Case · Higher Education
Institut Français
47% past the Study in France target, at an 8:1 return.
MarkAge360 built the demand-generation system that turned curiosity about studying in France into registrations Institut Français India could count: one connected engine across search, social, education affiliates, email, and lifecycle messaging.
One destination. Many very different students.
France was competing for consideration against the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia. And “studying in France” meant something different to every audience.
Institut Français India had one mandate: make France a serious higher-education choice for Indian students, and make every stage of that decision measurable. But France was never one audience. A research candidate, a management applicant, an aspiring perfumer, and a student simply comparing destinations each needed a different reason to consider the same country. The windows were fixed, the journeys were rarely a single click, and every platform's version of success had to answer to the leads the client actually reported.
- Many completely different audiences, from PhD researchers to perfumery students, all asked to choose one destination.
- Fixed campaign and conversion windows that opened and closed on a schedule.
- Decisions made across many touchpoints, not a single interaction: ad, search, email, then a deadline reminder.
- Every platform's numbers had to reconcile to the client-reported leads, the single source of truth.
The mandate, by the numbers.
Every figure below is expressed the way we report this account: as percentages, ratios, and attainment against the targets we committed to.
To protect client confidentiality, MarkAge360 does not disclose absolute media budgets, contracted rates, acquisition costs, or raw lead and impression volumes; results are expressed as percentages, ratios, and target attainment.
01 · Marketing academic opportunity in France, not an abstract destination.
Students do not choose a country; they choose a programme, a deadline, and a reason to register. So we did not market France. We marketed a PhD tour, a management intake, and a perfumery webinar, each to the audience it actually belonged to.
MarkAge360 Strategy Team
Institut Français India · demand-generation strategy
One connected student-acquisition engine.
MarkAge360 did not run a stack of disconnected campaigns. We built one engine where every channel had a defined role, and every result reconciled to the leads the client actually reported.
Google Search: capture existing intent
Search caught students already looking for study-in-France answers and programme-level queries, turning demand that already existed into registrations at the moment of intent.
Meta: create demand at scale
Paid social built awareness and drove registrations where intent did not yet exist, carrying the reach behind both flagship campaigns and every subject webinar, supported by retargeting and lookalike audiences.
Google Display: retarget the decision
Display followed undecided students through a long, multi-touch decision journey, keeping France present between the first ad and the deadline.
Education affiliates: reach students inside discovery
Partners such as Intellect Ads, GetMyUni, CollegeDunia, and programmatic education networks reached students inside the platforms where they research courses, structured around defined lead commitments rather than raw exposure.
Email: build familiarity and recover the undecided
Lifecycle email kept France familiar between interactions and pulled undecided prospects back toward registration.
SMS and WhatsApp: deadline-led urgency
As conversion windows closed, SMS and WhatsApp carried countdowns and “X days to go” reminders that turned consideration into completed registrations.
Analytics: reconcile to the source of truth
Every platform's numbers were reconciled against the client-reported leads, so attribution overlap was never sold back as extra students. Source-level engagement decided where budget went next.
Three fronts, one engine.
Two flagship campaigns and a layer of subject webinars: each a different audience, each measured to the registration.
Choose France
Scale, held to a promise, and beaten by 47%.
Challenge
Choose France is the flagship moment: a fixed window to convert broad interest in studying in France into registered, contactable students, against a hard lead target.
Approach
Google Search captured students already comparing destinations while Meta built demand and drove registrations at scale. Retargeting and lifecycle messaging carried undecided prospects through the window, and every source was reconciled to the client-reported leads before anything was called a result.
Results
The campaign beat its committed lead target by 47%, finishing at 147% of goal. On Meta, roughly 24% of landing-page views became a platform-attributed lead, while Google Search added a steady layer of high-intent capture. Against a hard target, the promise was not just met, it was cleared.
+47%past the Choose France lead target.
147%of the committed goal, delivered.
~24%of Meta landing-page views became a lead.
PhD in France Tour
Specialized recruitment, at scale.
