Google Ads: Campaign Structure for Education in London

Let's be blunt. Most Google Ads accounts I see for education providers in London are a mess. They’re usually a chaotic jumble of campaigns vaguely named after departments, with ad groups for every single course stuffed inside. This "structure" seems logical to the university marketing team, but to Google's algorithm, it's just noise. And in a market as expensive as London, noise is an incredibly expensive way to burn through your budget with little to show for it. The truth is, a flat structure based on your internal departments or course list is the fastest way to guarantee failure.

The problem is that this approach completely ignores the single most important factor in paid search: user intent. Someone searching for "[Your University Name] MBA application deadline" is worlds apart from someone searching "best business masters in london". Lumping them into the same campaign, showing them the same ads, and bidding the same amount for them is marketing malpractice. To succeed, you have to dismantle this old way of thinking and rebuild your account from the ground up, based entirely on how prospective students actually search.

So, why is the London education market such a unique beast?

Before we get into the nitty-gritty of structure, you need to appreciate why London demands a specialist approach. Simply copying a strategy that works for a university in a smaller UK city is a recipe for disaster. London is a global hub, not just for finance and tech, but for education. The competition is ferocious. You’re not just competing against UCL and Imperial; you're up against hundreds of private colleges, specialist institutes, and online providers all bidding on the same valuable keywords.

This drives up costs astronomically. A click for a term like "data science masters london" can easily cost you north of £10. Without a ruthlessly efficient structure, your daily budget can vanish before lunchtime on clicks from people who are months away from making a decision. You might be attracting someone looking for a free webinar when you're trying to fill a £30,000 MSc programme. Your campaign structure is your primary defence against this kind of budget waste. It acts as a filtering mechanism, ensuring you spend your money on the right people at the right time.

How do you actually build a structure around intent?

This is where the real work begins. I break down all keywords and potential searches into three distinct tiers of intent. Each tier gets its own campaign, with its own budget, its own ads, and its own performance targets. This seperation is the foundation of a scalable and profitable account.

Tier 1: High Intent (The "Ready to Apply" Crowd)

These are your most valuable prospects. They’ve done their research and are now taking action. Their searches are incredibly specific and signal they are at the bottom of the funnel. This campaign should get the lion's share of your budget and your closest attention.

• -> Branded Keywords: This is your absolute number one priority. People searching for "[Your University Name] + [Course Name]", "[Your University] prospectus", "[Your University] open day". You MUST own this space. If a competitor is bidding on your brand terms, you need a dedicated campaign to ensure you appear in position one, every time. It's the cheapest, highest-converting traffic you will ever get.
• -> Specific Course + "Apply/Enrol" Keywords: Searches like "apply for data analytics msc ucl", "enrol coding bootcamp london", "CIM marketing course fees". The intent couldn't be clearer.
• -> Competitor Keywords: This is more advanced, but you can create a campaign that targets people searching for your direct competitors, e.g., "[Competitor University] MBA". Your ad copy needs to be compelling, perhaps highlighting a key advantage like "Ranked #1 for Graduate Salaries. Compare Our MBA." It's an aggressive tactic, but in a market like London, essential.

For this Tier 1 campaign, your ad copy needs to be direct and action-oriented. Use words like "Apply Now," "Download Prospectus," "Book Your Place." Your landing pages must be transactional – take them directly to the application form or the prospectus download page, not the generic course homepage.

Tier 2: Mid Intent (The "Shopping Around" Researchers)

This group knows what kind of course they want but haven't decided where to study. They are comparing options, looking at rankings, and trying to figure out the best fit. This traffic is more expensive and will convert at a lower rate than Tier 1, but it's where you'll find your next cohort of students. Capturing them here is crucial to fill your funnel.

• -> Broad Course + Location Keywords: "marketing masters london", "part-time law degree uk", "best finance short courses".
• -> Comparison Keywords: "UCL vs King's College for economics", "LSE MBA review", "top universities for engineering in london".
• -> "Best/Top" Keywords: "best coding bootcamps london", "top business schools uk".

The ad copy for Tier 2 needs to focus on persuasion and differentiation. Why is your course the best option? Use social proof ("Join 500+ Graduates Placed in FTSE 100 Companies"), highlight unique selling points ("Taught by Industry Practitioners from Google & Meta"), and use clear calls-to-action like "Compare Courses" or "Learn More." The landing page should be a well-designed course overview page that sells the dream and makes it easy to take the next step (like downloading a brochure).

Tier 3: Low Intent (The "Just Curious" Explorers)

These individuals are at the very beginning of their journey. They might not even know what course they want to do yet. They have a problem or a career goal and are looking for information. Their searches are often questions.

• -> Informational Keywords: "how to become a product manager", "what qualifications do i need for investment banking", "is a masters in marketing worth it".

Let me be clear: for most institutions with a limited budget, you shouldn't be spending much, if any, money on this tier through Search ads. The cost per click is still high, but the conversion intent is near zero. It's a fantastic way to spend a lot of money for a handful of newsletter sign-ups. The *right* way to capture this audience is through SEO and content marketing – writing blog posts that answer these questions. You can then use paid ads to retarget these blog readers, but bidding on these terms directly is often a poor investment. If you do run a small budget here, the goal is not enrolment; it's getting them to download a guide or sign up for a webinar. It's a long-term nurture play.

The complexity of setting up these tiers and managing the keyword strategy is why many institutions seek out Google Ads experts specifically for the London market, as a mistake in segmentation can be very costly.

What's the deal with Performance Max? Should I even use it?

