also auto-paused keywords for courses that were no longer available, reducing wasted spend.
Advanced analytics with attribution at the user level
A Tableau dashboard was developed for attributing enrollments at a user level. It integrated GA4 BigQuery export and ad platform data, with a consistent key (hashed email) ensuring accurate data matching across sources.
Wondaris has been a game-changer for our marketing team. The platform's ability to unify and enrich our data has provided us with a much clearer understanding of our students and their needs. We've been able to create highly targeted audiences and deliver personalised messaging that drives engagement and conversions.Phil McCrackenHead of Marketing & Communications, UP Education NZ
Long-term digital advertising efficiency from automated personalisation and accurate attribution
By leveraging D3's expertise and XPON's Wondaris platform, UP Education advanced its data maturity and achieved remarkable growth in online lead generation and advertising efficiency - driven by automated personalisation, accurate lead-quality measurement, and automated keyword and bid management.
Increase in online leads
Unified data and automated audience activation drove a 64% lift in lead volume across the schools in the UP Education group.
Decrease in cost per lead
Better targeting and creative relevance drove a 28% reduction in CPL, materially improving the unit economics of paid acquisition.
Increase in click-through rate
Dynamic course messaging and tighter audience-message match drove a 24% CTR lift in paid campaigns.
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