Challenge
The PhD in France Tour targets a narrow, high-value audience, research candidates, and asks them to complete a real registration, not just express interest.
Approach
Meta carried reach and demand to a research audience while landing pages were built to convert intent into completed registrations, and Google Search captured candidates already looking. The measure that mattered was not reach, it was the share of landing-page views that finished as a registration.
Results
The Tour converted at 31.7% from landing-page view to completed registration, about one registration for every three views. For a specialist research audience being asked to formally register rather than simply express interest, that is a strong rate.
31.7%landing-page view to completed registration.
1 in 3views converted, a strong rate for a specialist audience.
Subject webinars & initiatives
Individual academic interests as acquisition entry points.
Challenge
Beyond the flagship campaigns, France's appeal is specific: digital marketing, perfumery and luxury, supply chain, public health, live cooking. Each is a distinct audience with its own reason to consider France.
Approach
Each webinar was marketed as its own acquisition entry point, with its own audience logic, creative, and conversion message, rather than folded into a generic “study in France” push. Registered students were split from non-registered: save-the-date, calendar, and event information for those already in, continued conversion pressure for those still deciding.
Results
Each subject webinar turned a specific academic interest into a measurable first step toward France. The digital marketing and perfumery sessions each pulled their own audience through Google and Meta, and every registration was attributed back to the source that earned it, so an interest in perfumery or analytics became a real, trackable lead rather than a vague impression of the country.
5+subject webinars run as standalone acquisition entry points.
Every sourcea registration attributed to the channel that earned it.
Why it worked.
Relevance, not visibility
We marketed academic opportunities, a PhD tour, a management intake, a perfumery webinar, not an abstract destination. Every audience saw the reason to choose France that actually applied to them.
Every channel a defined responsibility
Search captured intent, Meta created demand, Display retargeted, affiliates reached students inside discovery platforms, email built familiarity, and SMS and WhatsApp carried the deadline. No channel was running without a job.
Messaging that reflected the programme
Creative and copy changed with the audience and the academic interest, so a research candidate and a culinary applicant were never asked to consider France for the same reason.
Communication that changed with the deadline
As each window closed, messaging shifted from introduction to programme consideration to countdown, with “X days to go” prompts and deadline-led subject lines, and registered students were separated from those still deciding.
Client-reported leads as the source of truth
Every platform's numbers were reconciled to the leads the client actually reported, so attribution overlap was never sold back as extra students. That discipline is what makes an 8:1 return credible.
Interest in France, turned into demand you can count.
The clearest result is not one platform metric. It is that a country competing against the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia became a measurable, programme-led choice for Indian students. Across two flagship campaigns, MarkAge360 beat the Choose France lead target by 47%, delivered 147% of the committed goal, and returned an 8:1 ROI, ₹8 back for every ₹1 spent. Underneath it sits a repeatable engine: search, social, display, affiliates, email, and lifecycle messaging working as one, every result reconciled to the leads Institut Français India could actually count.
8:1 ROI · +47% past the Choose France target · 147% of goal
What we ran.
Google SearchMetaGoogle DisplayEducation affiliatesRetargeting & lookalikesEmail marketingSMS & WhatsAppRegistration creativeConversion analytics
- Demand-generation strategy across paid, affiliate, and lifecycle channels
- Google Search and Meta paid media
- Google Display retargeting through the decision journey
- Education-focused affiliate marketing (Intellect Ads, GetMyUni, CollegeDunia, programmatic education partners)
- Programme-specific audience development, retargeting, and lookalikes
- Email marketing and lifecycle automation
- SMS and WhatsApp deadline-led communication
- Registration-focused creative, rebuilt per programme
- Conversion and source-level analysis
- Reconciliation of platform results to client-reported leads
Have a destination, or a programme, to fill?
If you need measurable student demand rather than impressions, with every channel given a defined role and every result reconciled to the leads you can actually count, we'd love to show you what a purpose-built demand-generation engine could do for your institution.