Performance Max (PMax) is Google's all-in-one campaign type, and there's a lot of debate about its effectiveness. Many agencies will push it as a magic bullet, but the truth is more nuanced. PMax can be incredibly powerful for education providers, but if you just switch it on without understanding how it works, it can also become a black box that cannibalises your best-performing traffic.

The contrarian view that I've seen work time and again is this: use PMax as a powerful *addition* to your intent-based Search campaigns, not a replacement for them. Your Search campaigns are for capturing existing, high-intent demand. PMax is for *creating* new demand and reaching potential students across Google's entire network (YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail) who aren't actively searching yet.

Here’s how to use it effectively for education:

• -> Seperate Asset Groups by Course Category: Don't just create one PMax campaign for your whole institution. Create seperate asset groups for distinct categories like "Postgraduate Business," "Undergraduate Arts," "Tech Bootcamps." This allows you to provide highly relevant creative (videos, images, headlines) for each audience.
• -> Feed it Your Best Audience Signals: This is the most important step. A PMax campaign with no audience signals is just guessing. You need to tell it who to look for. Upload customer lists of past applicants and enrolled students. Create custom audiences based on people who have visited specific competitor university websites. Build audiences of people who have attended industry webinars or downloaded relevant guides. The more high-quality data you give it, the smarter it becomes.
• -> Protect Your Brand Search: A common PMax horror story is finding out it's spending a huge chunk of your budget on your own brand name searches – traffic you would have gotten anyway for a much lower cost via your dedicated Brand Search campaign. You need to work with your Google rep or an expert to add your brand terms as account-level negative keywords to prevent PMax from bidding on them.

Integrating PMax correctly alongside a granular Search structure is a core component of building a paid ad account designed for true scale, rather than just basic lead generation.

How much should I actually be paying for a student lead?

This is the question that should drive your entire strategy, yet most marketing departments can't answer it. They focus on metrics like Cost Per Click (CPC) or even Cost Per Lead (CPL) in isolation. But a £50 CPL might be a bargain for a £40,000 MBA program, while being a total disaster for a £500 weekend course. You need to stop thinking about cost and start thinking about value. The key is to understand your allowable Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), which is derived from the value of each student.

For a straightforward course, the calculation is simple. For programmes with recurring revenue or longer-term value, you'd look at Lifetime Value (LTV). Let's build a model to figure out your targets. Instead of just guessing, you can use the calculator below to get a data-driven answer. Plug in your own numbers to see what you can realistically afford to spend to acquire a student and remain profitable.

Once you have these target numbers, your entire perspective on campaign performance changes. You can now make intelligent decisions. You know that any lead from your Tier 1 campaign that costs less than your max CPL is profitable. This data-driven approach is fundamental to making a Google Ads budget framework deliver a real return on investment.

What results can I realistically expect in London?

It's crucial to have realistic benchmarks. London is not a cheap market. Drawing from my experience with various B2C service campaigns, lead costs can vary dramatically. For instance, in a campaign we ran for a childcare provider, we saw leads come in at around $10 each. In contrast, for an HVAC company in a highly competitive area, we're currently seeing leads cost around $60. The London education market sits somewhere in this spectrum, and often towards the higher end.

Here’s a rough idea of what you might encounter:

• Cost Per Click (CPC): For Tier 2 (mid-intent) keywords like "business management degree london", expect to pay anywhere from £4 - £12 per click. For hyper-competitive Tier 1 keywords related to MBAs or Law conversions, this can easily exceed £15.
• Conversion Rate (Lead): A well-optimised landing page for a prospectus download or an open day sign-up should aim for a conversion rate of 3-8%. If you're below 2%, something is likely broken on your landing page or your ad targeting is off.
• Cost Per Lead (CPL): Based on the numbers above, a realistic CPL could be anywhere from £50 (£4 CPC / 8% CVR) to £500 (£12 CPC / 2.4% CVR). This is a huge range, and where your campaigns fall depends entirely on the quality of your structure, ads, and landing pages.

The goal is not just to acheive these numbers, but to consistently beat them. This involves relentless testing of ad copy, landing pages, and audience signals. It's an ongoing process of optimisation, which is the core of any scaling strategy that genuinely works in a market this fierce.

So what's the final blueprint?

Putting it all together, a robust and scalable Google Ads structure for an educational institution in London needs to be multi-layered. It should be built to capture intent at every stage of the funnel while protecting your budget from waste. This isn't just a list of campaigns; it's a strategic framework for growth.

I've detailed my main recommendations for you below:

When does it make sense to get expert help?

This guide provides the strategic blueprint. However, the difference between a blueprint and a successfully built structure lies in the execution. The day-to-day reality of managing this involves deep keyword research, constant bid management, writing compelling ad copy, split-testing landing pages, and analysing performance data to make ongoing adjustments. In a market as unforgiving as London, small mistakes in setup or management can lead to thousands in wasted ad spend very quickly.

Working with an expert isn't about just outsourcing the work; it's about leveraging experience to get results faster and avoid costly learning curves. It's for institutions who understand that their marketing budget is an investment and want to ensure they get the maximum possible return. For anyone serious about this, knowing what to look for is the first step, which is why having a process for vetting e-learning experts for your Google Ads in London is so important.

If you've read this far and feel that your current structure isn't fit for purpose, or you're simply not getting the volume or quality of student applications you need, then it might be time for a fresh perspective. We offer a free, no-obligation initial consultation where we can review your existing campaigns and provide actionable advice on how a structure like this could be implemented for your specific institution.