In short
- Six program families in three Latin American markets, launched at the same time with no account history: 1,935 leads at CAD 6.79 blended.
- Two Meta engines, one job each, converging on a microsite built to answer the English and financing questions before asking for a form.
- 451 leads scored sales ready by CBU's own lead scoring, at CAD 29 each. STEM led volume in every market.
Cold start, times eighteen
Launching one university program in one foreign market is hard. Cape Breton University launched six program families in three Latin American markets at the same time, with no mature account history to lean on. Cold start, times eighteen.
By the end of the 2024 to 2025 cycle, that cold start had produced 1,935 student leads, and 451 of them had been qualified by CBU's own lead scoring as sales ready. The whole operation cost CAD 13.1K.
A Canadian university, three markets at once
Cape Breton University is an accredited Canadian institution. This effort took its recruitment into Colombia, Mexico and Brazil simultaneously, across STEM, Business, Health, English Pathway, Supply Chain and MBA.
Each market came with its own costs, its own creative response, its own way of searching. And underneath all three sat the same barrier: most prospective students face an English proficiency or financing question before they can even consider enrolling. They need to learn before they convert.
What this meansThat one insight ended up shaping the entire campaign. Information first, conversion second.
Two engines, one microsite
The model ran two Meta engines in parallel.
The awareness engine positioned CBU and educated an audience unfamiliar with studying in Canada, building reach at CAD 0.03 per click. Three cents. At that price, top of funnel education stops being a luxury.
The conversion engine did the capturing: country by program ad sets, Colombia, Mexico and Brazil crossed with all six program families, turned interest into website leads at CAD 5.62 each.
What this meansBuild for anything other than a mid range Android phone on Facebook and you've built for the wrong continent.
What the ad sets revealed
Running country by program gave a clean read on what resonated where, and the data kept pointing at the same answer: STEM led lead volume in every single market. Mexico's STEM ad set alone brought 334 leads at CAD 4.00. Colombia's brought 237 at CAD 2.50, sitting next to a Health program ad set converting at CAD 1.65 per lead, the cheapest in the whole account.
The markets split by personality.
- Colombia
- 1,038 leads at CAD 3.44. Volume at low cost.
- Mexico
- 423 leads at CAD 5.42. Volume at low cost, STEM on top.
- Brazil
- 474 leads at CAD 10.55. Leaner and pricier, but the leads that came through showed higher intent.
What this meansSame budget logic, different jobs per market. The ad set architecture does the segmenting, so localization costs less than people think.
The quality check nobody fakes
Volume is easy to buy. The number that survives scrutiny is 451: leads that CBU's own scoring, not ours, qualified as marketing qualified and sales ready, at CAD 29 each. For context, that's the cost of a textbook, for a scored prospect in a market where one enrolled international student carries years of tuition.
The email behavior backed it up. Welcome workflows held open rates above 20%, and leads kept clicking through to connect with CBU's team after submitting the form.
People who fill a form to make a pop up go away don't keep clicking afterwards.
What this meansScore the leads with the client's own rules, and report that number. It is the only one a registrar will believe.
What we'd carry into any multi market launch
A cold start across three countries and six programs sounds like a budget bonfire. Structured as two engines with one job each, converging on a page built to teach before it asks, it came out the other side at CAD 29 per sales ready lead. The algorithm didn't find that. The architecture did, and the algorithm compounded it.
- Stay live through Meta's learning phase; every pause resets the algorithm's education
- Run country by program ad sets so the structure does the localizing
- Build the landing experience to answer the blocking questions before the form
- Let the client's own lead scoring define which leads count
